Defending Rules

Hi guys,

Excellent website and fantastic to receive so many free tips and drills but I have a very basic question. I´m a new PE teacher and the kids play basketball at a very basic standard and what I see time and time again is when a player has the ball and stops dribbling when facing a determined defender he ends up with his back to the defender and hunched over trying to protect the ball. The defender then lurches over his back and puts his arms right in front of the ball waving them about making it impossible for him to pass (sometimes there may be two defenders doing this!). Of course I never see this in games of a decent standard but if the defender doesnt actually touch the attacker or grabs the ball is it actually a foul? Basically I want to stop this as its very "ugly" but wasnt sure if there´s no actual contact if its actually against the rules? Any help or advice would be great.
Thanks,
Simon

A couple of things that help are:

Teach the offensive to pivot and look for a team mate. Most freeze up like you said. If it habit to look for team mate with pivots it might help prevent the defense from doing so.

Teach the defense to "mirror" the ball with thier hands. This way they have to play off enough to do so.

And of course various passes including one hand passes. Make sure to show them that by putting thier body between them and the defender they can protect the ball in a more aggressive way.

Monkey in the middle is a great breakdown drill to teach these components. Just make sure to make the rule no over head passes. Otherwise they don't learn to use other passes.