get the most out of my star player

I'm right now teaching the guys how to trap the man after the first pass of the inbounder under our basket. But I'm having difficulty in breaking it down. Could you tell me how you would break that down and what rotation you use?

Typically they try and pass the ball to the corner? IF they do that, we trapped with the Forward and near guard ... our center would step in front of their center and anticipate the pass back to the inbounder or to the post player.... opposite forward would be help side looking for a skip pass or a pass to the middle..... and the opposite guard would look to steal the pass back out to another guard.

Look at what teams do to you regarding inbounding the ball and see where you have to make any adjustments to what I have described.

but what do you do when the trap gets broken? Do you fill the bucket and defend from there or get under the ball and find your man? And why?

PS. thanks for all the great answers!

Most teams will do a one and done trap from those positions ... unless you are in a ZONE - then you can stay with it. We would trap and then recover to our standard m2m. Why? Not sure but thats because we wanted to get back to our m2m - thats the best answer I can give you as to why. (and your welcome)

Oke I get that.

To make a defense work, I always try to think how I would respond in offense to this defense I want to play. My question to you is, how would you respond in offense to traps?

Spread the floor a little bit... make sure you have someone in the middle or at least flash one there.... and I taught to save the dribble.... and split the trap going right at the inside shoulder of the player coming over to make the trap.... let the ref make the call.

Oke this is all great stuff and will keep me busy for a couple of practices. Thanks!

I haven't heard you about trapping in defense in ballscreen situations. Have you ever tried it? Why (not)?

We rarely trapped ball screens because of our size .... they could pretty much just see over us... and in the middle of the floor it gives them too much room, thats why we liked the corners and short corner better.

Trapping ball screens can cause some disruptions for sure.... just wasn't something we liked.

How did you defend traps as a small team? Switching would give you big mismatches right?

IF you mean how did we deal with someone trapping us, we did a few things -

1- Made sure we had someone flashing middle from the back side
2- Then had someone back door so we could get an easy basket

3- We would spread the floor out so we could see the trap coming and reverse the ball if possible
4- There were times we just split the defenders attacking the inside shoulder of the defender coming to set the trap.

We liked for teams to switch defending us..... we would run the open post and force a big little switch... then we would take advantage of their big defending us on the perimeter and take him to the hole or back door him since he couldn't stay up with us.

Is this what you are looking for?

Sorry I meant defending screens instead of trapping.

(though it is usefull information as well)

OK,

As for defending screens on the ball, we would show EARLY, get out wide and arms wide giving the on the ball defender room to get over the TOP of the screen.... at our level if you went UNDER the player would just pull up and hit the jumper.

We would put our inside foot along side his outside foot ( the screener ) and one hand on his hip.... IF we felt him leave ( slip the screen ) we would give him a nudge and go with him.... taking away the slip or the screen and roll.

By doing this you are taking the space away from the dribbler to get to the screen because YOU are in that space... this allows the on the ball defender to stay with his man.

I hope this helps (clear enough?)

Defending off the ball screens was easier... we always went ball side... we should be in the help position to begin with so that should be easy.... IF that player is a GREAT outside shooter, then we would CHASE that and force him to curl and hopefull our helpside D would be there or at least he has to go to a clogged area in the middle.