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ON-Ball DefenceAREASOFEMPHASISGUIDELINES FOR COACHES• The principle of overplaying or shadingthe offensive player by adopting anoverplay position or “nose to shoulder”position must be understood by allBritish junior players. Alternatively,complete denial of the dribble to oneside is achieved through being in aposition with “head over the ball” as afurther overplay position.• Playing a player “straight up”recognises a player has the ability togo left and right, so by playing “nose tochest” the good dribbler can bematched or neutralised by a gooddefender. Our British players mustunderstand the tactic and associatepositioning on the ball for“overplaying” and playing“straight up”.• Pressure defence is defence using thetime restrictions (clock) and otherviolations to the defence’s advantage.Use a clock when training andparticularly when drilling defence.Success in stopping a team is throughshot clock violations or 8 secondbackcourt or 5 second held ball.• Anticipation, preparation, leg over andelbow pull through, as well as forcingthe dribbler up and away from beingclose to the screener, are techniqueswhich must be explored as ON-Balldefence technique against theON-Ball screen.Recommendations For Clubs• Ensure players are taught defensivefootwork and how to defend thedribbler with correct positioning of feet,body and hands, to pressure butcontain.• Refer to the Basic Skills Checklists forthe basic ON-Ball defence footworkand movement.• Drill more in the full court to give ON-Ball defenders more practice and tohighlight the competencies needed byboth offence and defence.• Rather than start half or quarter courtdrills around the three point line, startoffences and drills over the half way orin three quarter court.• Commit to all teams being able to playeffective full court and half court man toman as their primary defence as achallenge to develop our British playersON-Ball defence capability. Howeverpressing full court in junior levels whenthe margin in the game is wide isusually counterproductive. This isparticularly at the U12 and U14 levels.As a general rule for when to stop witha dominant full court man to mandefence which the opposition isincapable of outplaying is 20 points.Hopefully our British coaches will knowwhen too much is too much. Full courtman to man is best tested against thebest teams not the worst.• Drill and scrimmage full court man toman defence with our U14 and U16swhilst having U18 and U20 playersextending into run and jump rotations.58