Players: What can YOU do on defense, as an individual, each possession, regardless of your team’s defensive system?
Here are 16 pro-active things you can do on almost every defensive possession. Be the initiator and not the reactor:
1. Bother the shot pocket.
2. If the ball is over their head, get body-to-body.
3. Force an East-West or side-to-side adjustment step from dribble penetrators.
4. Cut the passer’s vision in half – force them to turn away from “square to the basket”
5. Move your hands from top shelf to the bottom shelf continually and force the passer to fake a pass to make a pass.
6. Force the passer to dribble or step and stretch to make their pass
7. Force the passer to lollipop the pass.
8. Bump and get in the way of cutters.
9. Put a hand or an arm in the passing lane to the post.
10. Beat the feet of the post player – step over one leg.
11. Constantly switch positions against good post players.
12. Make receivers step away from the goal.
13. When it comes to ball screens, force an adjustment from the ball or the screener.
14. Make shooters adjust.
15. Make set play entries adjust.
16. Hit someone on shots (not the shooter), i.e., don’t give rebounders a clean jump.
Never, ever let the offense do what they want and if you can’t stop them, then force them to adjust HOW they do it!
