In order to get players to concentrate on the defensive principles that you believe in and to develop the proper habits, try the following drill. We ask the players to play three perfect defensive possessions. The length of the possession is determined by our playing style. If for example, the opposition’s average possession is 17 seconds against our defense, we ask the players to play perfect defense for three times that length or 51 seconds.

We demand that they execute three perfect 51 second defensive possessions. During each possession every coach is watching for a defensive mistake. Be picky. Stress the principles that you believe are important whether that be jumping to the ball on a pass, keeping the ball out of the lane, trapping the post, helping the helper or anything else that you believe in. If a coach sees a mistake, that possession must start over again at 51 seconds. If the defense causes a turnover you can reward the defense by running 5 seconds off of the clock, restart the possession and run the clock from that point. If the offense takes a bad or contested shot and the defense gets the rebound, we just stop the clock and then resume the possession and run the clock from that point. If the offense scores, takes an uncontested shot, or gets a rebound, then the clock is reset at 51 seconds. We continue until we have played three perfect 51 second possessions.

In this way we are stressing, without any doubt, what we believe is important defensively to our success. We have found this to be very helpful. Players will focus on what you think is important. They will communicate better in order to avoid confusion. This drill will also show you who your leaders are. The leaders will step up and make players accountable for their mistakes. While players may understand that defense is important, they aren’t particularly fond of playing defense for long periods of time. The players will be motivated to complete this drill in as little time as possible.

This is one of the ideas in our 130 Great Ideas Practice e-book.

Click here for  information on the complete basketball practice e-book
“130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice”

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Here are some notes and drills from a defensive clinic given by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski.

1.  A winning basketball team makes the opponent react to them, whether they are on offense or defense.

2. Our philosophy is to attack on defense.

3.  Don’t be afraid of making a mental or physical mistake on defense.  The only mistake you can make is not playing hard.

4. We do so much defensive breakdown work that they develop good defensive habits.

5. Our defensive involves getting all five players to play together:  talking on defense, seeing the ball, and moving as the ball moves.

6. Play for the charge.

7.  Defense continues until we get possession of the ball.

Ball Pressure Drills:

1.  Zig Zag Drill stresses:  Stance, Being within one step of the ballhandler, Keeping your head on the ball

2. Zig Zag and pick up the dribble-Defense now traces the ball in a dead situation.

3.  Zig Zag to mid-court then keep the ballhandler to the outside like you would in half-court defense.

4. Zig Zag influence drill–drop back to midcourt, then make fake traps and influence the ballhandler to the side.

5. Zig Zag and then defend the return pass

Adjustments on Baseline Drive X1 Drops and helps on the post X2 Helps in the lane/post X3 Stays with his man X4 Helps in the post area X5 Comes and double teams 3.  X5 makes himself big by getting his arms up

Help and Recover Drill The defense guards his man and is ready to fake a trap of the ballhandler if he drives.

Two Man Contesting (Outside-In)

Two Man Contesting (Inside Out)

Contest and Interchange X1 Contests X2 and X3 are working on helpside interchange (staying with their man)

4 on 4 Contesting The offense moves the ball and the defense works on denials, slides, and positioning.

Click here for a video of Coach Ks:  6 Point Contesting Defensive Drill

Click here for a Duke defensive and conditioning drill: Help and Recover Drill

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I received these notes from Coach Steve Smiley from a presentation that Brad Stevens made at the 2010 Florida Coaches Clinic.

These are notes and the outline for his talk.  Here is a link to diagrams of his drills:  Basketball Drills

• Coach Stevens Big into the process, statistics, and numbers.
• This helps him to coach his team.
• Always trying to get guys to do the things that are important.
• Having a Defensive DNA is a big part of that.
• Gained an appreciation when he became a head coach for how hard it is to prepare the right practice.
• Your team has to be good at practicing the right things. This puts a huge premium on the head coach being right.
• Broke their Defensive DNA up into 6 categories
• Did this because he was coaching a team with 6 freshman who needed to learn how to play  their system
• What is the best way to teach something at the beginning of the year that instills your system, but is also able to be changed/adjusted later on in the season?

