Basketball Drills: 3 Defensive Drills

coachingtoolbox.net/basketball-drills/basketball-drills-3-defensive-drills.html

July 31, 2015

These 3 defensive drills are from Matt Monroe’s Hoops Roundtable site.

He posts a new article daily and has a lot of really good articles that he has written as well
as contributions from several other coaches.

Use these drills as ideas for improving the drills you use to teach and reinforce your
defensive concepts and principles.

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Defensive Drift Drill

#1 passes the ball to #2 and closes out

#2 passes the ball to #3

#1 sprints to the denial area

#3 passes the ball to #4 #1 sprints to help

#4 drives and #1 sprints to take a charge

3 on 3 Sprint to Help Closeouts

In my opinion, anything you can use to teach “Sprint to Help.” “Run when the pass is in
the air,” and “Get there before the ball does” is a great drill for your defense.

Three players along the sideline start with basketballs

Three defenders are guarding them

Two coaches act as passers and move the defense with their actions

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The coach passes the ball

On the airtime of the ball, the three

defenders sprint to the helpline and get in
the proper position and stance

When the ball is passed back to the other

coach, the defensive players closeout to
their men with the proper technique

Repeat several times

Kansas Closeouts
Tom Kleinschmidt, Head Boys’ Basketball Coach, DePaul College Prep (Chicago)

Cones are placed in both corners and on both wings

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Defensive player (x1) closes out to each
cone in this order: wing, to corner, to
opposite corner, to opposite wing

After all 4 closeouts are complete, x1 slides

to the sideline and x2 begins the drill

Sprint to closeout but don’t jump into

closeout

Keep hips low on slide steps and do not

bring your feet together

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