Defensive Drills

Basketball Drills 5 Lane Passing

By Brian Williams on February 18, 2014

I have not used this drill, but it is one that I think is worth experimenting with for 10 or 15 minutes to see if it is worth continuing to use in your program.

I think it is worth experimenting with new ideas each week in practice to see if they will improve your program.

I have posted a similar drill using 3 lanes previously.

Here is the link to the video if you missed it: 3 lane sureness drill

With 5 lanes in the drill, one of the main teaching points is spacing on the passes.

You can vary the drill by making teams compete against each other for the least amount of passes required for completion or by timing each team.

This drill emphasizes man-to-man defensive coverage, develops the ability to pass and catch under pressure, and develops team communication and court spacing.

It is a great way for players to develop the ability to get open.

The drill is very effective in teaching intensity and internal motivation, resetting without dwelling on the mistake, and working together.

Assign each pair to play in one of the 5 lanes as designated on the diagram. Neither member of this pair is allowed to go outside of their lane.

You can use floor tape or markers such as cones or spots from PE classes to mark the lanes.

Offense moves the ball up the court; with every offensive player having to receive a minimum of 2 passes. (You can try the drill with and without this rule to see which way works best for your team.)

The offense has completed the drill successfully when one of the offensive players receives a pass while standing on the opposite baseline.

Once an offensive player receives a pass, they must yell out the number of passes they have received. This will help the offense know when all 5 players have caught 2 passes if you are using that rule.

RULES FOR THE DRILL;

1. No dribbling. Get your players used to pivoting under pressure.

2. If the defense steals the ball or causes it to go out of bounds, the offense must reset at the baseline. Insist that your players reset without instruction.

3. A loose ball can only be retrieved by the person in the lane it is in.

This drill was submitted by Denita Dyck

Basketball Drills Triangle Ball Toughness

By Brian Williams on February 12, 2014

This post was created by Kyle Gilreath. He is NBA Client Services Manager for FastModel Sports.

He is the Head Basketball Coach at Astronaut High School in Florida. He served as an undergraduate manager as well as graduate assistant for the Florida Men’s program under Billy Donovan.

I found the drill on FastModel’s plays and drills library.

It contains over 2000 drills and plays in the library. Here is the link. FastModel Drills and Plays Library

You can also find out more about FastModel Play Diagramming software by clicking this link: FastDraw

Kyle also has a very good blog you should check out. Here is the link to it: Words on the Bounce

Here is what Kyle wrote about the drill:

This is a great offensive and defensive peer pressure drill that can help your players improve their toughness.

x1 and x2 trap 1.

1 must be strong with the ball trying to pass to 2 or 3.

1 must utilize pass fakes to lead x3 and pass to the open man.

If 1 passes to 2, x2 and x3 become the new trappers.

Drill continues until the defense gets a deflection or causes a turnover.

Defending Pick and Roll 5 Options

By Brian Williams on February 6, 2014

This post on defending pick and roll was sent to me by Nate Hill, Assistant Boys Coach at Colonel Crawford High School in North Robinson Ohio. He has coached for 18 years from 7th grade through Varsity Head Coach.

Nate has contributed several articles for the site.

Coach Hill said: I typed this up while preparing for our next opponent who runs lots of ball screens.

These are 5 different ways I’ve seen the pick and roll defended.

Pretty basic stuff, but it helped me out going through the different strengths and weaknesses.

He started a Coaching Newsletter this past Fall. Here is a link to the archives if you are interested.

Next Level Basketball 419

In case you have any questions or comments for Coach Hill, or would like to subscribe to his newsletter, here is his email address:

[email protected]

I posted an article a year ago from retired NBA Coach Del Harris about defending pick and roll. Here is the link: Del Harris defending pick and roll

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Jam and Under

X5 chests up 5 and tries to JAM screener.

X1 goes UNDER screen.

X3 helps on 1

Give up: pull up jumpers, turning corner on drives

Take away: screener rolling / slips. force ballhandler to shoot off dribble

Hedge and Recover

X5 steps out and HEDGES screen, forcing the ball handler to change direction.

X5 must then sprint back to 5.

X1 fights over top pick and stays in 1 hip pocket.

X3 helps on screener

Give up: passes to roll man, possible guard splitting defenders and driving, pick and pop. Need extra defender
for roll

Take away: guards shooting off dribble, make players make tough “pocket pass”

Jump Switch

X5 jumps out in front screen and takes x1, x1 now guarding 5.

X3 helps on 1

Give up: this can create mismatches with guards / posts, slips off screens, and screeners rolling to post and posting up, post players defending guards off dribble.