1. Commitment

• Your players must be completely committed to the system
• In 11 years, never had a player in the program that worked his tail off on the defensive end that wasn’t a great teammate/student
• People that do their job on every play make you feel proud to be a part of the program
• Starts with establishing the correct mindset
• Referenced Doc Rivers from last year’s clinic: Believe or Leave
• If your players believe, you can establish a Defensive DNA
• Felt that when he had young teams, having a great defensive team gave him the best chance to win
• Challenge your team statistically
  Example: Earlier this season, Butler was giving up 45% from the floor, but they found out that if they had gotten three more stops per game, they would be giving up 39%. Defensive FG% dropped 2 percentage points for every stop.
• Your team is never too far away from being great, and never too far away from being bad
• Uses the 10 day break during the season to be tremendously beneficial .
• Really admires how davidson plays-They are unpredictable, yet they have a system that they believe in.
• Your system must be built to defend everything, no matter what is being run against it. (i.e. something you didn’t cover in scouting)
• At the same time, have a degree of unpredictability.

2. Positioning

• First Step to proper positioning is your transition defense.
• Your transition drills have to simulate what happens in the game
• Goals for transition defense
  Stay in front of the basketball
  Protect the basket
  Pick up the basketball
  Find good shooters
• Defending the ball
  First important question where are you on the floor?
  If you have an athletic advantage, you can pressure more
  If you are at an athletic disadvantage, you can pressure more
  If you are at an athletic disadvantage, you have to trick the offensive player in different ways to keep him off balance
  Butler plays a lot of 1 on 1–both bigs and guards.  Everyone must be able to guard 2 dribbles on the perimeter (Bigs will often switch onto a guard late in the shot clock)
• Closeouts
• Three steps then break down (chop your feet) with your arms up; closeout to his dominant hand
• Closeouts are dependent upon personnel
• If you’re closing out to a great shooter, close out to his shooting hand and give him less room to get his shot off.
• If you’re closing out to a great driver, you don’t want to break down as much.  ”A great drive beats a great closeout every time.”

3. Prioritizing

• Are you prioritizing what’s important?  The goal is to stop the other team from scoring
• Scouting is a large part of the equation
• Their system must be adjustable and flexible in terms of guarding different teams/players
• Coach Stevens gave an example of how he used their trip to Italy to work on some different things, and “it took (Butler) three months to get back to our identity.”
• Even though you (as a coach) are thinking about jumping to the ball/your identity all summer doesn’t mean your players are.
• Learned that you need to start back over every year
• Tony Dungy example from his new book: Concept of “regenerative leadership”  Older players spreading the culture to the younger players, and the younger players continue the cycle when they become older players

4. Awareness

• Awareness can allow a marginal athlete to become a very good defender—more so than a great athlete with marginal awareness
• The 4 levels of competency:
• Unconsciously incompetent-You don’t know what you don’t know
• Consciously incompetent-You know that you have no clue
• Consciously competent-You know what’s going on
• Unconsciously competent-You begin to see things before they happen.  You can rely on your habits because of how many times you’ve done it before
• Coach will allow players to have “mature freedom” to make reads when they are in this stage of competency.
• When you’re in the first two categories (unconsciously/consciously incompetent), you should be a great follower/listener.
• 60% of awareness comes from what you have built through practice/drills/habits
• 40% of awareness comes from who you are guarding or what the other team is running
• Uses lots of 4 on 4 work in practice

5. Execution/Technique

• Technique is easy to work on in indivìduals
• Coach Stevens spent some time at the Indianapolis Colts offseason
  Was struck by the consistency in their approach
  Quarterbacks spent 5 minutes per day watching their handoffs with no defense. (Attention to detail)
  Described Peyton Manning as “Elite in his preparation”
• Butler ¡s big on drilling and technique
• Be deliberate in your practice and approach
• The strength and conditioning coach will drill the players in the offseason around techniques that the players will be executing all season (i.e. hedging a ball screen) ”Deliberate conditioning”

6. Completion

• The importance of “finishing plays”
• Guys that really care and understand the concept of blocking out
• Butler teaches blocking out based on the individual personnel of their players
• Less mobile player’s responsibility is to keep the offensive player from getting the ball
• A more mobile player (with a nose for the ball) may just hit his man then pursue the ball.I will be posting the drills from the notes later in the week.

Here is a link to diagrams of his drills:  Basketball Drills

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Here are some ideas and drills that I have picked up from various sources and used to build our conversion defense:

I have always referred to going from offense to defense as conversion, and going from defense to offense as transition for the sake of clarity in communicating with our players.

Del Harris taught that half court defense begins full court.  We have not been a pressing program, but we do place a major emphasis on full court defensive conversion each practice.  Our goal is to force the opponent to play against our set pack line style defense each possession by executing our half court offense and full court conversion defense every possession of every practice and every game.

