Excellent teams' core defensive philosophy includes no easy baskets such as transition. Transition baskets often arise off high point per possession setups (e.g. live ball turnovers) and offensive failures.
Limit transition scoring with:
- Commitment to limiting transition
- Limit live ball turnovers
- Shot selection
- Spacing to include floor balance
- Offensive rebounding
- Protecting the basket, slowing ball advancement, shaping up
- High effort with high engagement
The Celtics allow the fewest points per possession in transition in the NBA. Analyst Brian Scalabrine said that having either Kristaps Porzingis or Al Horford back at the top of the key dissuaded opposing guards from attacking.
"Invert, always invert." Why do teams have poor transition defense?
Video examples:
No rim protection
Live ball turnover leading to defense collapsing on the ball with an open perimeter shooter.
The bad and the good of it (Cavaliers)...annotated video shows how much floor balance matters.
Usually a good on-ball defender, Smart never contains the ball.
Usually, multiple problems contributes - turnovers, lack of alertness, lack of maximal effort, poor ball containment, etc.
Lagniappe. Watching practice often reveals a lot about execution.
Every athlete practices, but only a few practice with a purpose and passion to relentlessly compete in practice- not just complete practice.
— The Winning Difference (@thewinningdiff1) March 31, 2024
That's how you transform from a player who wants to win to a player who refuses to lose. pic.twitter.com/Z50Cxy3Siv
Lagniappe 2. The great Ryan Pannone (a difference maker)
Great way to encapsulate The 3 most important keys to any offense, as explained by @RyanPannone in this excellent article: https://t.co/ft0PBZG64e pic.twitter.com/exak9pa96r
— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) March 31, 2024