Four Priorities In Transition Defense
Sep 30, 2024 6:06 pm
Coach ,
As you know having solid transition defense is absolutely crucial.
But as all coaches know, if coaching transition defense was easy then every team in the world would be elite at it.
Coach Hughes most recently served currently as the head coach of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, a role he held from 2018-2021. In 2018 he led his team to the finals and won a WNBA championship with the Seattle Storm. Coach Hughes is the WNBA’s all-time leader in games he has coached (588) and is ranked third all-time in career wins (263).
His ‘Culture and Transition Defense’ clinic conveys vital tips for making transition defense one of your basketball team’s biggest strengths.
Q&A Assigning Crashes
“If you don’t play transition defense, you’re never going to be defensively what you need to be. Because you always going to be acted upon as opposed to acting on.”
Coach Hughes prioritizes four things in transition defense:
- Protect the basket area
In any situation, a team should never let their opponent lay the ball up to an open basket.
- Contain the basketball
A transition defense should always want to ball passed to either side of the court. A guard dribbling down the middle of the court is never good for transition defense.
- Throw away who you’re guarding
A player in transition defense must analyze their team’s needs and always defend the most dangerous threat, regardless if it’s their man or not.
- The weak-side three-point shooter
One player in transition offense is typically instructed to run to the weak side corner to spot up for a three. Defensive players should always be aware of this shooter and close out on them as soon as the drive is accounted for.
Coach Hughes then discusses how his transition defense’s priorities are based on defending the most dangerous threat to score.
From there, he goes on to discuss how he employs what’s called a “drop two” placement on transition defense.
This means that out of either the point guard, the shooting guard, or the small forward, two of those three players are always going to prioritize getting back on defense when a shot goes up. Deciding which two of these three players it is will depend on their positioning when the shot goes up.
Once those two players do so, they employ what’s either called a half-check or a full-check. A half-check is when the transition defenders pick up the offensive transition player at or before the half-court line, whereas the full-check is all the way back to the basket.
Double Drags
Coaches should always be aware of the opposing players that are on the court.
Every head coach should have a good enough idea of which players are threats to shoot three-pointers, especially those who like to run to the corner and set up for that shot in case the drive doesn’t work.
The coach should be aware of when these players are on the court and call them out to their transition defenders.
Never get out coached,
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