Conversion defense begins when we shoot the ball.  We send our three best rebounders to the block, block, and front of the rim when we shoot.  The remaining two players go to the halfcourt line (we call him our fullback) and to the top of the key (we call him our halfback).  Those are Don Meyer terms I borrowed.  The fullback is responsible for sprinting to the lane to guard the basket.   The halfback is responsible for slowing the ball if it is being dribbled.  I use the term slow the ball because if he attempts to make a stand and stop the ball out on the floor, he is likely to get beat and then we have only the fullback to stop their break.  If the halfback slows the dribble, that gives our three offensive rebounders time to sprint back and become a part of our conversion defense.  When we substitute we make sure to communicate our halfback, fullback, and offensive rebounder roles as well as the man we are guarding between the player going in the game and the player coming out of the game.

One of my points of emphasis for our offense is that we must be able to defend the shots we take and the turnovers we make.  That means to me that we need to take shots that our teammates are expecting us to take so they will be ready to rebound.  Jay Bilas says that a bad shot is the first pass in your opponent’s fast break.  I think that is a great teaching phrase on the value of shot selection.

It is also a major point of emphasis for us to not make risky passes that have a 50/50 chance of being caught by us.  We never want to throw the ball away when we are making a pass going away from our basket and toward the opponents.  That just gives them a head start on their break and puts us in a position of chasing from behind which is no defense.r

Here are some of the special rules we use from time to time if our second team has a hard time pushing our first team in practice:

When we are scrimmaging, the second team does not have to take the ball out of bounds after a basket, they just take it out of the net and play it to force our first team to convert quickly.  We also run a play until the whistle practice, so if the JV travels, throws the ball out of bounds, etc.. we don’t blow the whistle, we just keep playing to work on our conversion.alf

When preparing for an upcoming opponent with a very good fast break, we place two JV players at half court–one of them on each sideline as we are running our half court offense.  When the varsity turns the ball over or the defense gets a rebound, those players at half court take off toward the opposite end (the basket we are defending) in order to force our conversion defense to play at a quicker pace.  If that is not enough to push our first team, we move the halfcourt players to the free throw line extended at the opposite end or even to the baseline corners at the opposite end.

One drill that I really like is to play at a 4 on 5 disadvantage in a transition drill.  We have always played 4 on 5 in the halfcourt, but playing it in conversion is a great way to improve your conversion through the disadvantage principle as well.  Put 5 second team players on the baseline, put 15 seconds on the clock, and have the first team run your offense 5/0.  When the shot is taken, the offense should go to the rebound/conversion defense spots described above.  Have the offensive rebounders put back any missed shot.

When the ball goes through the basket, the 15 seconds starts on the clock and the second team (who are on the baseline) take the ball out of the net.  The coach calls the name of one of the first team players.  That player steps off the court and is no longer in the drill.  The 5 offensive players then push the ball up against the 4 defenders as the clock counts down from 15 seconds.  Having a numbers disadvantage forces better communication among the conversion defenenders.  The defense wins the possession if they can force a turnover or keep the second team from taking a shot that hits the rim before the 15 seconds run out.  If the offense does shoot an airball, the defense must get the rebound to win the possession.  Even if the rebound takes place after the horn goes off at the end of the 15 seconds–we always play until the whistle, not the horn.  The offense wins the possession if they can hit the rim with a shot in the 15 seconds.  You can play to 3 or 5 or however many possession wins to win the drill.  The losers run at the end of the drill.

Click the image or here: Defensive Conversion Drill for a video of a very simple, but very good conversion drill.  You will be able to see a video in the coaches store.  You do not have to purchase anything to see the video.

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One more item from the e-mail sent out by Eric Musselman

BUILDING THE VILLANOVA DEFENSE

Jay Wright

Starts with basic man principles of ball-you-man.

Win or lose – make sure you played “your way.” No one ever likes to lose, but when you watch game film, you always want to see that you played “your way,” win or lose.

The trapping and switching nature of their defense is based on “Calculated Risk.” They don’t want to miss an opportunity to “Blitz and Step-Up.”

Situations where Calculated Risks are appropriate for Blitzing include: 1) anytime the ball is dribbled toward you as a defender. 2) Your man brings you to the ball. 3) The ball is dribbled to the baseline setting up a trap from behind.

They want to Blitz all ball screens or dribble hand-offs when defenders react to the Calculated Risk situations. Teaching point is that the trappers should never foul or get steals. Trappers are deflectors.

When a 2-man game occurs, the other three players “load” to the 2-man game.

Man guarding the screener calls the “Blitz” or “Switch.” If you are guarding the ball-handler, always assume “Blitz” and he must step over the top to trap, or to be put in a ball-you-man position on the roll man if a switch occurs. If a big switches on to a small, the other three defenders should “load to the iso.”

