Teaching Man to Man Defense

Hi,

Interested in your comments about teaching good man to man defence and basically agree.

However, I am involved with assisting coach a couple of young teams (U10 & U12) who have never played before, are not very athletic and don’t really have much confidence - all of which we are trying to slowly remedy.

Our association has a "No Zone" policy (not always enforced) and for the U10’s its no defence beyond half court which gives us a chance.

In the U12s it is pretty much open slather so most teams play what is best described as a full court swarm with all defenders chasing/smothering the ball.
That approach of course does little to enhance defensive skills and could, with experienced/skilled players, be easily burnt but it means our team battles to get the ball into play and when they do, they are mobbed and turnovers result.

Unfortunately we do not at this stage have any decent ball-handlers or any reasonable passers so setting up to break the swarm is difficult due to our poor execution.

Any suggestions ?

Thanks


Morriss

Work on ball handling every day and drills like this every day:
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/1on1-grid-drill.html
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/play.asp?id=66

Not only does it improve defense but hallhandling too.

Also work on basic passing and footwork drills. Then add competitive full court no dribble drills... 3v1, 3v2, 4v3, etc. You can let them score by making basket or just advancing the ball to the other end of the court.

Since it sounds like full court man to man (or it's supposed to be), you can try this 1 up press break:
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/play.asp?id=7798

The nice thing about 1 up is it gives you a lot more space to work with so not as many player swarm the ball. If you have trouble inbounding the ball because they deny, let me know and I can give some points. I will probably write something up about that at some point because we had to solve the problem with our kids. We face those same teams that just swarm and press full court deny the entire game.

I also have this press break in my back pocket if needed:
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/plays/linepressbreaker.html