Youth Basketball Defense: Stopping a Drive Down the Lane

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson, and what we're talking about right now is becoming the best defensive player you can includes becoming a good fundamental defensive player, and a good defensive teammate as well. And what we're going to see right now is a situation where this guy is guarding the man on the wing. This guy right now has the ball, so he has to commit to him and he has to guard him fully, but as quickly as the ball moves from there--go ahead and move it to the top of the key. Now, his job has to be in help side. He can't be slow and coming off this guy, and just easily come in here and help. Because what's going to happen is, this guy is going to catch the ball and he's going to drive past his man. He's got to be here and be responsible for getting over and helping to stop that middle of the drive. So, when you're out here guarding your man and you go on help side, again, you need to stay low, drop step, and keep those good wide stances up, or sprint to a particular point to try to get over and stop this guy. Now, as he's coming in on the drive, what this guy needs to do--so many times we see our defenders come in and they'll get here, and as this guy's driving by, they want to open up and try to swat him from behind. Don't do that. If he takes one more additional step and gets over in front of this guy, either one, he's going to stop him and make him pull up and shoot a jump shot, or if he keeps going, he's going to get hit and take a charge on the call. Either one of those things are good for our team. So we're going to show you at full speed here what this looks like when he comes over on help side to stop the drive. Go. Good, help him over. Good. So, you can see that he caused him to pull up and shoot a jump shot, maybe even get a charge, because he was there, he was set on the position, hands straight up, and this guy went into him. So you're either going to get a charge call or you're going to get him to pull up. And that's a good way to get over and stop the middle drive."