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Defensive Transition Drills Pick Up The Pace
By Will Mayer, Head Boys Coach, Middletown North High School, Middletown, N.J.
Here are two very competitive drills that help improve your player's ability to recover in transition defense.
DIAGRAM 1: "Never-Too-Late" Drill. The drill runs for 3 minutes and then offense and defense switch off. Player C inbounds the ball to 1 or 2. X2, starting at the hash mark, gets back on defense, while X1(who's positioned on the opposite foul line) sprints in from behind to provide catch-up help defense in transition. Put a scoring system in place where an offensive basket counts for 1 point and any defensive stop or turnover results in minus 2 points for the offensive team. After both teams have played offense for the 3 minutes, the team with the least amount of points runs laps.
DIAGRAM 2: 2-Player Recovery Drill. Using the same time-limits and scoring system as in the previous drill, player 1 begins the drill by passing to 2. 2 passes to 3. Players 3 and 4 attack X1 in a 2-on-1 situation.
X2 must sprint back as soon as 1 makes his or her pass and tries to provide defensive help in transition. The offense rotates after each possession in the following manner: 5 to 1's spot, 1 to 2's spot, 2 to 3's spot, 3 to the end of 4's line and 4 to the end of 1's line.
