Defensive Tips for Beginning Coaches
When you are a rookie coach the best thing to learn and understand is defense. If you can keep a team from scoring and can get your team focused on playing good defense then you’ll be in every game.
Here are some principles to remember when working as a first time coach or younger players:
1. TEACH MAN TO MAN: Don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of a zone defense. It is easy to coach and kids love playing it but when they are younger they view it as an excuse to be lazy. Bad things will happen early on and later when you realize you made a mistake and have to go to the man to man defense. Kids will pick zone over man most of the time and they’ll learn bad habits.
2. Stop the ball: The player with the ball is always more important than a player who doesn’t have it. Now don’t teach the kids to all attack the basketball, but they have to learn early on that if a man is driving to the basket they need to let their man go and try to stop the ball.
3. Understanding Help: Each player should understand that he/she needs to be ready at all times to play help defense. If the ball is on the baseline you don’t want your kids chasing a guy at half court for no reason. The principle needs to be taught that if a player needs help then you need to be able to help him and stop the ball.
4. Know where the basket is: How many times do young players completely lose sight of where they are on the floor? I see it all the time. They don’t know where the basket is in relation to where the player they are guarding is. The basic rule is to form an imaginary triangle between the ball the man and the basket at all times.
5. Run the shell drill: In practice run a shell drill with the defense guarding players on the outside who only pass or dribble but never shoot. The players will learn that the defense should move as a whole unit. Have the offensive players pass the ball on the outside and teach them principles like help preparation or denying a pass to the wing. The Shell will give your players knowledge that is practical for beginning basketball players.
There you go. I know it is a little short and I’ve written entire articles on the subjuect at www.hoopskills.com that you can reference also.
