SUE GUNTER'S PRESS OFFENSE GUIDELINES

I would imagine that I've posted this before through the years but as I was taught by Skip Bertman, the Hall of Fame baseball coach at LSU -- "repetition is good."  This is a list of traits that are important to good press offense that I got from Coach Sue Gunter.  Regardless of the alignment or action of your press offense, I think these are a great set of guidelines to follo:

#1 Remember the biggest key is to always maintain good spacing. With good spacing, it leaves more room for the defense to cover, and longer distances for them to run before making a trap or steal attempt.

#2 Make all your cuts hard and sharp. If you are not cutting as quickly as possible, you are helping the defense to defend you. Cut to create help. The same holds true if you don’t cut properly, rounding off your cuts instead of cutting in straight lines.

#3 We must always keep someone behind the basketball. We don’t want that player “on top of the basketball.” Stay behind the basketball as a release valve, but maintain proper spacing.

#4 Always come back to meet a pass made to you. This one is critical. If you wait for the pass, someone near you can beat you to the pass and get an interception. Come back for the ball and catch it with both feet in the air to land with a jump stop for pivoting.

#5 If at all possible, we don’t want to receive the entry pass to close to the inbound baseline. Again, this is poor spacing. Try to catch the ball as deep as possible to give you more room to operate.

#6 Utilize pass fakes at every opportunity. Almost all full-court pressure is based on active, gambling-aggressiveness and therefore is prone to pass fakes. A good pass fake will get the defense in the air and allow you a chance to put the ball on the floor or give you an opportunity to make an easier, more effective pass — “fake a pass to make a pass.”

#7 Don’t waste your dribble. Catch the ball, pivot, and look ahead for a possible pass as well as to read the defense. If you pick up your dribble without looking ahead or reading the defense, you become an easy target to be trapped with very few options.
 
#8 Always remember, once you beat the pressure, the good press defense teams like to come from behind and try to knock the ball away. You must always stay alert.

#9 At the end of the press offense, always look for a good shot. If we execute properly, we can get lay ups, short jumpers, and wide open three-pointers. We want to make a team pay a heavy price for pressing us. Always remember that a forced or bad shot is the same as a turnover for a pressing team.

#10 If we don’t get a shot from our press offense, get directly into our man-to-man or zone offense. Often teams that press, especially zone presses or run and jump presses, have a difficult time recovering to their proper defensive assignments in their half-court defense.

SUE GUNTER'S 11 GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE PRESS OFFENSE

The following is a list I pull out each season of press offense guidelines that I wrote down through the years of working with Coach Gunter.  What I like about them is that I think they are universal for all pressure offense.

#1 Remember that the biggest of all keys is to always maintain good spacing. With good spacing, it leaves more room for the defense to cover, and longer distances for them to run before making a trap or steal attempt.

#2 Make all your cuts hard and sharp. If you are not cutting as quickly as possible, you are helping the defense to defend you. Cut to create help. The same holds true if you don’t cut properly, rounding off your cuts instead of cutting in straight lines.

#3 We must always keep someone behind the basketball. We don’t want that player “on top of the basketball.” Stay behind the basketball as a release valve, but maintain proper spacing.

#4 Always come back to meet a pass made to you. This one is critical. If you wait for the pass, someone near you can beat you to the pass and get an interception. Come back for the ball and catch it with both feet in the air to land with a jump stop for pivoting.

#5 If at all possible, we don’t want to receive the entry pass to close to the inbound baseline. Again, this is poor spacing. Try to catch the ball as deeply as possible to give you more room to operate.

#6 Utilize pass fakes at every opportunity. Almost all full-court pressure is based on active, gambling-aggressiveness and therefore will go for pass fakes. A good pass fake will get the defense in the air and allow you a chance to put the ball on the floor or give you an opportunity to make an easier, more effective pass — “fake a pass to make a pass.”

#7 Don’t waste your dribble. Catch the ball, pivot, and look ahead for a possible pass as well as to read the defense. If you pick up your dribble without looking ahead or reading the defense, you become an easy target to be trapped with very few options.
 
#8 Avoid the half-court area as a momentary position for the ball. Don’t pass the ball to a teammate just over the half-court line when there is a possibility she can be trapped. And certainly don’t dribble the ball just across the half-court line and hesitate where you can be trapped

#9 Always remember, once you beat the pressure, the good press defense teams like to come from behind and try to knock the ball away. You must always stay alert and watch out for back taps.

