Breaking a half court press/trap

Good morning, guys!
So far my kids have been doing pretty well, I've been impressed with how well they have been able to follow in-game drawn on the white board play changes and working the plays that they have been taught in practice.

They worked a sidelines out-of bounds play to perfection last Saturday after having only seen it drawn on the whiteboard at game time.

One question regarding defeating half –court pressure…
My two best scorers are my wings 2,3. We usually run plays from a spread set, where 4 players are out, 1 on the point, 2,3 on the wings, 4 near the right corner, 3pt line area, and 5 down low.

My point is a little weak with the ball on the dribble and has a tendency to get in a hurry and lose the ball or get it stolen when the defense comes out of their usual zone configuration and pressure him right at the half court line.

Any suggestions for a set play or motion to defeat that pressure on point?

Thanks!

Mark

Marc,

Whenever we faced a half court trap we attacked it with a two guard front and in a 2-1-2 configuration.- I would have your one bring the ball up the sideline HARD ... and then reverse it to the other guard looking to get the ball into the middle.... once you get it there, he should pivot and face the basket,... you should have numbers to attack.

If this is a youth program I don't understand the value of playing zones let alone trapping younger kids. JMO

Thanks!
Part of it is my fault, I have ingrained positioning so much into my players that they immediately run to their assigned spots on the floor and don't think to help the point in such cases. :-)

We have a game tonight, if the other team moves their defense up, we'll try that.


Mark

PS, last year my son was the point on a 10U team (I wacthed last year and didn't coach), and one team played a 3 -1-1 half court press the entire game. I don't think Zach's team scored a point the entire game. Very frustrating to watch.

That's a shame.... no way should they be doing that with that age group... that's thinking more about winning than it is teaching the kids how to play the game. They should be teaching them how to play m2m defense.

Totally agree...'course this was the same coach that had his son playing in 10U when, while he was within the age bracket, was/is about 5'11+ at 10years of age. Needless to say, they went undefeated.

a 2-1-2 set up will break most half court traps set up by guys who care about nothing but winning. Most of the time their best players are up top so if you can get it to the middle and attack the back guys you should have a lay up drill.

We play in a league that doesnt allow pressing until the end of the game - last 2 minutes. It is funny at our last game we were down by 10 and the team we were playing starting pressing. When I confronted the coach about it, he said his team needed the practice. Gotta love it

Sheesh! that's crazy.
You can only press in the fourth quarter here, and if you are ahead by 10 or more points you are not allowed to press.
What alwasy kills me is the coaches that let the score get to 50-3 or something outlandish like that

Although I havent had it happen to me yet- and I know it is coming, I have seen a 35-1 and a 35-0 score this year. A lot of what goes on in our area is the selection process of the kids

I guess if the folks running the league refuse to do anything about it there is not much you can do. There is not enough practice time to learn all the skills needed to play plus try and learn to break a half court trap. Arrogant adults creating arrogant children and we wonder why society is the way it is.

It sounds like youre a good coach who cares about teaching. You should be commended and trust that you will have kids that become better players or at least and probably most important good kids with character in the future.

Yep, sad but true.
Thanks! We've another game tonight, if the other team tries the half court pressure, hopefully I'll be ready and be able to get the kids ready! :-)

What I would love, not that it's ever going to happen, would be for someone who is a real coach to "coach" me during a tight game and critique my decisions. :-)

Guys,

Those coaches that run up scores - press - play zones at the youth level should change jobs, be a brick layer or something. They got this WIN WIN mentality.... sure, everyone wants to win but how about teaching the kids how to play the game and have some FUN.

Sorry for the rant but I get all wound up when I read stuff like this.

Have someone tape your game and put it on you tube or something and Jeff / Joe or myself (to name a few) might bee able to comment. Its tough if you're not there in person.

Good luck and keep doing the right thing.

Whoops! Sorry!! I didn't mean to rile you up! :-)

Have a Merry Chrismas and a Happy New Year!

Mark

You too Mark..... and I hope you kick their butts, half court trap and all.

That guy should be laying brick too. :-)

LOL! well he's moved on up to U12 so I have a year to get better prepared!

