Philosophy and Principles Determine Drills
NADA: The Antifragile Defense is more about how to defend, not what to do in practice.
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An NCAA Division 1 head coach read NADA: The Antifragile Defense and said I need to provide more drills, as the coach struggled to figure out how to implement the ideas. The purpose of NADA, and to a greater extent everything I write, is not to tell a coach what to do or to provide all the answers, but to challenge coaches to re-examine their biases and think differently about the game.
The coach missed the point: Drills are not the answer. Drills are easy. Drills and set plays are the two most publicly-available aspects of coaching. Many, however, are unhelpful because they are too general; they lack a purpose and end up filling time. Instead, watch a scrimmage or game. Determine the problems, possibly using analytics or other objective tools. Create an activity focused on the problem. Drills!
General drills can accomplish certain universal objectives. I do not use the Shell Drill (#FakeFundamentals), but virtually everyone does because it solves a general, universal problem: What is our basic defensive shape based on the ball’s location? Each team may solve this problem differently, and the fifth player eventually changes the rotations, but the shell drill can be used to teach one’s desired general defensive shape. I prefer more specific, more competitive drills, as the desired defensive shape changes based on a five-out versus a four-out, movement, and personnel.
NADA drills vary based on which parts of NADA a coach decided to implement. Many are no different than other common drills, but the emphasis or philosophy changes. Ultimately, many coaches teach defense through a progression and regression of one-vs-one through five-vs-five games and drills, typically using different constraints, especially the starting point. We reduce numbers to create more space and force defenders to work harder to stay in front of their own players and to cover more ground on help rotations and closeouts. We play without the dribble to practice defending cutters, screens, and passing lanes. The specific drills do not vary too much from coach to coach; the philosophy, and ultimately the execution of some skills, changes, which may alter some common drills slightly.
Few coaches will jump feet first and adopt every NADA principle, as it runs counter to many traditional ideas about defensive basketball. As Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper, recently said, “It still strikes me that a big part of what analytics said about sports is that the top athletes and coaches in the world were too cautious, not aggressive enough.”
I did not implement every principle all at once; these were ideas and principles I used or incorporated with different teams to different respects based on level and personnel. Only when I had a few teams with the right personnel did I go full NADA. Changing every habit players have learned previously in a three-week preseason is difficult. I write about my ideas, but I am not suggesting they are the right way in every environment for every coach, but hopefully they spur creative thinking and reflection about better processes.
NADA is a common sense approach to teaching defense, although common sense is not so common. It complements the SABA approach to offense, as the ideas and terminology match or are mirrored. It seems obvious, to me, that if we want to accomplish something on offense, we should want to prevent the same on defense. Of course, personnel determines ultimate goals in each game, but contradictions abound in the general teaching of the game. I imagine most coaches can rationalize their contradictions for their particular situations. I simply attempted to eliminate them.
For over 25 years, I have heard an important offensive objective is to force the defense to defend two things in a row. The Flex offense, as an example, is built on this premise. The Flex, at its most basic, is a continuity offense that moves the ball from side to side searching for layups using a series of screen-the-screener actions: One player sets the Flex or baseline screen, then receives the down screen to reverse the ball. Two actions in a row. Rinse and repeat. Many popular actions today, whether Zoom, Miami, Peja, Spanish ball screens, and more simply combine basic actions, forcing defenses to defend two things in a row. A Peja action is a back screen followed by a handoff. The goal is to force the help on the first action to create more space on the second action.
Defensively, however, many common principles require players to defend two things in a row, which we established as the hardest things to defend when we designed our offense! We teach players closing out to stop the drive AND the shot. We teach defenders to help AND recover. The offense forces a defender to help in the first action (dribble penetration), which creates more space on the second action (catch-and-shoot). Our offensive objective is considered sound defensive fundamentals. I struggle to reconcile good offense and good defense possessing the same objectives, as they are opposing elements.
We do not imagine closeouts in the same way as a screen the screener action, but the concepts are the same. The defender is expected to run fast enough to prevent the shot attempt, but also be on balance and positioned far enough away to cut off the drive on the first dribble. We ask the defender to defend two things in a row when the first is accomplished; defenders who are unable to prevent the shot do not have to worry about the drive, just as defenses who give up the layup on the Flex screen do not have to defend the down screen.
There are times — short closeouts, non-shooters, non-drivers — when defending the shot and the drive are possible or even expected. Again, there are no absolutes. However, in general terms, many defensive fundamentals ask defenders to do the very thing our offensive attack suggests is the hardest thing to do. Why the contradiction? We set up defenders to fail.
I could use the shell drill to teach parts of NADA. The specific drill does not matter. The difference is the philosophy, which determines the principles, which determine the teaching emphases within the drill. Using a new, fancy drill, but teaching help and recover or closeouts in the exact same way does not change anything; the drill may prepare players slightly better, but the philosophy, principles, and concepts remain the same. NADA is not about a new way to teach the same fundamentals in the same way; it is a philosophical change, and once a coach commits to the change, the drills likely differ, but the specific drills are secondary.
One realization that led to parts of NADA was watching the manner in which players defended certain situations, and the way their approach differed in a two-vs-two drill, for instance, compared to a four-vs-four or five-vs-five scrimmage or game. Several NADA principles are based on actions and decisions players used to defend successfully in drills, but did not transfer to five-vs-five because they did not fit the proper defensive fundamentals or shell-drill defense.
Imagine one-vs-one. How do players defend when defending one-vs-one? Does it change on the side of the court and the middle? Stationary compared to closeouts? Does the defense match the defensive instruction in team defense?
Players often force their opponents to their weak hands when playing one-vs-one, but the team defensive philosophy is to force sideline-baseline. Can both be correct? Sure. One-vs-one is not the same as five-vs-five. Of course, what is the purpose of one-vs-one when players practice a defensive style the coach does not want during a game? Could it be that forcing to the weak hand is the preferable defense regardless of middle or sideline, as with Dave Smart’s lock-left defense?
There are no absolutes. There is no single right answer. Coaches can rationalize practicing individual defense differently than their team defensive system. There certainly are rational explanations: Defense is never perfect; good to practice different styles for different situations; one-vs-one is focused more on the offense and practicing the offense’s weakness; practicing other movements is good as they practice sideline-baseline movements so much during team drills. Again, my purpose is not suggest one or the other is wrong; instead, NADA, and all my books, identify these areas that are so ubiquitous, few think about the contradictions, and I ask the questions.
NADA is a philosophy. The philosophy lends itself to principles. The principles then create teaching points, and drills are used to train these teaching points and principles. The drills are least important, as ultimately we want to employ these principles in five-vs-games, which constitute most of the practice. Drills are simply there to simplify the initial teaching, emphasize a specific point, overload a specific skill, or increase repetitions. The drills are relatively unimportant; we are not teaching drills. We are teaching skills and principles and training these skills and principles through activities in order to improve performance in games.
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