Press PHILOSOPHY
On most teams this age, the team's top ball handler will be the one taking the ball to start the offense.
Our goal with this press is to simple push him to the sideline into a double team to delay his progress. We ARE NOT trying to steal the ball or aggressively trap him. We simply want him to take a few seconds and then pass it to the inbound passer.
Once he passes it to a less skilled player, we will aggressively trap and force a turnover.
Even if we don't force a turnover, we will hopefully make them take enough time to get a 10-second violation.
NOTE: If at any time, the ball gets passed our first three defenders, everyone should abandon the press and sprint back to play normal defense.
3-1-1 Press (Mamba)
- The Defense starts with our three ball handlers spread across the court
- The point guard (X) will force the ball to the defenses left side. This is intentional because it will force the ball handler to break the press by using his left hand.
- Once the ball is in, the wing player (triangle) will be responsible for not letting the ball handler go up the sideline
- The diamond player is simply waiting for the ball to be passed back to the inbounding player.
- The square player is roaming around half-court looking to take away any forward passes.
- The circle player is our safety, just staying back to make sure no long passes are made (unlikely in 4th grade).
The goal is to force the ball-handler to the sideline, and simply keep him from going up the court. We are not aggressively attacking him at this point. We want him to pass the ball to the less-skilled ball handler.
Once the ball is passed, now we aggressively attack, forcing this guy to panic and throw the ball away. The triangle defender stays with the intial ball handler and denies him from getting the ball back for as long as possible.
The square player should be roaming around half court looking to take away any pass going forward.
By this point, 5-7 seconds should have already passed, putting them up against the 10 second timeline.
We will be agressive and try to make them take as long as possible to get ball back.