The Defense

Contrary to some of the scores we give up I feel like we have a pretty solid defensive philosophy.

I have never been much of a believer that statistical differences are an indicator of good defense. Just because I can hold someone's score down doesn't mean I play good defense. It could, but I could also mean that: I'm holding the ball on offense for long periods, keeping the ball away from the other team, and using a couple of kids who can defend on their top players while everyone else is just letting the other team shoot. To me that's not good defense.

Coaches talk about turnover ratio, but again what we do on offense has as much do do with that number as our defense.

My judge of the success of our defense is the reaction of the opposition to it: are they having to call timeouts to dicuss things, are they needing to be reminded to calm down, are the looking to the officials for help, do they get furstrated and make notably frustrated decisions. My favorite defensive moment as a coach came in a game where late we got called for a blocking foul trying to trap the ball. The opposition threw the ball at our kid and said "Don't you ever f%^&ing quit!".

Why do we defend the way we do (what we believe about defense):
- It is harder to play and make decisions under pressure.
- It is harder to play and make decisions when playing at speed.
- More defenders and ways to stop the ball is better than less defenders.
- Less options and choices for the offense is better than more.
- Having the defense know what the offense is going to have to do is easier for us to attack, then reacting to the offense.
- We want the offense to have to execute skills at speed for 94 feet every possesion.
- A physical game, played at high pace, under constant pressure will favour a team that has better coached, skilled athletes over a group with a couple of solid individuals trying to execute a system.

How do we defend the way we do (what we are trying to do):
- The player with the ball must be forced to dribble it. They are not allowed to be passers or shooters.
- All dribblers must be forced to the sideline and baseline.
- Everyone defensively must be in a stance all the time.
- Job of players off the ball is to attack the dribbler and cover for attacking teammates.
- The ball cannot be unguarded.
- Everyone moves with the ball in the air. Picking up closest men once the ball is guarded.
- Any ball inside the 3 point line or at a checkpoint is doubled. Any ball in the key is collapsed by everyone.