I am coaching 3-4 grade boys. A couple of the better kids are understanding the "Point your Pistols" concept, while the younger, less experienced boys are still in the mode of chasing their man all over the court, turning their back to the ball, not staying between their man and the hoop, etc.

So far I have only worked in-depth on 1 on 1 defense and shuffling feet, beating your man to the spot. When we scrimmage, either 3 on 3 within our team or 5 on 5 against another team, I will address off the ball defense with certain players when the issue comes up. I will walk through what they did, explain how to do it better and they'll do it the proper way for a few times and then revert back to puppies chasing their man around the court.

At this age, do you think it is worth spending a lot fo time on off the ball and help defense? Or should we continue to approach it the way we have while spending most of our time and energy dealing with on the ball stuff?

I have been toying with running a shell drill and teaching the boys the concept of "jump to the ball" but I am not sure if it's the thing to do at this point.

If it were me, and I HAD THE TIME... I would use the shell drill...... it does a great job of teaching off the ball defense... and the TEAM CONCEPT..... not sure they can comprehend all of this since I never worked with that age group. You might give it a try and see how it goes, you can always cut it out of your practice plans. Make a game out of it and let them have fun. Hopefully some of it will stick.... use the name game with them on this drill too..... GREAT JOB JOHNNY ETC.

We've been cut down from two 1 hour practices per week to one 90 minute practice per week. Does that sound like a good enough time frame?

Thats tough ....... I would hold that until the end of practice and see if you have about 10-15 minutes to explain it and try.... it doesn't sound like you have enough time to do this right... you have so many other things that need work it might not pay...... maybe you can talk about it when you are doing other drills... like 3 on 3?

Ah, the 3rd-4th grade boys. Consider yourself lucky they aren't picking their nose and climing the walls. :)

Here is what I did. First half of the year we worked on basic defensive concepts -- ie; the pistols, moving their feet, agility, one on one, etc. Lots of drills. Lots of drills which made them sweat. Then about half way thru the season, after the drills and they were a little tired, I walk them thru a basic shell drill. This way there was some progression and they didn't get everything at once.

Of course, the game right after we worked on it, the Ref. tells the boys "stick with your man." Guess what. They listened and after a few easy layups are given up I ask them what they are doing -- didn't we just work on it. "but the Ref. said ...."

Good luck.

Golf.... you need to tell the refs to let you do the coaching and they are playing GOOD HELPSIDE DEFENSE which is what we teach.