If we had the lead with under 10 seconds left, usually we wanted to play what we would call our “Soft MM Press.” We are wanting to just slow down the offense and make them have to take a long shot. In a dead ball situation, our initial alignment in “Soft MM Press” was to not allow any long passes, not to allow a guard to catch and go on the dribble.
We showed pressure but backed up just 4-5 feet. With the initial show of pressure, it was our hope to force the offense to go back to the ball. We wanted the offense to have to “go back” to catch the ball. So they did not have forward momentum.
After showing the pressure, the bounce back assured we would keep the ball in front of us. The defender on the inbounder acted as a center fielder to help on a dribble.
If the other team has one great player that you know they want to get the ball inbounds to, I have seen teams take the inbound defender and have them face guard that good player, while the good player’s defender can stay behind. I am more cautious and preferred the have the inbounder defender in position to cover up mistakes.
When the ball goes in, we did not want a dribbler to be able to go to the their strong hand (usually their right hand).
If possible, we stay in front of the dribbler and try to make them use up time by having to reverse as they go up the floor.
It is really, really hard to shoot a long shot at the horn when going to your weak hand. So if we can, we want to force them to their left hand. A danger is when a player goes to shoot, they may lunge into the defender, so our defender needs to back off as they go to shoot.
In 1999, we had the Super-Sectional and Semi-Final games both have the situation where the other team off a dead ball was able to inbounds the ball to their best player, and we let both of them go to their strong hand and come
In 1999, we had the Super-Sectional and Semi-Final games both have the situation where the other team off a dead ball was able to inbounds the ball to their best player, and we let both of them go to their strong hand. In both cases they got to close to half-court, and launched shots which looked like they could go in.
In both cases we failed to make them go back to the ball and failed to make them go to their weak hand.
This Sunday- “Streaks Scrapbook” 1999 Girls- 2nd in State.
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