Basketball Defensive Drills - The Commandments

These basketball defensive drills are what Hubie Brown calls the "5 Commandments Of Basketball Defense". These are kinda like principles for good defense to never let the opponent take the shot, pass the ball, dribble past by you or anything like that.

"Defense wins championships". You've probably heard that saying because it's true. All the smart coaches don't care if you're a scoring machine and you suck at your defense.

You lose respect as a player.

And to some extent it's natural that players want to play other stuff.

Sure, shooting the ball, passing, dunking, it's all more fun than defense. But the team who knows how to execute a sound defensive strategy wins titles. Okay, the 5 commandments are:

Fan. Always fan the ball to the outside.

Mid point. Chase everything to the mid point. Force him to go there. Why? Because that's a low percentage shot.

No middle. If the player is on the wing, you are not going to let him go to the middle of the floor because all players brake you down in the middle. You split him in half. This goes along with the first rule which to illustrate just how important that is.

Never foul jump shooter. If the opponent starts dribbling and he wants to take a jump shot, never, ever, foul him. If he's having a good night, he'll hit 50% of the shots. But if you foul him, from the free throw line, he'll make 80% of his shots (assuming he's a good foul shooter).

Challenge & block out. There shouldn't be any single shot that your opponent takes, that you do not challenge. By challenge I mean, trying to block his shot by elevating. Do that by standing 3 feet away so that you do not increase your chances of fouling him.

If he managed to shoot the ball, as you step down, with your back, block him out. And you wanna raise your elbows because that way, even though you're not looking at your man you're blocking out, you'll know where he is at.

Plus you're bigger with you put your elbows out. You take up more space.

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