Youth Basketball Defense: Importance of Good Defense

Series Summary

Basketball, b-ball, hoops. These are all names for one of the most popular games in America: basketball. Whether it’s professional play in the NBA, college games, the local high school team, or a friendly round of one-on-one round, basketball is exciting and fast-paced, pitting player against player and skill against skill. Having strong fundamentals like dribbling, passing, and shooting are the keys to the success of any aspiring player or team. Though flashy dunks, trick shots and off the wall dribbling antics are fun to watch and have their place, they often create a “superstar” mentality that ultimately hurts the team if not put in check. What makes basketball great is the combination of individual talent and team strategy, producing a match that’s sure to keep spectators on edge. In these free video basketball lessons, an experienced coach demonstrates how to play defense, including use of proper defensive stance and tips for defending the post position. Learn how to front a post player to deny them the ball. Find out how to trap a dribbler and get a turnover. But most of all, discover how to improve the overall defensive skills of a team in pursuit of a championship!

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson, and what we want to talk about right now is the importance of being a good defender. Defense is very, very important when you're starting to put together a game plan, talk about the type of team that you want to have, one guy alone buying into the concept of being a good defender and all of those guys pulling together, and having a good defense is going to make your team a tremendous team. There's an old saying that says "defense wins championships," and that's exactly right. Most people spend the majority of their practice thinking about their offense and what they want to do offensively to score, but if you've got a team across from you, who has bought into the idea of being a good defensive team, their going to be able to shut down every offense that you come up with. That's one of the things that we really try to become, is the best defensive team that we can. Everything from having a good stance, the better stance that you have, the lower stance you have, the quicker you can move your feet and stay up on your toes, those type of things, if you can become a good defender and you accept the idea that the better defense I play, the more playing time I'm going to get, and the better team that we're going to be together, the better everything works. So, remember the number one thing is becoming a good defender. If you can shut down the offensive player, then when you score on offense, it's going to be that much better. So defense is the key."