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These questions came from Coach Chris in early July:

1. What variations of shell drill do coaches run (i.e. what do you do with big men? Do coaches do something other than 4 out, etc.)?
2. On M2M defense, do you turn a man baseline or middle and why?

I’ll talk about involving post players in the shell drill today, and tackle the rest of these questions over the next 2 newsletters.

Re: Big Men in the shell drill.

I think you should absolutely include your big man in the shell drill, and play him from the post position:

**I will add a disclaimer here to state that at the youth levels it is especially important that you involve your big men in your perimeter drills and scrimmages, at least to some extent. Everybody, including big men, should be able to catch the ball on the perimeter and make a good passing decision, or step out to the perimeter to defend. In 99% of cases, the coach who banishes a big kid to the post and never lets him or her touch the ball or defend outside of the paint is doing that player a huge disservice**

That being said, you can start out having an offensive post player stand stationary on one block and have the defensive post work on footwork and positioning as the ball gets reversed around the perimeter.

Next, you can have the offensive post flash across the lane to either block as the ball gets reversed. The defensive post should work on bumping the cutter (by making an arm bar) and riding the cutter up the lane, as well as working on fronting or ¾ denial of the offensive player on the strong side post

Placing the offensive player back in a stationary position at either low post, you can start to work on defending penetration. On a drive from the ball-side wing – the post should stop the drive. How the mechanics of it work depends on whether you’re fronting the post, plaiting ¾ denial, or playing behind.

On a drive from the opposite wing, the post player must meet the ball-handler outside of the lane with quick help. Post defense is a matter of positioning and angles. I tell my teams – we don’t have any shot blockers – we have quick, active, defenders who understand positioning and angles.

(Do I really believe there is ‘no such thing as shot blockers’)? – No. Of course there are shot blockers. – The reason I send the message in that way is because, very often, players will go for a spectacular block – spiking the ball out of bounds , in defensive version of an “And-1 commercial” – and pick up a stupid foul when it would have been easier to just establish position.)

A few more key areas to work on with post defenders in a shell:

· Defending a cut across the lane with the ball at the top of the key – we swing open to the ball with our hands up and the defender on our back, and then re-establish position on the other side of the lane

·Defensive positioning when defending a player on the weak side low post (i.e. the ball is on the right wing; player being defended is on the left block). At the younger levels, the post defender can often step off of the weak-side post into the middle of the lane to better support to strong-side drive. As players develop, post defenders can’t step so far away off of good post-players without getting pinned in the key on ball reversal.
If you front the post, you should spend some time on the footwork involved with stepping around the offensive post player on the pass from the point to the ball-side wing.
If you play ¾ denial on the post, you should also work on executing an x-step to shift from high side to low-side denial as the ball moves from the wing to the corner.
Whatever you teach, defensively, it should be aligned with your team’s strengths as much as possible. Whatever those strengths happen to be, the shell drill is a great tool to give any team’s natural strengths the discipline needed to be successful.