The best basketball offense in the league won’t be enough if you can’t get the ball. Look at the Lakers in the 80s – Showtime! Magic leading the break, Worthy streaking down the side for a long armed authoritative dunk. And if they needed to set up an offense, they had Kareem inside shooting his unstoppable sky hook, and Michael Cooper on the outside popping threes. They redefined the game of basketball into a fast breaking, high scoring steamroller.

But without solid basketball defense, they wouldn’t have been able to get the break started. So it was a good thing that they had one of the best defensive players in the league in Michael Cooper. And one of the scrappiest players in the league in Kurt Rambis, as well as the height of Kareem to rebound. Spectacular offense scored them many points, but it was solid defense that kept the other team from scoring more.

I always focus on defense at the beginning of the pre-season. Defense and conditioning, since they go hand in hand. Players need to get the ball before they can do anything with it – the better their defense is, the more often they’ll find themselves in possession of the ball. And keep in mind that even at the professional level, the average shooting percentage is under 45% - greater than half of all shots that go up, miss. If your players can rebound on the defensive end, they cut down the ability of their opponents to score.

Of course, if your players can’t play defense, you can expect the opposition’s shooting average to skyrocket as they stroll past your players on the way to the hoop. So here’s some ways you can set up your defense to stop your opponents and give the ball back to your team.

Defense can be categorized as either man-to-man, zone, or a combination of man-to-man and zone. And defense can start anywhere on the court – most “normal” game situations have the defense setting up in the quarter of the court, defending the basket. But of course, we can also extend that to the half court and to the full court – in other words, we can apply more pressure (presses) and try to force turnovers.

Basketball Defense: Man-to-Man

• Man-to-Man General Principles
  
  
• The Run & Jump
  
  

Basketball Defense: Zone Defenses

• The 2-3 Zone
  
  
• The 1–3–1 Zone
  
  

Basketball Defense: Presses

• Half-Court Press
  
  
• Full Court Press
  
  

Basketball Defense: Combination Defenses

• Box & 1
  
  
• Triangle & 2
  
  
• Box & None
  
  

Choose the style of defense that best suits your personnel. You’ll always have to teach man-to-man principles, since they apply to every style of defense, zone or otherwise. But it’s always good to have a couple of different styles of defense you can use, so you are able to adapt to different situations.

Regardless of the style of defense you choose to use, instill in your players the idea that they must be offensive on defense – they cannot allow the opponent to dictate what happens.

The defense must control the game – they must direct the ball in the direction they want; they must apply pressure to the ball carrier so that he makes weak or ill-timed passes, or takes poor-percentage shots. They must force the opponent to either turn over the ball or take a shot they don’t want.

And that happens when they play great defense.