#10 At the end of the press offense, always look for a good shot. If we execute properly, we can get lay ups, short jumpers, and wide open three-pointers. We want to make a team pay a heavy price for pressing us. Always remember that a forced or bad shot is the same as a turnover for a pressing team.

#11 If we don’t get a shot from our press offense, get directly into our man-to-man or zone offense. Often teams that press, especially zone presses or run and jump presses, have a difficult time recovering to their proper defensive assignments in their half-court defense. Stay on the attack — let our offense be the aggressor and not their press.

BEATING THE PRESS

Some thoughts on beating pressure from Dena Evans at Point Guard College



F ormula for beating all presses:
-Have an attack mindset, put fear in their mind
-Traps are opportunities to get easy baskets
-Any pass out of a trap is a good pass.

F antasy
-Goods allow presses to work
-Don’t leave guards to bring ball down by themselves.

F hrase
-Every trap ball needs 3 nearby receivers

F açade
-Pressure is a false front to make you hurry, panic, make errors, and take quick shots
-Misconception—presses are used to make you take bad shots. You beat a press when you get easy shots

10 KEYS TO GOOD PRESS OFFENSE

#1 Remember that the biggest of all keys is to always maintain good spacing. With good spacing, it leaves more room for the defense to cover, and longer distances for them to run before making a trap or steal attempt.

#2 Make all your cuts hard and sharp. If you are not cutting as quickly as possible, you are helping the defense to defend you. Cut to create help. The same holds true if you don’t cut properly, rounding off your cuts instead of cutting in straight lines.

#3 We must always keep someone behind the basketball. We don’t want that player “on top of the basketball.” Stay behind the basketball as a release valve, but maintain proper spacing.

#4 Always come back to meet a pass made to you. This one is critical. If you wait for the pass, someone near you can beat you to the pass and get an interception. Come back for the ball and catch it with both feet in the air to land with a jump stop for pivoting.

#5 If at all possible, we don’t want to receive the entry pass to close to the inbound baseline. Again, this is poor spacing. Try to catch the ball as deeply as possible to give you more room to operate.

#6 Utilize pass fakes at every opportunity. Almost all full-court pressure is based on active, gambling-aggressiveness and therefore is proned to pass fakes. A good pass fake will get the defense in the air and allow you a chance to put the ball on the floor or give you an opportunity to make an easier, more effective pass — “fake a pass to make a pass.”

#7 Don’t waste your dribble. Catch the ball, pivot, and look ahead for a possible pass as well as to read the defense. If you pick up your dribble without looking ahead or reading the defense, you become an easy target to be trapped with very few options.

#8 Always remember, once you beat the pressure, the good press defense teams like to come from behind and try to knock the ball away. You must always stay alert - don't relax.

#9 At the end of the press offense, always look for a good shot. If we execute properly, we can get lay ups, short jumpers, and wide open three-pointers. We want to make a team pay a heavy price for pressing us. Always remember that a forced or bad shot is the same as a turnover for a pressing team.

#10 If we don’t get a shot from our press offense, get directly into our man-to-man or zone offense. Often teams that press, especially zone presses or run and jump presses, have a difficult time recovering to their proper defensive assignments in their half-court defense.

COACH K THOUGHTS

The following were from clinic notes from Coach Mike Krzyzewski when he spoke in Robinsonville, MS in May of 2004.

THOUGHTS ON PRESS OFFENSE

"We don't get pressre much because we attack the press to score."

"Kids look at the game more individually than collectively..team effort is needed to attack zone presses."

"Penetration doesn't always have to be to the paint."

"Make the pass before the trap occurs instead of letting the trap get there and get set."

Coach K Pet Peeve: Not running baseline vs. press.

Goal: Get inbounds passes that aren't diagonal...pass away from the defense.

THOUGHTS ON ZONE OFFENSE

"Against the zone, catch the ball with feet facing the goal. This helps with the shot but also improves the passing angle."

"Hands read -- mind ready."

Any Duke entry can be used against zone of man.

GENERAL THOUGHTS

"There are a lot of things that make you good -- most don't occur on the court. Values like discipline and cooperation are part of the culture of success."

"Breakdown drills are like a snapshot."

"Don't base what you do on the final result...it's about the process...you define your own success and failure."

"Most untaught part of our game by far is communication."

Duke teaches 3 phases everyday

...Offense

...Defense

...Communication

1st day of practice Coach K tells team he wants Duke to be the best talking team in America.

Primary Duke concept: NEXT PLAY...what we just did doesn't matter...this type of atmosphere is conducive to success.