The Ultimate Team Defense Drill

Play 3 on 3 and defense gets the point? You are as much a coach as the last 0 and 23 coach

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Michael RIce says: 11/23/2014 at 7:01:07 PM It is a defensive drill. Why wouldn't you give the points to the defense? It was also spelled out how it can be done 4 on 4 or 5 on five and why he prefers 3 on 3. Like     login   register

Joe - I know what you mean about yelling, we practiced and played in a field house and believe me, it I talked softly they would never hear me.
My kids knew this... I think its more about what you say than how you say it. You know my sense of humor... and so did the kids... heck, if we cant have fun while we are teaching them the game, why do it?
As for corrections etc....
I have a saying... " Don't all them to do anything in practice that you don't want them to do in games. "

Dumb drill...... Am I missing something with your comment? Can you explain this??? Records have nothing to do with how you are as a coach.... the types of players you work with have a lot to do with your record. IF you cant score you will have a difficult time winning games.

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I've never run this drill, but I've run other drills where I give the defense points for stops/rebounds. I thought this would motivate my defense. Bad idea?

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We do a similar drill and the kids absolutely love it. It's something different and it keeps things fresh for the kids. Not only does it emphasize defense, but it also works the offense as well.

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Fiasco, that sounds like a great idea to me. I've run a drill similar to that as well.

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I run something similar and call it Shell Game. We do Shell Drill (4 v. 4) and you can only score points on defense (the stops you mentioned above). I have 20 girls (8th grade A & B teams), so I make 5 balanced groups of 4.

You stay on defense as long as you keep getting stops. Once the offense scores or gets an offensive rebound, they switch to defense and the defense that was on the court goes to the back of the line. New group of 4 becomes offense. I run it for a set amount of time (say 10-15 minutes). Most points at the end wins. The other 3 groups have conditioning.

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These drills all sound much like Duke's defensive drill. If done properly they motivate defense and establish pride in defense. Everyone knows that defense wins championships!!

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I run this same drill. I have 12 players on 12u team. i always give a reward by having to do less lines based on my 3 on 3 defensive tournament in practice. You should see the intensity. I make sure my players know that running lines is not a punishment but running less is a reward.

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I have been running this drill for a few years now, I like it a lot. We also added a wrinkle that the offense only gets 1 or 2 dribbles per man. I feel this promotes non wasted offensive ball movement, which in turn makes it tougher for the defense to defend.

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Hi,
Really love this site and all the information. Could you describe what a face cut is and how you deny the cutter in some detail?

Thanks
Steve

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Hi Steve, a face cut is when a offensive player cuts in front (face) of the defender. So they are between the defender and the ball when making the cut.

To defend the face cut, you need to move on the pass. If you move on the pass, you will be between the defender and the ball and this will make it much more difficult for the offensive player to cut in front of the defender's face.

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I really like this. Awesome drill!

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Talking On Defense
http://paul-patrick.blogspot.com/2011/12/talking-on-defense.html


Talking on defense might be the second most important or effective skill you can use to become a better defensive team. Nothing replaces strong defensive fundamentals, but talk can help your team in at least two ways;

1) Communication between your players will let your players know what is going on behind them, and how they should play their man. If the defender on the ball hears his teammate talking to the ball “I have help at baseline” he knows he can play his man a little closer and force in that direction.

2) There is an intimidation factor that stunts some teams. If a player with the ball hears a help defender talking to the ball “I have help at the elbow”, then they might be less likely to attack the elbow, knowing it’s covered.

However I question the way we teach talk on defense. A lot of noise coming from 5 players to my thinking is not useful. It’s just noise. It’s the difference between hearing and listening.

If the ball defender is screaming “ball ball ball”, can they really listen to their teammates instructions?

Also can they really be effective in covering their man if they are so focused on yelling “ball ball ball”?

If the ball defender is yelling “ball ball ball” and 3 or 4 other teammates are yelling “deny deny deny”, where is the useful information for the ball defender. Do you really think the ball defender can hear and distinguish all the different players yelling “deny” and even if they could, would it be useful information? Would they know where each of their teammates are when they are yelling deny, and would they be able to process that information quickly. Compare that, to these instructions;

Elbow help Sean
Baseline help Eric
Open post Colin


Some will argue that yelling “ball ball ball” will have a negative effect on the player with the ball. I’d like to suggest that, it is really not the case, check your game tape. If it does have an effect, then my guess is your playing against younger teams, and I’ve even seen referees ask teams to refrain from that behaviour, because at a certain age they find it doesn’t fit with fair play rules.

