Home / Defensive drills / Shell Drill: Defending Penetration.
In this version of the shell drill, we are working to stop penetration to the middle of the floor. One common denominator among almost all halfcourt defenses is that they are able to keep the ball out of the paint. In order to successfully achieve this goal against penetration, it is important for off-ball defenders to give early help.
Note: It is easy to conclude that the best way to play halfcourt defense - when keeping the ball out of the paint is a primary defensive goal - is passively, sagging off (of both the ball and off-ball offensive players) to clog the lanes.
In fact, my approach is almost always the opposite - in order to stop penetration, we need all 5 players to be very active on the defensive end.
When we run the shell drill against dribble penetration, we are really working on what we will be doing in a game situation when our on-ball defense breaks down. This may seem obvious, but it is an important point nonetheless. We are NOT emulating what we want to see in games. Ideally, I don’t ever want to see my defense helping to defend the drive - because our expectation is to contain the ball.
If we get beat, we will early help that closes the gaps and forces the ball back out to the perimeter. But - and this cannot be stated too many times - the on-ball defender’s primary responsibility is to contain the ball.
My strong preference is to run man to man pressure defense - getting into passing lanes and disrupting the opponents timing and rhythm. In this framework, if we are defending a player one pass away from the ball, we should be defending in an on-the-line, up-the-line position - On the line between the ball and the man to disrupt the pass, and Up the Line towards the ball in order to support against the drive.
Again, we want to give early help - every time an offensive player sees a driving lane, we want to at least give the impression that we have closed the gap and taken away the drive. Active off-ball defenders can often deter the ballhandler by quickly bluffing toward the ball as if to help before returning to an on-the-line, up-the-line position (Show-and-Go).
If we fully commit to helping on the drive, we will shape up and get directly in front of the ballhandler to stop the drive - we call this going “number to number” with the ballhandler. On the pass out, the help defender must quickly locate his man and recover to on-ball defensive position (help and recover).
As a general rule, when an offensive player’s assignment leaves to help, that player should slide away from the ball and outside of the defender’s field of vision in a ready-to-shoot position - this makes it much more difficult for the defense to recover to the ball and defend the shot after helping.
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Shell Drill
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