Low Post Defense – Playing Behind The Post

This is when you play behind the offensive player positioning yourself between the player and the basket. You are conceding the pass inside and trying to force the post player to score over you.

Advantages

There aren’t many...conceding the pass to the post completely is rarely a good idea. Most decent post players are going to score or get fouled if they catch the ball in the low post. Defensively it is important to find ways to prevent this from happening.
One situation where we might concede the post pass is against a poor offensive post player – a player who isn’t likely to to do anything productive (including passing) with the ball in the low post. This would be a player that probably didn’t want the ball in his hands
anyway.
Despite efforts to prevent the pass to the post, every team will end up giving up that pass from time to time. Consider working with your defensive players on recognizing the offensive players’ tendencies on the block. For example, most post players at and below the high school level
tend to make their moves in the same direction most of the time. If you are defending a player who makes a move to his left
every time he catches on the block, then your defenders should try to “sit on
the left shoulder” when the offensive player catches the ball in order to disrupt his timing and rhythm.
Obviously, if you play behind the post consistently you will find yourself in this situation more often, so you might want to spend extra time practicing “sitting on the post player’s favorite shoulder”.