Never want to switch for convenience, would always prefer to “Blitz” if they can.

These rules are all applicable in the scoring area, approximately three feet beyond the three-line and in.

Coach Del Harris commented that it is an effective technique to teach someone going over a ball screen to do so by crowding the man with the ball and then throwing his leg and arm over the top in one motion.

VILLANOVA ATTITUDE CLUB AND SPECIAL SITUATIONS:

Attitude Club is a way to reward players who are doing they ritical things that they put a premium on. A good play per minute ratio is .8 or above. Catagories include: pass to the assist (hockey concept of 2 assists), screen assist, loose ball retrieval, paint pass, o-board, tap-back on FT, quick outlet, paint catches, deflections, shot contest to change shot.

They like to practice Base OB, Side OB, Endline OB, with specific situations based on clock ( 0-3 seconds, 4-7 seconds). Can run their regular stuff in 8 seconds or more.

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These defensive bites from Larry Brown were included in the same newsletter from Xavier that contained the Shell Drill with the interchange.  Here is the link in case you missed it:  Shell Drill with Helpside Interchange.

“I never remember losing a game because of constant back doors or lobs by the opponent. That’s why I want to make offensive players ‘drivers” by pressuring the ball. And, off the ball, I want to take away passes by denying. ”

“You can’t pressure the ball on the perimeter and then allow It to be easily passed to the post. Front the post when you pressure the ball. ”

“In the NBA you can’t allow the offense to run their plays. They will kill you. You must disrupt.”

“As a college coach I spent 30 minutes per practice on guarding the dribble.

“On defense I love to deny one pass away. Don’t let the offense change sides with the ball.

“Why would the defense double team in a late clock situation? You will give up a shot unnecessarily.”

“Work on “shell defense” everyday. Don’t get caught up in the offense’s alignment, mix it up.”

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With the NBA playoffs going on, we at the Coaching Toolbox think there are a lot of things that both basketball players and coaches can take from the games in addition to the entertainment value.

In Today’s post we will discuss what we think can help a player to look for:

The good:

1. How hard they play on defense when the games mean something. They play so many games in the regular season and maintain a grueling travel schedule that they cannot physically play as hard as they can night in and night out. Now that there are consecutive games in the same city and travel days when they do switch cities, fatigue is less of a factor. Every game is important now, and they play like it. High school players don’t have those excuses. Play hard every night!
2. They play for 48 minutes and every possession at both ends could be the one that determines the outcome of the game. There are not wasted possessions because the game hangs in the balance every second.
3. Even though every player in the playoffs has great talent, the players play within the established offensive and defensive game plans and schemes. Because they do, the team is able to benefit from the talents of each individual. The best teams are better as a whole than the some of the individual talents and abilities because they do play together as a team.
4. The coaches make adjustments during the games and the teams whose players execute the adjustments are the ones that win.

All of those are good things players can learn from.

The bad and the ugly are the trash talking and the grudge matches. Losing your poise hurts your team no matter who you are because you don’t handle pressure as well after losing self control. In team sports there is never a time to hold a grudge against an individual opponent. Focusing on one opponent takes your attention away from your objective to win the basketball game. No one is as good as he or she could be when they lose sight of the target.

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The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

Since we at the Coaching Toolbox have only been posting since March 1, we still have many many areas that we want to delve into. One of those things we want to add to over the summer is our defensive pages.

As you might have guessed if you have spent any time going into our defensive postings on the site, we coached and prefer the pack line pressure defense. One of the basketball quotes that influenced our thinking was from Dick Bennett, when he stated “When you try to stop everything, you stop nothing.” The second statement that greatly impacted our thinking was that “You can only do two of the three from the group of “denying, helping, and recovering.”

Coach Bennett states that he can document statistically (and we can too from our statistical experiences) that when you work hard and aim to deny perimeter passes that the three point percentage that you allow increases. It is due to the fact that when a defender is denying and then moves to help on a dribbler or a post entry pass, the momentum is going away from the player he or she is guarding and it is next to impossible to stop that momentum and then redirect it back to their defensive assignment.

If you are “out athleticed” certainly playing a pack line pressure defense to shorten the game makes a great deal of sense. We believe that even if you are blessed with better athletes than your opponent, it still makes sense to play the pack line. Visit the Coaching Toolbox for more information that we have collected to implement a pack line pressure defense in your program. Our defensive beliefs might help you to begin thinking about what type of defense will make your program a success.

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