Coaches’ Corner- Trapping Sideline Actions

A defensive strategy that you see often in the WNBA is to trap half-court sideline actions. The key in making all of these actions successful is for the other three defender to be ready to rotate to take away passes out of the traps. These traps are very effective because the offense on the sideline has fewer options to pass out of the traps. 

Figure 1- Ball Screen Going to Sideline- the defense has to be ready to take away the short roll by the screens. To do this, they need to get good rotation, and they need good ball pressure. 

Figure 2- Get Action where guard is getting ball back on the sideline. The counter to this by the offense is to make a fake handoff. The defender on the guard cutter must take care of the fake and then trap. 

Figure 3- Corner passes

In the WNBA, teams don’t necessarily trap all of these situations or all of the time. They seem to have the ability to selectively if the opponent takes an action on the sideline.