I'd like to know if this is taught as more a pack line style or a denial style, neither, or both. The kids I coach are struggling against the dribble. Our instructional league mandates M2M, which I'm fine with, but athletic teams with good ball handlers wear us out. I've worked with the ones who guard the ball on stance, balance, and sprinting to the elbow or block, a la Tom Izzo style. Would like to hear more about the specifics of the product. Thanks!

Neil - Our M2M Defensive Guide does not favor a certain style of play. Our guide considers things like "denial, sagging, open stance, etc" to be options. You can make those adjustments based on your personnel and coaching style. In fact the guide helps you choose which style of play to use and which options to use in your defense.

There is no doubt that the guide will help you stop dribble penetration. In fact, everything about the system is about keeping the ball as far from the basket as possible. That's the premise of the entire system.
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/mandefense.html

Hope this helps.

Teaching / coaching m2m takes some effort... but in the long run it will pay off for them... regardless of it being pack style or on the line up the line pressure.

Tanya, your league is to be commended for mandating this - too many youth leagues allow zones and pressing and trapping at a very early age.... teaches nothing.

There are two philosophes here..... you can stop dribble penetration using the pack style OR you can pressure and dictate where the ball goes. We had some problems when we started on/up the line D.... so I put in a few rules.... 1- we dictated where we wanted the point guard to go... (not so much which side) we wanted to direct the ball to the sideline free throw line extended. ( we were up the line denying the next pass but in a position to show EARLY and stop penetration ) 2- IF they did make the pass to the wing.... we wanted to direct the ball to the baseline / short corner area. This helped by dictating help line Defense and made the court area we were defending smaller.

We tried to accomplish this by forcing the player with the ball to dribble, once they picked the dribble up, we locked up on them making the next pass more difficult. Defense can be measured this way....... A- GOOD defensive teams play good on the ball defense B- GREAT defensive teams play GREAT helpside defense. JMO

Neil, I got the M2M defense product last year when we were struggling a little bit. All it all it is a good deal with a ton of info. Unless you work basketball 24/7, you'll need to pick and choose what will work for your team.

For us at the time (8-9 YO), we focused on "help" concepts and how to position yourself depending on where the ball was (one pass, two pass, etc.). Like you, we had problems with athletic point guards, just dribbling in for layups. We put a stop to that teaching our "big men" how to position themselves and rotate to help if our defender was beat.

Only a couple of things happened, which are league related -- a few time my kids got to aggressive and "helped" to early, leading to a double team and some refs forced our players to play their man "tight," not accounting for how far they were from the ball. There is that fine line between agressive defense, "zones" and keeping the game playable. Unfortunately, in our league there is no effort to achieve team parity so a team with some athletic point guards tear up everyone else, and it is no fun for anyone. Good luck.

The M2M ebook available here really is excellent. Tons of useful information put together in a system for teaching. You can't go wrong with it, in my view.