I'm having problems getting my 11 year olds to defend against a player dribbling quickly up the floor.

They have overcome the problem of being fouled for reaching in but now they tend to move slightly out of the way or move their arm back in to avoid being called for blocking, allowing the defender to sail by. Our referees (both trainee and qualified) rarely call a charge (I can only recall ONE in the whole of the last season and several that were definite charges that sent my players flying but weren't called) so the boys are hesitant to hold their ground to stop the dribbler.

Should I encourage them to establish their position and if the dribbler is going to push past to bring their arms in so they aren't blocking them and if the charge isn't called bring it up with the referrees? Being a new coach and not experienced in basketball, I'm hesitant to back my judgement of whether it's a charge but having read the rules and seen some blatant charges I think we need to redress the balance, otherwise the ball carriers will simply run amock and the defence won't be able to stop them.

Any ideas?

Are you picking them up in the back court? Like pressing full court? IF so, I would recommend that you don't do that at this age.....

All I can do is tell you how we defended the dribbler .... we would meet them just over half court and direct/force them to the side line, free throw line extended. That way we wouldn't get beat to the basket... That way your help side defense is now dictated and you are in better position defensively to defend their offense.

Once the ball got to the wing we would then try to force them to the baseline NOT allowing them to beat us to the basket... our frame of reference there was the short corner.... doing this really makes it easier to defend your opponent.

At your age group you will rarely see a charge called, especially vs the dribbler so I wouldn't get upset over that. Just teach them good footwork, position defending the ball and YOU dictate where you want the dribbler to go.

I hope this helps and if you have any other questions let us know.

Thanks for the reply Coach Sar,

I have really learnt a lot from this site and especially from the opinions and comments of yourself, Joe and Jeff H. and the many other experienced coaches.

I wasn't quite sure what you meant by My grasp of terminology isn't fabulous, is the short corner where the free throw line extended meets the sideline?

Following this site's sage advice, I've tried to keep it pretty simple with the boys and only ever play M2M. Sometimes our defence is sort of a full court press because of the boys enthusiasm to defend and go after the ball, but as they have become more experienced I have had some success getting them to drop back to defend from the half court.

Most of the time the dribbler will head for the sideline to try to avoid the defence, so in these cases our job's already half done. If we encounter a ball carrier who's confident of using both hands and will attack up the middle the job's a bit more tricky and we actively have to force him to the sides, but with the less experienced players heading for the sideline we can just follow and contain him there.

In the most recent incident, the dribbler didn't seem to be able to cross over to use his left hand and always approached down the right sideline, so as you suggest, moving across to the sideline and using it to trap him or make him swap to his left hand would be a good plan, however the defenders often backpeddled or were hesitant to jump in front of him (probably in fear of a blocking foul) so we allowed him to penetratte too far into the 'danger zone'.

Thinking over your suggestion to play a half court defence, because this game was pretty fast paced we were often in more of a full court defence and the defenders were regularly chasing after this fast dribbler to try to catch him. If they had been at half court or had somebody drop back ahead of the chasing defender to cut the dribbler off then we probably had the problem solved. We still won the game as we kept their main dribbler quiet in the second half and were taking the ball back for a score, so it wasn't critical, however I wanted to get some suggestions on how to best attack this problem in the future.

Interesting that you say charges aren't usually called at this level, I thought it might have just been our league. I won't try to press the point of standing our ground and having the ball carrier run into the defender too much, otherwise we might be fouled out on blocks!

Thanks for the reply, I reckon I have a simple set of instructions to handle this now:

1. Drop back to a half court M2M defence
2. Play one guard (quicker type of player - I don't really play in positions) back to slow/stop the fast break (if necessary)
3. Move the ball carrier to the sideline
4. Help the defender with somone defending on the basketside to assist if the dribbler beats the defender with a crossover back towards the middle
5. Protect the key

Regards from Downunder,
Simon

Simon,

The short corner is approximately 9-10 feet from the basket on the baseline.... so if you are forcing the wing dribbler to the baseline and need a frame of reference, it would be there.
Our varsity players were getting beat to the middle, thats why we put the rule in... force the ball to the sideline / free throw line extended.
Our next rule was to force the ball from the wing to the baseline ... and yes, they get overzealous and that allows them to get beat on the baseline... so our #2 rule was to force them to the short corner. Think about that... now you have them in a spot where they really cant do a lot with the ball... and your HELP defense is there... its pretty much a 5 (defense) on 2 or 3 tops (on offense) By doing this, you are keeping the ball out of the middle of the court... always a good thing. JMO
As long as your players understand where they want the offensive player to go, they are in good shape and they will always have help.

