Shell Drill – Defending Basket Cuts

This segment of the shell isolates defending the basket cut. The first thing you’ll want to determine before you get started is how you plan on defending the reversal pass – the pass back to the area around the top of the key from either wing. There are two standard approaches; your defensive philosophy and personnel should determine which approach you choose.

1. Standard pressure man to man defensive principles state that you want to defend in an on-the-line, up-the-line (denial) defensive stance at the top of the key if your man is one pass away. If you choose to deny you are really working to limit the opponent’s ability to reverse the basketball. By keeping the ball on one side of the floor, you will be able to establish a stronger help-side because your defenders won’t have to adjust their positions with respect to the ball and their man nearly as much as would be necessary against good ball movement.

2. Another defensive principle states that all defenders should be at or below the level of the ball – if a defender’s assignment is above the level of the ball, that defender should sink to the level of the ball. Sinking to the level of the ball provides better support against offensive penetration than denial at the expense of conceding the reversal pass.

Once you’ve made that decision, you’re ready to work on defending basket cuts, Basket cuts can occur from any perimeter position, but the vast majority are made from guard spots above the top of the key. That cut is what this teaching component of the shell drill focuses on defending.

The defender’s primary keys are:

1. To keep himself or herself between the ball and the man – by bumping the cutter.

2. To stay with the cutter – keeping the cutter in his or her field of vision.

On the pass from the top of the key to the wing, the defender should be careful not to follow the offensive player stepping away from the ball. The defenders should stay between the ball and the man, maintain vision of both, and create a stationary arm bar that meets the offensive player’s cut back to the ball. The defender should always maintain ball-you-man position staying between the man and the ball on the cut to the basket.

A final note – the defender should not follow the cutter out to the weak side of the floor from the basket at the end of the cut. When the cutter clears to the weak side , the defender remains in help position until the ball is passed out to the top of the key – then the defender can adjust and sprint out into one-the-line, up-the-line denial position.

Filed Under: Basketball Defense Drills

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