Defensive Drills

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.

 

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.

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!!)

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.

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. 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.

This article is from University of Arkansas women’s head basketball coach Mike Neighbors and one of his Newsletters. Coach Neighbors has an outstanding newsletter. If you are interested in subscribing, email me and I will pass along your interest and your email address to him.

“Be good at the things you do a lot”

from Coach Mike Neighbors

This article was written while he was coaching at Washington.

While John Wooden’s record for NCAA Championships may never be broken, I believe the greatest coaching feat of my lifetime has been Pete Carril winning 500 games, earning 11 NCAA tourney berths WITHOUT a scholarship player!!!

I can still remember watching the back-door cut his Princeton Tigers ran to beat the defending National Champions, UCLA, in 1996.

And while I am not nearly smart enough to teach the Princeton offense, I have studied almost every other aspect of this great coach and his career.

Of all his great teaching points, the one that I have used the most is this:

“Be good at the things you do a lot”

Maybe it’s the simplistic side of me, but to me that is just about the most brilliant, simple thought ever.

So… what things do you have to do a lot to be a good basketball coach, a good basketball player, and a good basketball team.

Today, I will share with you the FIVE things that I have done myself, with our teams, and with our players over the last 35 years.

THINGS WE DO A LOT AS COACHES WITH OUR TEAM

1) LEAD: All eyes are on you…always. You are actively and inactively doing this at all times with your team. Your words and your actions are heard, observed, and emulated. There are literally 1000s of books to help you with ideas but ultimately you must develop your own style and your own tactics. Email me for my favorites at [email protected]

2) LISTEN: Hearing and listening are two completely separate things. You must listen to your staff, your players, your managers, your athletic trainers, your administration… You surround yourself with good people. So, listen to their ideas, their critiques, their problems. This builds TRUST and TRUST builds championship cultures and identities.

3) COMMUNICATE: Your ability to do this as a coach has direct reflection on quality of your program and the quality of the people associated with it. In the iY Generation there is still no better way to make someone feel special than a handwritten note. A face to face encounter shows importance. Don’t totally discount the value of the technology we all have access to. Text message, face book, Twitter, and Instagram should all be resources in your arsenal. Follow me @coachneighbors on twitter or “nabes22” on instagram for examples on how I connected with people.

4) MAKE DECISIONS: “The Village Idiot can do 95% of your job, boy. It’s the 5% of the things you have to do that separate you from them.”- Papa Neighbors. I grew up with that advice in my ear from a young age no matter what I was doing. As a coach it couldn’t be more true. You must make the decisions that will mold your team and your program. You get paid to be right more often than you are wrong. It takes experience. If you don’t have experience…READ!! Email me for faves on this.

5) PRACTICE: Over the course of a full calendar year, you practice at least 5 times more often as you play a game. You must be good at planning and executing a practice. Every effective practice I have ever planned took at least twice as long to plan than it does to execute.

THINGS WE DO A LOT AS COACHES WITH OUR TEAM/PLAYERS

1) REBOUND: Over the course of a game, we have 550-600 rebound chances…

a) Get 1, Get 2, Get 3 Rebounding
b) High/Low Rebounding
c) Triangle Rebounding

All three of these drills are posted below.

2) CLOSE OUT: No matter what defense you play, you will do this A LOT!!

a) Sideline Closeout
b) Storm Closeouts
c) Brooklyn Closeouts

Here is a link to the closeout drills

3) TRANSITION DEFENSE: % wise you are in transition D more than 1/2 court

a) Tip Drill
b) Get Back
c) Progressive Fastbreak

Click here to see the conversion defense drills

4) DEFEND PENETRATION: Every offense relies on ability to break you down

a) 30 Second Shot Clock
b) N the Paint
c) Stop Score Stop

Click here to see these three drills

5) DEFEND BALL SCREENS: Few games pass without having to defend these

Click here to download the Washington Pack Line Defense

THINGS YOU NEED TO DO A LOT TO IMPROVE YOURSELF

1) READ: “The man who chooses not to read is no different from the man who can NOT read”. You MUST make time to read. It’s the only way to gain experience. It’s the only way you will catch up to coaches who have more experience than you!!