Take away: open looks off screens. If players can guard in post and perimeter a good option

Blitz/Double Team and Tag

x5 and x1 jump into lane and try to trap 1.

Key is force weak pass or have the ball handler pick up the dribble. x3 helps on screener rolling

Give up: pick and pops, slip pass, passes over top screen with bigger guards, slow rotations. Teams can make a pass out of the trap, and a quick extra pass to open players with good spacing.

Take away: good shooters and drivers, forcing 1 to make solid pass, and 5 to make a shot / play. Forces players to make passes with weak hands.

TAG: closest defender helps out with roll man

Down/Ice

X1 jumps on topside of screen making 1 refuse the ball screen.

X5 helps on the DOWN / ICE call and they can trap or hedge the ballhandler.

X3 helps on the screener. This is very common on side pick and rolls in the NBA.

Give up: Screener rolling to basket / slips, midrange jump shots for screener, passes to ballside corner.

Take away: forces the midrange pullup or jump shot. Can force players to use weak hand. This is not used very much at the high school level.

Again, here is the link I posted a year ago from retired NBA Coach Del Harris about defending pick and roll. Here is the link: Del Harris defending pick and roll

Basketball Drills Defending Low Post

By Brian Williams on January 31, 2014

I like the shell drill to teach and rehearse most of the movements we have to defend.

These two drills are ways that you might experiment with on defending the post in your shell.

If they fit your defensive objectives in that drill, you can experiment with them 5 on 5 in practice before deciding whether or not they are something that will be effective in a game.

These defensive drills are from a collection put together by Nate Hill, Assistant Boys Coach at Colonel Crawford High School in North Robinson Ohio. He has coached for 18 years from 7th grade through Varsity Head Coach.

He has also started a basketball coaching newsletter.

You can see his first edition as well as subscribe to the Newsletter at this link: Next Level 419 Coaching Newsletter

In case you have any questions or comments for Coach Hill, here is his email address: [email protected]

Shell Drill LA

LA is when the ball is entered and you choose one man to double the post.

It is the worst offensive player or the PG.

This is called in practice and games.

If 1 is worst offensive player, we double team the post with his man.

The double-teamer must have his hands high and make the post use his arms to throw a weak pass.

Shell Drill Duke

Bob Hurley uses different calls out of his shell defense.

Duke is when the ball is entered and all 5 guys collapse with their hands raised around post, then return to their man.

All 5 players collapse on the ball with their hands up, making the big man throw the ball out using all arms.

Look for bad pass, and steals or tips. Used 2 – 3 times a game to stop big men.

Basketball Drills Closeouts

By Brian Williams on January 15, 2014

These 3 drills to work on keeping the ball out of the lane are a follow up to the article I posted from Coach Mike Neighbors entitled:

“Things Basketball Teams Do a Lot” You Can view that post by clicking here: “Things Basketball Teams Do a Lot”

One of those things that the article discusses as something that basketball teams do a lot is closeout.

These three basketball drills are designed to give you some variety as you drill closing out.

All of this information came from Coach Neighbors weekly basketball coaching email newsletter. If you are interested in being added to his list, let me know and I will forward your email address on to Coach Neighbors.

I will post the remainder of the drills next week.

Again, these drills are attributed to University of Washington Women’s Head Coach, Mike Neighbors.

Sideline Closeouts

Position 3 chairs along each sideline. We place a ball in the seat of each to simulate that chair as a player being a ball handler.

Coach on each side between the chairs.

Three defensive players at “on the ball”, three defensive players start along the mid‐line in “help”

Coach with ball passes across court to other coach.

Defensive players that were in “help” sprint to close‐out to the chairs on the AIR TIME of the pass.

POINTS OF EMPHASIS

Key Elements to a great close out:

1) Move on the Air Time of the ball: a great defender moves from position to position while the ball is in the air.

2) Start with sprint end with a chop: the first two steps are a dead sprint while the ball is in the air and ends with feet chopping as they approach the offense player

3) High Hands/Low Shoulders: as the feet are chopping, the hips/butt go down as the hands go high. The low hips/butt defend against the drive and the high hands take away vision
for pass or shot.

The ability of each offense player effects each defenders close out. If we are closing out to a player who can stroke the 3 but can’t score off the bounce, we will close out a little tighter. If the opposite is true, the hands will still be high to take away a quick post pass but the close out with shorter to take away catch and go drives.

Storm Closeouts

Another good way to work on the all important technique of closing out on defense. Also simulates good transition defense and places premium on talking and communicating.

