Coaching basketball defenses can be tricky - choosing man to man defense almost always increases the pressure on the offense, but it makes it more difficult to help out if a man gets beat. Playing a zone allows you to close down driving lanes easier and force a shot, but there is too often little pressure on the shooter. So which defenses do you include in your basketball coaching strategies?
Every basketball coaching book will give you a different answer. Personally, I'm a big fan of man to man. It's more demanding and to play it well your players need to be in excellent physical shape, but it's also more pressure and it makes the offense work for everything they get - if your team can play man to man defense well, they can very often rule the game.
But there are other times that I concede a different defensive strategy may be better. For example, an opponent with a strong outside player but relatively few other strong players: you want to shut down the strong player, but if you have your players play him man to man close up, there's a good chance he'll beat them to the hoop. They lay off, he'll shoot over them.
The solution?
The Box and 1 pits one defensive player against the strong offensive player, one on one. The rest of the team, however, remains in a zone, in a box formation as the diagram below indicates (the "1" in the diagram is shaded in - player #3)
The Box and 1 is a great strategy to use when you are coaching basketball defense against a team with a strong player but mediocre support. It isn't a defensive strategy to use all the time, but it is something that you can use on occasion to shake things up and take a key offensive player out of the game.
The other strategy to add in to help you take their star player out of the game is to tire him on his defensive end - whichever of your players he is guarding must be constantly moving, constantly running, cutting for the ball, breaking for a fast break. Make him run and work at both ends of the court and he will get tired soon enough.
Good Luck!
"One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar