Defensive Breakdowns with Ball Screens

[HeRKeYHoPeFuL]

This is posed to those with coaching background. Are the difficulties we're seeing for Iowa defensively, where opponents are getting lobs for uncontested lay ups, dunks, or alley-oops following a ball screen due to over-helping (hard hedges), non-committed helping (being in no man's land), or poor rotation (help the helper)?

I've seen complaints about our decisions to hedge hard, but it seems to me that if we do a good job of keeping ball pressure, they should be unable to get the pass to the rim. It seems like the ugly plays have tended to be more being caught between helping and sticking with the screener or having a weak-side defender fall asleep on a back-cut. I don't have the luxury of re-watching to analyze, so wondering if anyone is seeing trends on this.

What are your diagnoses and what is needed to fix the issues?

 

[ScoutRefugee]

1. Poor on ball defenders at both guard positions. Fix = Recruit better athletes
2. Poor rotations and not knowing assignments. Fix = time? Experience?
3. Poor close outs on 3 pt shooters. Fix = recruit quicker players or bench the players that aren't hustling to close out or are too out of position to close out effectively.
4. Recruit tougher players that play defense like it's an important part of the game. That would solve a lot of issues right there.
5. BALANCE YOUR RECRUITING CLASSES. This way you don't get this level of defensive breakdown because you have upperclassmen on the court to direct the young kids
That's my 2 cents. The reason you aren't getting many responses is the questions are only relevant on a play by play basis. Every defensive breakdown can have half a dozen reasons why it broke down. It's not real easy to throw basic solutions at this kind of problem

 

[hawk_it]

I am not a coach but I would add 2 cents:

1 keeping your head on a swivel
2 better communication by teammates to the one being screened;
'screen!, screen!, screen!'
3 When in man-2-man, watch how far out you start picking up the guy with the ball
4 Keep mixing defenses to keep the chess game up.

Off topic comment: do not over commit on the corner close-out so you can block the shooter out on long rebounds. Most of the time getting a hand in their face should do.

 

[mepohawk]

This is posed to those with coaching background. Are the difficulties we're seeing for Iowa defensively, where opponents are getting lobs for uncontested lay ups, dunks, or alley-oops following a ball screen due to over-helping (hard hedges), non-committed helping (being in no man's land), or poor rotation (help the helper)?

I've seen complaints about our decisions to hedge hard, but it seems to me that if we do a good job of keeping ball pressure, they should be unable to get the pass to the rim. It seems like the ugly plays have tended to be more being caught between helping and sticking with the screener or having a weak-side defender fall asleep on a back-cut. I don't have the luxury of re-watching to analyze, so wondering if anyone is seeing trends on this.

What are your diagnoses and what is needed to fix the issues?[/QUOTE Develop a consistent philosophy on how to handle on the ball screens. Sometimes we switch, sometimes we hedge, sometimes we duck behind and sometimes we try to fight through. This leads to confusion and easy baskets. Also, we need to heed the principle of ball-you-man. A player should always be a position to see the ball and his man. Most of the time Iowa players lose sight of one or the other. Again the result is easy baskets for the opposition.

 

[HeRKeYHoPeFuL]

Mepo - does having a consistent philosophy make us easier to game plan and against? I know I was taught to always fight over the screen when I was younger, but we were always given the leeway to call for a switch when we failed to get over.

My initial impression was that the issue was with our bigs. When the guards get screened off, they seem to only half help freeing up their man to roll to the rim, and not putting pressure on the passer, thus giving easy looks. I would expect that making a concerted effort to either stay with the screener, or putting hard pressure on the ball.

 

[RocknRollface]

Mepo - does having a consistent philosophy make us easier to game plan and against? I know I was taught to always fight over the screen when I was younger, but we were always given the leeway to call for a switch when we failed to get over.

My initial impression was that the issue was with our bigs. When the guards get screened off, they seem to only half help freeing up their man to roll to the rim, and not putting pressure on the passer, thus giving easy looks. I would expect that making a concerted effort to either stay with the screener, or putting hard pressure on the ball.

Yes on the consistent philosophy being easier to game plan for.

The problem is actually really simple.

For whayever reason our bigs simply cant excute the strategy. They jump up on top of the screen but they have almost no impact on the ball handler who usually just goes right around them.

 

[hawk_it]

I found this instructional on ball screen defense. It is hard to hear but has some good points to learn. The coach turns from the mic alot so if you listen a couple of times you can pick up more.

 

[hawk_it]

I going to post a few more ball screen instructionals for those who are interested. Different approaches are fun to learn.

 

[hawk_it]

Here is NBA Defense: How to ICE the Pick And Roll