I suggested NOT trapping or pressing in the back court because kids that age aren't very good at handling the ball let alone pressure or traps. This doesn't allow them to learn how to play the game. You are to be commended for playing strictly m2m... thats GREAT! ( I wouldn't suggest trapping at all at this age ) Teaching to take charges is great too... I love that one... just wonder if your time in practice might be spent better on some other fundamentals???

I hope this helps... and keep asking your questions.

1. Drop back to a half court M2M defence
2. Play one guard (quicker type of player - I don't really play in positions) back to slow/stop the fast break (if necessary)
Make sure your players understand defensive transition... in your case protect the paint on out.
3. Move the ball carrier to the sideline
And from sideline to short corner
4. Help the defender with somone defending on the basketside to assist if the dribbler beats the defender with a crossover back towards the middle
Teach helpside defense - a shell drill is excellent for this.
5. Protect the key

Great plan for kids this age... and let them have FUN above all.

Thanks for clarifying that Coach Sar,

When I referred to "trapping" the player on the sideline I really meant having them squeezed to the sideline where they either ran out of bounds, tried to crossover dribble to get around the defender or charged into the defender. I wouldn't try to trap in the strict basketball sense because I don't think the players are skilled enough to do it and I still like to let the opposition have use of the ball but make them beat their defender or pass it off (or better still turn it over with a violation due to our pressure).

'Herding' the dribbler to the short corner where we can handle him sounds a good idea. We actually did this towards the end of the game and the dribbler layed up into the side of the backboard when pressured in this area, so it definitely worked.

I'm moving to introduce some concepts of defence transition and 'protecting the paint' as I think the boys can handle it now. I tried the concept of red (key area), yellow (three point circle) and green (rest of the half court) zones last year to give the guys an idea of where we do and don't want opposition players, especially with the ball, but it might have been a bit early. Helpside also seemed a bit difficult last year but I think we can structure our defending a bit more now to allow for some helpside concepts.

This should work well with the idea of maintaining an open motion type offence which I want to use, so practicing a shell drill and the See the Court drill http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/basicspacingdrill.html should work well together as a defence/offence combination.

Thanks for allowing this new coach to pick the brains of some 'old hands'.

Regards,
Simon

Watch that "OLD" stuff haha... I prefer "seasoned" :-)

You're from Australia? Do you know a Tony Gall? He coaches girls bball over there... and we have talked for several years now... great guy and great coach.
I think he's from Victoria.... 2011 U18 Women's State Team

You seem to be doing some good stuff with your guys...I like the way you are explaining things to them.....and your progression of adding things too.... keep up the good work and anytime you want to pick my brains or any of the other great coaches in here.. just give us a yell.

Thanks for your 'seasoned' advice Coach Sar,

I am from Victoria however I don't know of Tony Gall. Other than coaching my son's U/11 team, I don't have a lot to do with basketball.

I have however attended a Level 0 coaching course run by Tom Maher, who coached the Bulleen Bommers to the WNBL Final last year and won the Championship this season and also has coached Great Britain, China and New Zealand national women's teams. I learnt more in those couple of hours than I probably have in the rest of my time. Really simple useful advice on how to and what to coach youth teams. If you can find any of his articles, comments, etc. they are worth listening to.

Regards,
Simon

You might look at Bob Bigelow's DVD on "Coaching Youth Basketball" - there is some excellent information on that... he does a great job of explaining HOW TO coach young kids.

Keep attending clinics.. maybe watch other teams play or better yet, go to some practices... talk to other coaches and pick their brains.

Good luck.