Attacking Full Court Pressure, Part Four: Test the Defense
Oct 24, 2019
2 Min Read
By Mark Seeberg
Retired Assistant Coach, Loyola Academy
Determining what kind of press you’re facing is easy with these steps.
Our ninth lesson in defeating full-court pressure centers around knowing what your opponent is trying to do, and reacting accordingly.
Lesson 9: When in doubt, test the defense.
Sometimes in the heat of battle, even if you’ve scouted your opponent beforehand, you may get confused about what kind of press you’re facing. That’s when it’s time to test the defense.
The first test actually occurs automatically when the teams line up for the throw-in.
By positioning your players across the breadth and depth of the court as we discussed in lesson one, you force the defense to declare itself. The key is to look at how the defense is guarding or shadowing your two midcourt attackers.
If one defender is playing between them, then you’re very likely facing a zone press featuring an odd or three-man front that will attempt to double-team and trap your ball handler in the backcourt.
On the other hand, if the defense matches your two midcourt attackers, you’re facing an even or two-man front and they’ll use one of three defenses: a 2-2-1 zone press that will seek to trap you along the sideline; a man-to-man press; or a combination of the two.
In this case, you need a second test to determine which defense is in play. Here’s how it works.
The inbounder completes the throw-in and splits the defense to give his partner an open path to dribble the ball up the floor. If one of the frontline defenders follows him as he cuts, then you’re facing—at least initially—man pressure, and you can dribble the ball up the floor.
If the defense ignores the splitting cut, then you’re either facing a 2-2-1 zone press or a combination press that looks like man pressure, but will quickly morph into a trapping defense. For that reason, after splitting the frontline defenders, the inbounder always loops back to provide a safety value in case the dribbler is suddenly trapped.
If no trap occurs, the ball handler continues his dribble up the open side of the floor. If he runs out of room, he waits for his teammate to split the defense again, then continues up the other side of the floor. Each time, the splitting action serves as a semi-screen giving him room to maneuver.
Meanwhile, our two midcourt attackers advance up the floor, spacing in proportion to the movement of the guards and the ball. If at any point a trap occurs, the attack box is in place to respond. If a defender suddenly reverses direction to trap the ball, the attack box shifts accordingly to create three passing lanes for the trapped ball handler.
Again, as I noted in lesson two, all presses are really the same. Why? Because the offensive attack box response renders them the same.
Mark Seeberg was an assistant basketball coach at Loyola Academy in the powerful Chicago Catholic League for nearly twenty years. He was also a student trainer for the Notre Dame men’s basketball team during the Austin Carr era, 1967 – 71. Today, Seeberg runs a blog on college basketball, Better than a layup.
