Defending Ball Screens for High School Basketball

This past week I have been looking at defending ball screens in high school basketball. Most teams typically have 1 or 2 players who can use ball screens at the high school level in my opinion.

So I was evaluating how I like to handle ball screens. The way I look at defending ball screens, I look at my overall defensive coverage. If I am a no-middle defensive philosophy team/ I will defend ball screens a certain way on the wing. If I was a packline defensive team I would not defend them the same way. So I would say I am a team that defends them based upon my system of play.

No Middle Defense

I would handle ball screens in this matter, middle third of the floor I would switch or blitz them with my last option being going underneath if the player can’t shoot. My preferred method is to blitz and then deny the ball back to the ball handler after they have passed.

On the wing, I would ICE for them to reject the ball screen. I don’t like switching or blitzing here because you have ingrained them to not give up middle so now they have to chain their footwork.

Does your ball screen defense match your philosophy of your over defense? I would encourage you to look at how you defend ball screens and see if it confuses your players and doesn’t fit with your overall defensive philosophy.

Do you need to have some different coverages yes but I feel it should match your overall defensive philosophy.

Do you agree with this or no?

One of my favorite resources on defense was Del Harris Winning Defense Book

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Talk soon,

Marc Hart

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