Defending the Middle Half: An Approach to Defensive Basketball

Webster has defined defense as “resistance against attack.”  The idea of protecting oneself by resisting an opponents attack is ageless. 

Legally the concept of self-defense is a way of justifying a response to an attack that injures the attacker and allows the attacked to fight back without fear of persecution.

Politically speaking The Department of War has morphed into the Department of Defense.  A Department of War is no longer politically correct at the Cabinet level.  Of course, the job of the Department of Defense is the same as it was under its earlier title.  In this regard, the idea of protection is often in terms that are more aggressive.  We sometimes commence an attack as a way of discouraging an opponent who might be planning an attack on us.  In other words sometimes the best defense is one that is aggressive and in attack mode rather than simply geared to prevent a successful attack by our opponent.

In sport, we often hear that “Defense Wins Championships.”  However, as in other parts of our lives, defense need not be passive.  More and more, defenses are designed to attack the opponent rather than simply resist an attack by our opponent. 

In basketball, defense can lead to offense by forcing mistakes that are converted into baskets or at least create scoring opportunities.  Full court presses are prime examples of defensive systems that try to create scoring opportunities by attacking the opponent. 

The defensive system described in, Defending the Middle Half: An Approach to Defensive Basketball, is one that tries to aggressively deny access to that part of the court where high percentage shots are taken. In my opinion the middle half of the court, divided lengthwise, is the area, in the offensive end that defenses must protect. 

What is described here is an aggressive half court man-to-man defensive system that has as its goals:

-To force the offense into mistakes

-To protect the middle half of the court

-To force the offense into taking low percentage shots  

Forcing the offense into mistakes with pressure defense can lead to easy scoring opportunities for the defense.  Limiting your opponent’s access to the middle half of the court via the pass or the dribble forces your opponent to shoot much lower percentage shots from outside this area.  As your opponent’s turnovers increase and their field goal percentage decreases, your chances of winning are improved.   

In order to accomplish these goals we try to force our opponent to start or set up their offense further from the basket than they would like.  We do this by applying a great deal of pressure on the ball and by denying the guard to forward or point to wing pass.  Since most offenses start their motion by making this guard to forward pass we would like to force them further away from the basket in order to complete the pass.  By doing this we will make it more difficult for them to penetrate the middle half of the court.  If they normally penetrate this area with a pass, we have made the pass a little longer.  If they use dribble penetration we have successfully forced them to have to travel further to get to where they want to go.  By increasing the distance, we have increased the time necessary to get to the middle giving our defense a chance to react to any movement by the offense in its effort to penetrate this zone.  Good team defense can successfully limit offensive penetration into this area. 

It may be less risky than a full court defensive system but it is certainly not passive.  It is a system that can be successfully applied at all levels of play and can be incorporated into a multiple defensive system that employs full court pressure and even some zones. 

It is a system that has served as my basic approach to defense over most of my 33-year career as a high school coach.