Up and Back Defenses

Thinking about a defensive system where we are in total all out pressure or in a total sag keep ball out of the paint with post double principles.

In our 'Up' defense we would be all out pressure on makes and misses with a 'jammer' of the ball or the inbounder, 3 anticipators and 1 get back or hole guy.  We work on pressing on makes and misses, we work on getting to the first available man and we work on steering offensive dribblers/receivers into preordained traps.  If the offense was to get out of the full court pressure we would immediately get into half court zone pressure of a 2-2-1 with four guys swarming and 1 big protecting.  Since we have limited time to teach man principles and with the emergence of more of a dribble drive and ball screen offense, i think the zone pressure allows for the defense to dictate to the offense to spread the floor for outlets.

In our 'Back' defense we are sprinting to recovery to the 3pt/lane line area and we are in full help off the ball and compacted to limited layups and offensive rebounds.  Our defense would fight the lane pass and the drive with quick help but would be willing to concede the catch on the 3pt line with a quick contest of the shot.  The 'back' defense would also have the post double trap coming from the top of the key area so the low post defender would not have to front and give up lobs/ offensive rebounding position, etc.

Every day we would work on the 'up' defense for at least 8 minutes to simulate having to come back from behind in a game.  We would also work on our 'back' defense to simulate the part of the game where you have to hunker down and get stops.  In past years our shell drill defense was about 16 minutes of practice plans so this practice set up would allow us to work the same amount of time on defensive principles but might in the long run allow our players to also begin to work on situational defense.