Perfect Practice

Shell drill-rebounding

Once you’ve gotten to the point where you are able to integrate rebounding into your shell drill is a good chance that your team is developing a good overall understanding of defensive concepts. Adding rebounding signifies that you developed a grasp on individual concepts within a man-to-man defense-on the line, up the line, ball-you-man, [...]

Shell Drill: Defending Motion

The next step with the shell drill is defending pass and screen away action. Initially, it is much simpler and clearer to teach this skill-set using just 3 offensive players and 3 defenders. The principle teaching concept at play in this scenario is that we want to open up, get into weakside help position, and [...]

6 on 4 Shell

The 6 on 4 shell is really just an extention of the 4 on 4 baseline penetration version of the shell with tewo added advantages: 1. It utilizes more players (keeping players active and involved), and 2. It places specific emphasis on a concept that can be difficult to grasp for some players [...]

Shell Drill: Baseline Penetration

Defending baseline penetration: Most half court man to man defenses in today’s game try to influence the ball handler to the sideline when the ball is in the middle of the floor and towards the baseline when the ball is on the side. The reason: Good players have more options and better angles (passing and [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

3 man defensive shell drill and closeout

1. With younger, more inexperienced players. I will sometimes run a 3 man shell instead of a 4 man shell - with an offensive player at the top of the key and at either wing. One disadvantage to this approach is that the player defending the top of the key only plays on-ball and on-the-line, [...]

Ask the Coach: Influencing the dribbler

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 [...]

Ask The Coach: Running the Shell Drill with Big Men

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 [...]

Continuity Offense vs. Set Plays.

Coach Stinson thanks for the press. I tried to run it last year but struggled with the rotations some. This will be a great help. Two questions to ask you. Very difficult to narrow it down, but I will try. I was looking for an effective but simple way in which to signal and change [...]