Today's Theme... Defending Baseline Dribble-Penetration

Our defensive strategy is to force toward one side and then the baseline.  This is how we defend baseline dribble-penetration.

We stop and trap dribble-penetration along the baseline.  In diagram A, the on-ball defender X2 forces the dribbler to the baseline.  The low post defender X4 (who is fronting the post on the baseline side) immediately rotates to the baseline, stops the ball, and double-teams with the wing defender X2.

Meanwhile, the opposite post defender X5 rotates to cover the vacated post player O4, while the opposite helpside wing defender X3 drops down to protect the weakside. 

Once the ball is trapped at the baseline, we go for the five-second count, and anticipate and intercept a bad or tipped pass.  Notice that X1 gets in the gap between O1 and O3, looking to intercept a pass, or contain on the skip pass.

Diagram C shows a frequent situation.  O4 has moved up to the elbow, to clear-out for O2's move to the hoop.  Here, X5 immediately rotates to stop O2 along the baseline, while X3 drops to cover the weakside.

This works very well, but you must drill this in practice so it becomes automatic.  The most common errors are X5 and/or X3 rotating too slowly.  X5 should be moving out as soon as he/she sees O2 starting the dribble to the baseline.  And as soon as X3 sees X5 leaving, he/she must drop down inside.

Also see Man-to-Man Pressure Defense.