A Wing Thing

Constant source of debate between me and my coaching friends: what do you do with the perimeter player 1 pass away without the ball. Deny, Sag, Up the line (Off or On), Help, Zone, . . . the list of possibilties goes on and on.

Clearly players more than 1 pass away need to have their players sagged off into a help position seeing their person and the ball. The issue becomes what to do with the player who is a threat to recieve an immediate pass. Then you get into issues of it depending on the reciever, or the capabilites of the guy with the ball.

Maybe I'm too simple minded. Maybe I feel my players are too simple minded. My thought is: who cares, they don't have the ball. Players without the ball can't score until they get the ball. We zone the wing players, gapping up the line off the line. Our chest is sqaure to the ball handler and we a 1 sprint step away from close out.

If the ball handler is being pressured, then the biggest threat is the dribble drive. A pressured wing pass can just as easily be stolen from this position as up denying the wing. In fact, more so because a denied player is probably less likely to a be the target of a pressured pass. A pressured pass should be also easy to close out on since the catch shouldn't be clean. I think doing anything else just opens up drive lanes and requires defenders on bigs to help up (giving up a dump or lob) or help late (letting an attacking player get into the lane).

Maybe I'm wrong. I understand all the situations and reasons for other things. We will deny a kid who we don't want to become the target of a pass, but in that case we are denying all the time and that defender has no other reads/jobs defensively. For me its, its keep it simple. Pressure the ball to drive have everyone taking that away.