When on defense, we can’t all defend the opposing player with the ball. We have to be prepared for the ball handler to try to pass the ball to one of their teammates. Being able to defend against the pass means we can create turnovers and disrupt the other team’s offense. However, this takes a team effort and a lot of practice to get right!
As we talked about in the last post, one player needs to be on the ball handler with active hands and positioned so that he/she is in between the ball and the goal at all times. If the ball handler picks up the dribble then the defender takes a big step forward to disrupt further.
While one of our team is on the ball handler, everyone else has a job to do with the other players. If we are guarding a player that is one pass away from the ball handler then we need to position ourself in between the player we are guarding and the ball. This means that we’re going to need to move when both things move. It also means that we need to keep an eye on both things.
While we are doing this, we are in the ready position (i.e. we squat down into a partial squat) with both hands up. This allows us to deflect or catch any passes to the player that we are defending. By staying in between the player and the ball we are acting as an obstacle to the pass.
What happens if the player we are guarding gets the ball anyway? Then we shift to on ball defense that was described in an earlier post.
What if our player is not one pass away from the ball? That will be the topic for our next post!
