"This is what happens when you buy the wrong size shoes!
Probably the most influential mentors in my basketball coaching career were Don Meyers and Dick Bennett. If you don't know who these coaches are and were, you must be fairly young. Dick
Bennett is the father of Tony Bennett who is the head
men's coach at the University of Virginia. Dick
coached at Wisconsin-Steven's Point, Wisconsin- Green Bay, the University of Wisconsin and Washington State University. He made one of the first video tapes I remember watching on his defensive philosophy at Steven's Point. He called his defense a "push" style defense. He later made a dvd at Washington State called the "Packline" defense. Don Meyers produced numerous videos while he was the head coach at David Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. He believed in the push style of man defense.
-Pack or Packline Man Defense:
1) Pressure the ball a step or two above the three point line on the
perimeter. All other perimeter players are inside the arc in help position.
The key premise is if you are one pass away on the perimeter you start in
a "help" position. You do not contest any pass above the so called "pack
line." Coach Bennett believed that the concept of "help and recover" is
where most man defenses breakdown so why not just get into a help
position off the ball so all you have to do is recover.
2) 3/4 wrap any low post offensive player. If the ball is successfully passed
inside, He (Bennett) doubled teamed on the catch usually off the other
inside player if the offense was a traditional 3 out 2 in. He believed you
cannot let your opponents post players beat you inside. Now if the
offense plays 4 out 1 in then you can decide if you want to double on the
post who will be the trapper. You can designate whom you want to
come on the trap.
3) When guarding the post from the wing or corner, DO NOT give up
baseline drives. Force dribblers into the middle of the floor where you
have help if needed. Ideally, you want your help to come from across
& not up.
*Things to remember about this defense:
a. Can be very effective if you are playing with a shot clock.
b. Can be difficult to create turnovers if you are behind.
c. MUST be really good at closing out because you will be doing a
great deal of it on the perimeter.
e. Without a shot clock, some of your less talented opponents will be able
to use clock, slow down the game and give themselves a chance to stay
in the game.
d. If you are interested in this defense watch University of Wisconsin, Xavier,
Louisville, and of course the University of Virginia.
- Push Man Defense:
1) Requires constant pressure on the ball.
2) If you are one pass away on the perimeter you are "up the line" and "on
the line". Your goal is don't allow the ball to be swung easily on the
perimeter. Make ball reversal difficult. Ideally you want to get the ball on
one side of the floor and keep it there.
3) You must be excellent on "help and recover" techniques. You must be
able to move from denial to help then back to closeout.
4) If the ball is on the wing or below the free throw line extended, force the
ball towards the baseline and cut them off before they get to the lane.
MUST have great help side defenders.
5) Wrap the post if the ball is above the free throw line extended but if the
ball is passed or dribbled below the free throw line extended the defender
guarding the offensive low post must step over the top and dead front the
post.
6) Do not allow the dribbler to split two perimeter defenders. Help across
not up!
7) Get the ball out of the middle of the floor and strive to keep it their. Shrink
the floor. Meyers talked about keeping the ball out of the funnel. Which
he defined as the middle third of the floor. Defend the outer two thirds
of the floor
*Things to remember about this defense:
a. Will probably need more depth to play this over an entire game.
b. Must be athletic enough on the perimeter or you will allow straight line
drives. That may result in the backline of your defense to step up to stop
the dribbler and expose the basket.
c. Texas Tech, South Carolina, and Duke have used this type of defense. Less
popular at the college level because it is very difficult to stop dribble
penetration by highly skilled athletes.
Texas Tech has some interesting tweaks to the "traditional" push style man defense. When the ball is on the wing or sideline, they play with their feet facing the sideline and above the top foot of the offensive player to force or encourage the offensive player to drive towards the baseline. Help side defenders need to stop the ball by being outside the lane line. Tech also
aggressively jump switches ball screens and dribble handoffs. If you have
4's and 5's who can stay in front of perimeter players, may be a good technique to use.
Because of the way we played defense, we sometimes struggled against teams that switched all screens. I tend to agree with those people who believe that a negative with switching is you create mismatches that the
offense can exploit by posting the defense up. I think this concern is vastly
over rated. I seldom saw "mismatch" situations result in post up success by the offense. To counter mismatch concerns is some teams switch only similar size players. In other words, if they are a perimeter player they switch only with other perimeter players. Post players only switch with other post players.
My point is, if you teach switching it can be very successful at the high school level. Why? Because not many teams use it. It does
require great communication or it will fail.
Regardless of what type of man you decide to play, how you defend the post
must be given significant attention. Coach Dick Bennett believed in doubling the low post. His philosophy was your low post player is NOT going
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