• Frame 1 - The coach (O1) in the diagram has two basketballs. O2 is offense, X1 is defense. O4 is from the end of the line on the baseline and will retrieve the basketball that the defense knocks back in play. 3 and 5 will be the next players up in the drill.
   

• Frame 2 - O2 (offense) cuts to the wing to get open to receive a pass. X1 (defense) attempts to deny the ball from being caught. The coach,O1, makes the pass regardless of whether or not the offense is open. We like to have a coach (or a manager) make the pass so that if he or she does force the pass and it is a turnover, we are not reinforcing for a player to make a bad or turnover pass.
   

• Frame 3 - 2 (defense) is still in a denial stance and knocks the ball back in play with the hand closest to the passer so he or she could recover it in a game. Immediately after defense the knocks the ball back in play, O2 (offense) cuts back door. The defense executes what we refer to as the “close down” technique (See Teaching Point #2 below), sprints to the basket and catches the ball with two hands.

The reason that we do not catch on the wing, but we do at the basket, is that we feel if we reach to catch on the wing (a good offensive passer is going to throw the ball to the outside away from the defense) and miss, then we have taken ourselves out of the play and cannot defend the drive. When the ball is thrown to the basket, there is only a need to catch the ball.

Teaching Points

1. On the wing denial, we knock the ball back inbounds with the hand closest to the passer in order to be able to recover it, rather than knocking it out of bounds and automatically giving it back to the offense.
    

2. Regardless of what you teach, it is important to have a method of defending a backdoor cut. We call the technique that we teach “closing down.”

   
   We forward pivot--stepping the foot closest to the sideline directly at the basket. We then snap the head (temporarily losing site of the ball) and then immediately locate the basketball as we are sprinting toward the basket. Our reason for teaching the close down technique is that we feel that it is the quickest way to get back to the basket to defend a backdoor pass to prevent a layup.
    

3. On the wing denial, we knock the ball back inbounds with the hand closest to the passer in order to be able to recover it, rather than knocking it out of bounds and automatically giving it back to the offense.

If the defense fails in the denial of the first pass from the coach and the offense catches, then we play live driving lines from that point—no more than three dribbles for the offense to score.

The defense must go until they correctly execute the denial on the wing, the closedown, and the catch at the basket. If the offense catches the ball at either spot, they play one on one. If the offense scores or is fouled, the defense has one sprint to run. If the defense stops the offense, there is no sprint to run, but the defense must go again since there was not correct execution of the denials.

When there are extra players waiting in line, we rotate from offense to defense to the end of the line--the end of the line being the spot next to the coach to track down the basketball. We like that because the defense just went on offense and is not fresh.

Have this drill running at as many baskets as you have coaches to oversee so that there is as little standing as possible.

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