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2. Defense
“Offense sells tickets, Defense wins championships”. This common phrase means that although offense is entertaining and fun, teams that have strong defenses are most likely to win a championship. For example, the Golden State Warriors held teams to the lowest shooting percentage in the NBA every year they won the championship (‘15, ‘17, ‘18). Unfortunately amongst many new teams that are developing, defense is not taken seriously, is not practiced, and is overlooked. The teams that practice defense the most will have an advantage over teams that don’t.
(1) Q: Why is defense so important?
A: There are many reasons! Here are just a few:
If the other team scores more points than you, you will lose! Stopping two points is just as important as scoring two points.
Shooting is a skill that takes much precision, and has many factors that are needed for a successful shot. It is very easy for that precision to be slightly off, or for one of the factors to be slightly incorrect. The margin of error is very low. Therefore it is very possible to have a bad shooting day (even Steph Curry does!) and for the offensive shooting percentage to fluctuate each game. But on defense, all that is needed is focus and hard work, and defense can always be consistent and constant. The margin of error is higher than shooting and offense.
Good defense many times will lead to good offense; causing offensive turnovers and low percentage shots with rebounds can lead to fast breaks on offense, which are higher percentage shots because the other defense cannot set up in time and are not prepared. If you play bad defense, and the offense scores, then the other team will have more time to set up their defense since you will need to take the ball back under the hoop and throw it back inbounds.
It is difficult to “hide” a bad defensive player, since the offense will target bad defensive players and score more easily. It is easier to “hide” a bad offensive player, since they don’t necessarily need to have the ball (they can set screens, rebound, etc). In other words, if you have ⅘ good offensive players you can still have a high shooting percentage, but if you only have ⅘ good defensive players then you may give up a high shooting percentage because of that one bad defensive player. Therefore, you will have a stronger team if all players can play good defense.
Since so much focus is on offense by many developing players and teams, working on defense will give you an advantage.
(2) Q: What are the different types of defenses?
A: The two main types of defense are Player-to-Player and Zone, and four areas they can be employed are full-court, ¾-court, half-court, and ¼-court. There are also many variations of each kind. We will explain more in detail later.
(3) Q: Which defense should our team use?
A: Each defense has its own strengths and weaknesses depending on the game situation, the offensive personnel, and the defensive personnel. That is the beauty of basketball! However, at the very basic, we believe that everyone should know how to play ¼ court, player-to-player defense. It teaches the basic principles that can be applied to other defenses later on.
