Newsletter #343

Today's Theme... Defending a Star Point Guard

Our "Triangle Defense" is used mainly to stop a team with a dominant, star perimeter player.  In this email we'll discuss using it against a great point guard. 

If you have a great 1-on-1 defender, instead of using the triangle,  you could just put him on the star everywhere on the court, denying him the pass (including after a made basket), and hounding and controlling him.  This 1-on-1 defender would not be concerned with giving help, just stay with the star.

Our use the triangle...

This defense attempts to deny the star the ball, and double-team when he/she does get the ball.  We try to make the star give up the ball, and then prevent him/her from getting it back. 

We use both man-to-man and zone principles.  We assign our best perimeter defender to guard the star, and stay on him/her all the time everywhere, containing and denying.  He/she will not come off the star to give help.  If the defense uses two low post players, we will set up in a triangle (formed by X3, X4 and X5) as seen in diagram A.  X3 is at the top half of the free-throw circle, our "point defender".  X2 and X3 rotate in and out of the point position and help double-team the star.

As the star dribbles across half court, X2 sprints up to double-team. Usually this causes the star to pass off to a wing.  X3 takes the first pass out of the double-team and closes-out. X2 drops into the point position.  X1 stays on the star and denies the pass back.

On the skip pass to the opposite wing (diagram C), X2 now takes the pass to O2, and X3 drops back to the point.  X1 is always denying.  Notice that our post defenders are using our basic man-to-man principles inside with the weakside post defender in helpside.

No matter how good your star defender is, the ball will get back to the star.  The point defender X3 sprints to double-team and X2 drops to the point.  If the star is able to split the trap and dribble-penetrates (diagram F), our point defender is the next line of defense.  In this case, the point defender X2 becomes the star defender (switches with X1), and X1 and X3 fan out to the other two wing players, who may be spotting up for a 3-point shot.

In our next newsletter, we'll discuss the triangle for defending a star wing player.

See these pages:

    Triangle Defense for Defending a Star Player — detailed options and diagrams.
    Junk Defenses and defending a star player — box-and-1, 1-3 and a chaser, 3-1 and a chaser, diamond and 1, etc.