3 MASSIVE Keys To Being A GREAT Defender (Don't Be A Liability!)

With all the focus on the offensive side of the game out there, defense is often an area that gets overlooked and forgotten by players when it comes to their development. And I think the majority of players get so focused on improving their offense that they don't even realize how important it is to improve on the defensive side of the ball as well. No matter how great an offensive player you might be, if you can't guard the other end of the floor, you're not going to play. That makes you a liability, and smart teams and smart coaches will recognize that liability and try to exploit. Exploit that. At the end of the day, coaches want to win, so they can't afford to have liabilities on the floor for an extended amount of time. In order to win games, you have to have players who can play defense. In this video, we're going to go through a few major keys to being a great defender. And when you really start to understand and internalize these different concepts and then you start to apply them to your own game defensively, you're going to take your ability to defend to a whole different level. Let's get into it now. You, as a defensive player are almost always at a disadvantage because the offense decides what to do, and you generally are going to be a split second behind when it comes to reacting, encountering what they do. That means that no matter how great you are as a defender, how quick you're able to react, how fast you are, how strong you are, you're going to get beat sometimes because the offense will always have a slight advantage. So one of the biggest traits of great defenders is not that they never get beat, but is that they're able to turn and recover at a high level. Great defenders might give up a step initially to an offensive player, but they're able to turn and beat that player to the spot that they're going and essentially cut them off from being able to finish their drive. So one of the keys to doing this is something I call flipping your hips or turning your hips. And all that means is going from a defensive slide into a sprint, back into a defensive slide where you can almost wall up once you've recovered and cut that player off. Now, one thing you might notice about these clips when that defender turns their hips to cut that player off, is that they're doing what almost every coach in the world will tell you not to do, which is to cross your feet while playing defense. But the fact of the matter is, if you limit yourself to just defensive slides on defense, you're probably going to be A pretty bad defender. If you were going to race against somebody, but that person was allowed to sprint straightforward, and you had the defensive slide the entire length of the race, chances are you get smoked. And it's the same thing we talk about defense. Being able to turn from a slide into a sprint is one of the keys to recovering. And recovering is the first key to being a great defender. The second key I want to touch on when it comes to being a great defender kind of goes along with the first, and that's anticipation. So, like I said, that offensive player is always going to have the advantage because they get to make that decision on what to do, and you have to react to it. But if you're able to anticip and pick up on subtle cues that the offensive player might give you, or on tendencies or habits that you know that that player may have, it's going to potentially give you an opportunity to mitigate that advantage that the offensive player has, and therefore make you a better defender and also make you seem quicker than you actually are.

So, listen, part of this is anticipating a little bit. Like, there's going to be times like right there where you're going to feel like they're going to go that way and they just completely destroy you and go the other way right now, that's okay. But I want you guys, in order to win this, like, you have the advantage because, you know, like, you start so I'm a half second behind you when you go, so you have the advantage right away. So if you're on the defense, you have to kind of guess a little bit in order to get a point. Okay? So that's okay. If that happens, I'm all right with that.

And this ability to anticipate and predict where that offensive player is going is best developed just by playing and being exposed to a bunch of different types of players, a bunch of different types of moves and movements, so that you get familiar at picking up on patterns that might tip you off as to which direction a player is going, what move they might be getting to. And you'll notice that your overall basketball IQ is going to go up as that anticipation ability goes up as well. You can also pick things up by watching players on film, and all that information can help you be able to anticipate that stuff before it happens. Foreign characteristic of great defenders that we'll talk about is the ability to take charges. Now, this can relate a little bit to that second characteristic when it comes to anticipation, because you certainly can take charges on the ball by anticipating and beating the offensive player to a spot. And then of course there's the ability to be off the ball in help and take a charge that way. This is as much a skill as anything else on defense, understanding the right time and the right place to be at to take these charges and but when you get good at this, you become extremely valuable defensively in a team sense. And players who are great at taking charges can always add an aspect to their team that contributes to winning. As simple as it sounds, I think the biggest key to being good at taking charges is just having the balls to stand there, see somebody coming at you and letting them hit you and falling. If you can do this, you can be great at taking charges. Focusing on improving in these three areas will for sure make you a better defender. And if you guys enjoyed this video, make sure you click the top link in my description below. Get my free Elite Perimeter Score workout. Drop a like and subscribe if you're new. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.