2) WRITE: When you put your thoughts on paper and in ink, they become yours. Your words become your philosophy. If you have everything “in your head” it’s not stated. And until you STATE them, it’s simply not yours. Choose a simple topic… Rebounding… Write out your thoughts. You will be surprised how much thinking you will do on it before you are willing to share with someone else!!

3) OBSERVE: Go to clinics. Attend practices. Watch DVD’s. Go on-line and use YOUTUBE or VIMEO. You can spend hours on hours. I have been watching NBA TV Training Camp and getting new ideas every hour. Again you are making the choice to or NOT to learn from others. If you already KNOW IT ALL, let me know so I can come observe YOU!!

4) REACH OUT: There are so many resources out there. If you aren’t reaching out to others, you are losing ground to those who do. There are coaches all over the country willing to share. There are blogs. There are Newsletters. There are YOUTUBE channels. All with coaches willing to give back what others have shared with them. As Don Meyer shares “collect all the good ideas whether you use them OR not”.

University of Washington Hi/Low Rebounding

Divide teams into two colors. Each team will have a player at the elbow, the block, and the wing behind the 3‐point arc.

Coach will pass ball to the player beyond the arc to initiate the action.

White team elbow player sets a legal screen on the blue team player sprinting from elbow to contest the shot. White team block player fights for space against blue team player crashing from opposite block.

White team player who receives pass from coach attempts a shot against the contest of player fighting through the screen. Blue team player from elbow sprints to fight for position against the white team player who just set the screen.

Action is repeated with Blue team receiving the pass from the coach.

We will play to a certain score or a certain amount of time, then move the shooters to the corners. This forces the defensive player
from the block to sprint to contest.

Keys to this drill:

1) as coach you can control the amount of physical contact you allow
2) you can also vary the amount you allow the screens to be moved.
3) The crispness of your pass will determine how much time your shooters have to get their shot off

University of Washington Get One, Get Two, Get Three Rebounding

We use our men’s practice team as the offensive rebounder in this drill. If you don’t have a full team of men’s players, borrow a JV player from them for a drill. Worst case scenario pick your own best offensive rebounder (or two) and incentivize the drill for them somehow.

Line up the rest of your team.

The offensive rebounder has a football blocking pad in one hand. The defender will HIT the pad. The defensive rebounder must keep the offensive player from rebounding the miss. If the offensive player can get the ball with a pad in one hand the defensive player must go again.

We have ten players, so we put 8:00 on the clock. The entire team must get a rebound versus the offense to complete the GET ONE.

After we complete GET ONE, we add a 2nd offensive rebounder. Now your team must GET TWO in a row before we rotate. Again, we go through the entire team.

Then we add a 3rd… Now we must GET 3 in a row to complete the drill.

If we can do that in 8:00 we have done a pretty good job

Keys to this drill:

1) Create realistic misses
2) Demand HIT/GIT techniques
3) Create atmosphere of toughness

Once you consistently GET THREE, try to GET 4… We have yet to accomplish it in 8:00 but creates a ceiling to shoot for after the GET 3 becomes routine.

University of Washington Triangle Rebounding

White team players have blocking pads. Coach has ball. Coach starts dribbling the ball and blue team players begin rotating clockwise HITTING the pads of each player as the do. HIT should be quick and forceful.

When coach picks up dribble to shoot, players call shot and HIT the pad they are closest to then GIT the rebound.

We do this until each of the players have gotten a rebound, then we flip it over. We also do until the group gets a set number as a team before flipping. Always focusing on the TECHNIQUE as we are developing TOUGHNESS.

Variations:

Drop the pads and allow the offense to go live to simulate true game situations and also work on your offensive rebound.

Move coaches shots around to various spots