This is the second question from Coach Chris, received in early July:
Q: On M2M defense, do you turn a man baseline or middle and why?
A lot of how you defend the perimeter depends on the size of your big players. Generally speaking, I like to influence the dribbler towards the baseline for the following reason: When we rotate out to help against a player on the baseline, if we are able to stop the dribble we have the ball handler in an area where most players have a difficult time making a productive decision with the ball - behind the backboard, trapped by (usually) a tall post player and his man, with no readily available teammates to pass to (Figure B).
Compare this to a player who drives towards the middle and gets stopped in the elbow area. This player possibly has a straight-ahead 15 foot shot, an easy dump-off pass to the top of the key, and a better passing angle to any of the other three teammates than would be available from the baseline trap (Fig. C).
Influencing the dribble A
Influencing the Dribbler B
Influencing The Dribbler C
This doesn’t mean that all teams should force the ball baseline. This is especially true for teams that are undersized. If you are undersized, forcing ball handlers towards the baseline can be self-defeating if those ball handlers can just shoot over the top of your midgets when they get there.
Also, I think ANY conversation on this topic needs to start with the following disclaimer: You are influencing the ball in the direction of the baseline or the middle, you are not getting beat in either direction. The on-ball defender’s primary responsibility is and always will be to contain the ball. No matter where you “force” the ball, if you force your help defenders to rotate to help over and over and over, you’re not going to be a very good team, you’ll probably be in foul trouble more often than not, and your rebounding stats will be very poor as well (since box-out responsibilities can get confused after the team has rotated to help). The primary responsibility of the on-ball defender is always to contain the ball. No matter which direction we are influencing the basketball; we will always consider it a mistake if we are consistently getting beat in that direction.
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