UNDERSTANDING OUR FULL COURT PRESSURE

New or younger players sometimes have a difficult time understanding what we are trying accomplish with our full court man-to-man pressure. We try and break it down into two main parts:

Part I

The opposing team has only five (5) seconds to inbound the ball. We use that five seconds against the inbounder. We play "off" the inbounder and use that defender as a rover to help pressure the ball if it does get inbounded.

The goal is to deny your man the ability to catch the ball - period! That means aggressively denying your man a chance to catch the ball for a five full seconds.

Part II

In the event the ball does get inbounded, our second goal is to pressure the ball and prevent it from crossing half court. Again, we play aggressive defense for the full 10 seconds.

By applying that type of pressure, we are not looking for steals, but rather looking to accomplish several other things:

We hope to frustrate the inbounder into making risky passes (where easy steals come from). We hope to make the ball handler nervous and force her into situations that make her uncomfortable. We hope to force our opponents into taking rushed shots (that will usually miss) and hurried and risky passes.

We want to completely shake our opponents confidence and make them want to avoid handling the ball. The only way to do that is through playing solid in-your-face defense.

We want them to feel pressure.

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