Three X defenders in triangle around basket. Coach initiates action with pass to the wing.

All defensive players close out and we play moving the ball from side to side then coach takes a shot. Defense has three on two advantage so we hope to get every rebound.

On the rebound and or a steal before the shot goes up, the three X players become offense and go in transition 3 on 2 against the O players minus the coach.

You can make this competitive by scoring the offense and splitting into two teams. Teach the techniques you teach on closeouts, defending on ball, and rebounding.

Brooklyn Closeouts

Defensive players begin in GAPS

Coach bounces the ball to initiate drill. On the bounce the defense slides to touch hands then back to their GAP.

Coach makes a pass. Player closes out and others jump to GAP. Each time the ball returns to the Coach…

Once coach is satisfied with the drill, bounce the ball again…

All 4 defensive players sprint to paint to celebrate Volleyball style (you know how they all come together after a good or bad play!!)

Basketball Drills Defend the Lane Drills

By Brian Williams on January 10, 2014

These 3 drills to work on keeping the ball out of the lane are a follow up to the article I posted from Coach Mike Neighbors entitled:

“Things Basketball Teams Do a Lot” You Can view that post by clicking here: “Things Basketball Teams Do a Lot”

One of those things that the article lists is keeping the ball out of the lane.

These three basketball drills are designed to help your team work on that.

I will post the remainder of the drills next week. I was hoping to have them all up today, but ran into some weather related difficulty.

Again, these drills are attributed to University of Washington Women’s Head Coach, Mike Neighbors.

30 Second Shot Clock

This is one of our best half court drills to work on 5 on 5 team defense.

If you play without a shot clock, you could change the name of the drill to reflect the last possession of the game.

The idea is to instill in your defense the importance of playing good team defense repeatedly in the most adverse situations.

Rules

The clock begins when the offense initiates the ball with pass or dribble. The possession is played out.

The clock remains at the time it is if the defense is able to come up with a defensive stop. The offense then resets with
the clock showing the new time. So basically the defense will need to play perfect defense until the clock reads 00:00

But if at any point the offense scores, gets an offensive rebound, or an uncontested shot the clock is reset to :30

During the possession if the defense deflects and pass or creates a turnover, three seconds are run off the remaining time. If they
are able to take a charge there is a five second run‐off.

Additional things to add as you get the hang of the drill:

Reset on post player catching it two feet in the paint
Reset on getting beat to the outside off the bounce
Reset for not communicating on defense
Offensive rebounds

This drill gets intense and must be officiated or it will get ugly.

We try to complete this drill twice in 8 to 10 minutes…

N the Paint

Defensive players begin in BALL and GAP positions.

:30 seconds on the shot clock

Use the area we tape down for every practice to simulate our POST and our RACK ZONE as the target zone for the offense. (See Diagrams Above)

The offense is attempting to drive the ball into the taped down area. Every time they can get a foot into that area, they earn a point.

The offensive players without the ball must stay beyond the three point line but can move in relation to penetrations.

As the season progresses we will allow them to screen and cut, but to begin they can only SPACE.

The offense uses the entire :30 to earn as many points as possible.

If the defense can force a turnover, it does complete the possession.

They will quickly learn they had better get the steal if they gamble. If they don’t get it, the offense will rack up point after point.

We will flip over after each :30

We usually play to 15 or for a set number of possessions.

This drill can get sloppy when the offense takes too many chances.

So we will also implement our TURNOVER RACK to discourage out of control play

(Turnover Rack is a rack of balls visible during our practices. Once the ball gets empty, we condition)

STOP-SCORE-STOP

This drill is best introduced as a 3‐on‐3 situation. As the sequence of a STOP‐SCORE-STOP is repeated and as the season progresses making it a 4‐on‐4 and ultimately a 5‐on‐5‐on‐5 situation will maximize the time and also create the most game like scenario possible.

With a large team you can have this going on both ends with winning teams advancing to play each other as needed.

Divide into two 3‐on‐3 colored teams.

Blue starts on offense. White on defense.

The main idea to communicate is that each possession either finishes in a STOP or a SCORE.

When a team comes up with a STOP they then must follow that with a SCORE to keep their sequence going. If that team completes the next possession with a defensive STOP they EARN a point.

We will either play this drill to a certain number of points or for a set amount of time.

This is another drill that works both offense and defense simultaneously.

DEFENSE: Teaches the importance of finishing possessions either with rebounds or steals or tying up loose balls. It teaches great communication. It teaches your players how quickly momentum can swing.