Mark

Ok, I admit it, I'm a poor excuse for a coach! :-P

we tried M2M a few times and got smoked, so I took the coward's way out and went zone usually 85% of the time. Tournamant time is soon, and I would like to hit as many of the teams with a good aggressive M2M. Given the fact that my kids are 9-11 yrs what drills would be best to instill that agressiveness and what concepts would be easiest to get across to those of them with a limited attention span?

Not asking for much, am I ? :-) Thanks!

Mark

You could be a Captain for the Italian Cruise Line LOL :-)

Look at this page :
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/man.html There are a lot of drills here.

I will tell you how we installed our m2m but you have to decide if its going to be on/up the line or pack ... the more aggressive version is ON/UP THE LINE.

1- Guard steer ( we would steer the point guard to the free throw line extended... we didn't care which way because we didn't want to get split )
2- Deny the wing ( we wanted our players UP the line at least 1/3 towards the ball ) looking to deflect or steal passes with the NEAR hand in the passing lane and at the very least, force them outside of their comfort zone from where they want to initiate their offense.
3- IF they made the pass to the wing, we wanted to force them baseline ( the short corner is where we wanted to steer them from the wing )
4- We would dead front the post.
5- ***** HELP LINE DEFENSE.... this is what makes a defense great .... work on ball side / help side defense a lot using a shell drill. ( you should be able to find that on here too )

One of the big keys is NOT allowing any splits... thats why the next defender in line is UP the line... all he should have to do is to OPEN UP a bit - maybe slide a few steps and put his hand in the lane the dribbler wants to go..

Of course there is more to this D than the things I mentioned, but these should give you a good start in playing aggressive m2m defense. This will take you some time to put in, but be patient, it will be well worth the effort. 1-2 & 5 are the most important here. I hope this helps and doesnt confuse the kids

By the way, the best way of dictating HELP LINE DEFENSE is to get the ball off the center line of the floor.

You will be pressuring the ball, denying one pass away and 2 passes away you are on the help line,.

Your kids are pretty young for this - but this is one way to install pressure defense. You might want to think about the pack line m2m.

[Ahoy! Mate and thanks Coach! ;-)
I am lucky to have all the kids there on any given night, but with six last night we worked on denying the pass from the ballhandler to the receiver, playing the passing lanes and maintaining contact with your offensive man.
Also I tried to stress playing defense on the pass rather than the catch.

We have a game tonight against one of the weaker teams, but turnaround and play Saturday morning against a team that is one of the strongest (we are somewhere in the middle). I told the boys that we are going to M2M the remaining games in order to get ready for tournament time. I hope to maintain a decent score differential Saturday morning but we'll see.

Thanks again!

Mark

Good luck Mark -

Let me suggest one thing... with the defender denying the next pass... move your player UP the line a little bit towards the ball.... he will be in better help position and he will be able to deny / deflect / and/or make a steal without making contact with his player - thus, NO fouls....

Move him UP the line maybe 2 arms lengths ? You can toy around with the distance but thats where I would start in practice and then adjust from there.

I like your style, going m2m for the rest of the year until tourney time.... Yourr kids WILL be better defenders by then.

STRESS being on the help line away from the ball..... that should help you a lot on Saturday.

OK, thanks!
Here is a score from earlier in the year, the Wizards are who we play tonight (they are 0-9, and the Thunder are who we play Saturday morning.I believe the Thundar may be undefeated. Looking at the scores, it seems they have 2-3 players consistently scoring in the teens

Thunder 56
Wizards 6

Just hope my kids don't get too discouraged if they fall way behind. :-P

Thanks!

There are a couple of ways to approach these games...

1- Dont worry about the score, go out and PLAY HARD, PLAY SMART and HAVE FUN!

2 - Since we know that IF you turned the scoreboard off they would know the score...

- Break each quarter down to 2 minutes mini games.... tell them we are going to play these min games .... then try to win as many of those as possible.... each 2 minute segment you tell your team, OK, its 0-0, lets go out and win this win?

3- You can set some goals for each quarter of those games and see if they can achieve them

Hope this helps a bit.

We were down about 26 in one game, I called a time out, told my team, I don't have any 26 point plays so lets just go out there and get 2-3 at a time, get a couple of stops and see where it takes us.