Some will say, yelling “ball ball ball” triggers or initiates the rest of our defenders to play in a certain style or position. I would suggest, that of all your players, playing up on the ball with pressure is the one thing, that we all want as coaches. It’s really a given or a standard, so calling “ball” is more chatter than useful information. The rest of your team are behind the ball. They can see the ball and their man, it’s really the players behind the ball that should inform the ball defender how to play, and let him/her know, that they have support.

I think the key to developing your defensive language is to get rid of useless chatter, and replace it with information packed key words or phrases. John Wooden would run drills in this fashion and I have tried to adopt this behaviour when running drills. Teach the principles you want to be emphasized in your drill, then when the drill is running, you simply call out words that reflect those principles, when they are not being done; “catch two hands”, “run lanes wide” etc. This same principle can be applied to developing a defensive language.

I would suggest the first thing you need to do is develop a defensive language for your team. Short quick phrases or words or sound packets that are rich with information. The language of course should be built to reflect your defensive principles. Whatever you want to do with your defense, then come up with short phrases or words that communicate these principles.

Getting players to communicate! If you have coached youth boys, then you know this is always a struggle. How do I get them to do talk? I searched long and hard for an answer to this puzzle. I went around from sport to sport, team to team looking for players that were good at this skill and asked them how they developed their ability to communicate effectively. Usually what I found out was that player was a coach’s son or daughter, or they were a natural team leader and the concept came easily to them. So I decided to do what I did for any other skill. I scored it and had consequences for not doing it. For e.g. if you are in a shell drill, score defensive talk, as well as rebounds, or paint touches. Apply a consequence for not doing it. Just like in lay-up drills if a player misses, I have them automatically go to a safe place to do 10 push-ups before they get back in the drill. There is motivation to get back in the drill because we are also scoring team makes. Apply the same technique to a missed defensive instruction. I think you’ll find it works.

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Great points, Coach Paul. We appreciate the feedback.

I talked to the kids about unnecessary communication on offense. Not just saying stuff to say stuff. That you need to communicate clearly.

One time during practice when we were setting a down screen, I had a player who was the screener say to the cutter who was just standing on the block "Ryan. What are you doing? Go!" So I stopped the play and told the sreener to be clear with the communication. Instead, say, "Ryan. Pick. Come off the pick." would be more helpful.

These are the three phrases I had players yell 3 times:
Ball. Ball. Ball.
Deny. Deny. Deny
Help. Help. Help.

I emphasized that because, like you said, it is very difficult to get youth players to talk, in my case, 13 and 14 year olds. My thought process was that if I can get them to think about saying it 3 times during practice, they would probably say it 1 or 2 times during a game. That usually held true.

And it didn't bother me if they did say it 3 times. Like you said, a ball handler is less likely to try to attack the basket when they see and hear a player shouting, "Help." My thought process was that the offensive player is more likely to recognize this if is repeated. But like you said, maybe it is just noise and ineffective communication? Maybe it doesn't make a difference? Maybe it does?

I like your tips and will definitely consider using them in the future.

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Guys,

You are right, communication is one of the toughest skills to teach... I was a varsity coach and it was tough. Funny thing... we played two defenses... on/up the line m2m and a 1-3-1 match up zone... and they did a great job of communicating in the zone... but you would have thought they went mute all of a sudden when we played m2m.... I don't have the answer why, it just happened that way. We wanted the big three also...BALL - DENY - & HELP.

Yes, we taught "pick right - screen etc but we did much better out of the zone. Like I always say to other coaches, IF you have something that works for you - GO FOR IT.
I don't care who says its wrong or right.

We also ran an Open Post offense and I heard a lot of people say we didn't know what we were doing.... frankly I don't care what they think... you just don't roll the ball out and they can run any offense. It takes reading defenses, passing skills and how to get yourself open along with all the other fundamentals necessary to play the game.

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I have used this drill many times.its a great drill for teaching defensive rotations.My players love it also.Its the most intense part of practice.We reward players for taking charges and diving for loose balls.

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Very similar to the paint touch drill we use to build our packline ,,, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnSiSLwbeYQ

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What does "Did you get on the rim line?" mean?

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