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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Pressure 101

Pressure defense has many purposes. Pressure takes advantage of teams that handle the ball poorly and make poor decisions. It forces tempo. It engages players. It informs the "comeback game." For many teams, 'defense becomes offense' forcing turnovers.

The overlooked phase of basketball is 'conversion', that one to one and one-half second interval between offense and defense and vice versa. Successful teams 'instantly' convert and play with purpose during that conversion.



In the video, Coach Shaka Smart (now at Texas) demonstrates how he wants the press run.

Yes this is "Pressure 101", everybody knows that stuff, with trappers, interceptors (yellow areas), and safety/goaltender. 

Coaches decide whether to trap immediately or wait until the ball is put on the floor and deployment of personnel. Generally, I like to put the most athletic players at "madman" and top of the key, and the least impactful trapper as safety. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom where X5 is often simply the center. I want good decisions, deflections, and steals from the X4, and a lot of pressure from the 'madman' and wings. 

When inbounds denying, I prefer "hawk" (chest-to-chest) defense from the wings, inviting the lob pass and relying on the anticipation and reaction of second line defenders to make the play. 

Note in the video how Smart realizes that a certain amount of time the ball comes back to 3, and that the opposite wing 'stunts' (fakes) to delay the advance slightly and relies on the athleticism of the 'madman' to get back in the fight. 

Another alternative is to play X3 off the ball initially as an extra defender/centerfielder. This can take on the look of a 2-2-1 (UCLA) trap, modified by inbounds denial.

Regarding denying sidelines penetration ("take away the sideline"), I favor teaching the wing defenders that if they need to defend with the outside foot OUT OF BOUNDS to deny the sideline, do so and recover inbounds after the trap. The goal of trapping is not for the trappers to steal the ball as much as to force bad decisions/bad passes. Trappers should not allow 'gut passes' (through the trap), should not foul, and the goal is forcing passes backward or over the outside shoulder. 



You aren't going to get turnovers and steals every play and good play will occasionally break the press 'cleanly'. It's about establishing tradeoffs in the system and having young players develop consistency.