Striving to be antifragile, not perfect

Re-thinking our approach to defense

Coaches tend to strive for perfection defensively, which means adherence to a strict set of rules or commands. They use drills such as the shell drill to help players memorize these rules and movements to eliminate the need for players to make decisions in the moment. Everything is a reaction, a pre-determined movement.

The problem is no defensive possession is perfect. Players make mistakes. Opponents force players into mistakes. Offenses utilize different tactics to disorganize the defense. Striving for perfection often paralyzes defenses when possessions diverge from the plan.

Great defenses are not the ones who eliminate the moments of disorganization or who never make mistakes. Instead, they are the ones who thrive in the disorder, who adjust and adapt to mistakes. They are antifragile. This is the basic philosophy of NADA: The Antifragile Defense.

Any coach can take a snapshot of any defensive possession and find mistakes. In the picture above, the on-ball defender (D1) is not applying sufficient ball pressure as we would desire, giving the offensive point guard time and space to see the court, use the screen, or set up a move. The defender’s hands also are down, not affecting the play at all. The screener’s defender (D5) trails the screener to the point of the screen. There is a small chance we may have been in a drop coverage because our game plan centered on preventing their post player from shooting layups, but generally this D5 would switch or trap and on-ball screen, which is not possible with this positioning. The player in the right corner (D4) stands upright and is not ready to play. The player in the left corner (D3) is too low, below the block, which is suboptimal for the defending the skip pass to the corner or to tag on the roller if necessary. The defender on the left wing (D2) is in good position, as he defends the opponent’s best player.

The next picture (above) is two seconds later and neither D3 nor D4 has moved. D4 is now too low as the offensive player in the corner has slid up the wing, removing D4 from the passing lane. D4 should be higher on the court to decrease the angle available to the dribbler and to get closer to the passing line to disrupt or affect the pass. D1 got beat on a simple crossover as the dribbler rejected the screen, which is suboptimal, although we have the driving lane congested.

Because D4 was too low, allowing the easy pass to the wing, the offensive player attacks his momentum to create a middle drive. He recovers well and prevents the player from turning the corner to the basket, but D3 still has not moved and is not positioned to affect the pass to the corner and is too far to contest a shooter. Fortunately, the pass is high, taking away the opportunity to shoot. D2 has turned his back completely on their best player, which is not good, but the ball pressure prevents them from taking advantage.

D3 closes out and takes away the shot, aided by the high pass. He concedes the middle drive, but again recovers to prevent the attacker from turning the corner to the open side of the court. At this point, as their best player catches a few feet beyond the three-point line, we have recovered to neutral. He is the fourth player to touch the ball, and three players have attempted to drive, and despite the mistakes and their small advantages, they essentially must start over with 9 seconds on the shot clock.

D2 plays great on-ball defense as their best player dribbles, but as he falls and passes, D1 overplays and gets beat on the straight-line drive. D3 is closer to the middle of the court than we would want: He is committing to stopping the ball, which is not necessarily bad, as he likely does not see D5 behind him and the attacker has a big advantage. The mistake likely is a lack of communication from D5 telling D3 that he is there to help. D2 also could slide over, as his man is on the ground, although that could be risky if he stands up quickly and spreads out to the top of the key, as they could find their best player for an open shot.

Finally, D3 closes out perfectly and blocks the shot, foci the shot-clock violation. If he had not blocked the shot, we have at least three players in very good rebounding position; essentially, we ended the possession in neutral. A clean defensive rebound on a missed shot by D5, D4, or D2 likely would lead to a layup on the other for D1 or D3 based on the positioning of all 10 players as the shot is attempted.

In the end, forcing a contested shot against a neutral defense as the shot clock expires with an offensive advantage on a clean rebound sounds like a perfect defensive possession, but before the perfect ending, there were many small mistakes. The success of this defense was not the perfect ending, but the ability to adjust to the small mistakes and recover without the offense turning the small advantages into a big advantage.

Coaches can find errors on every defensive possession and every snapshot of a defensive possession. The players’ posture or positioning on the court or lack of communication; even with a perfect ending, the process is not perfect, at least in terms of the absence of mistakes. However, when the defense is antifragile, perfect possessions become more likely, as players adjust and adapt to mistakes and prevent the small mistakes from becoming big ones. As defenses develop this ability, they become great defenses and hard to score against.

For more, see NADA: The Antifragile Defense.