Podlipodcast player Webplayer

Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast)

Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast)

Ep 2040 Do you have three defenses or one really good one?

Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast) · Oct 12, 2026 · 13:46

0:0013:46

Listen in the Podli app 🎧

Follow your favourite podcasts, listen offline and in the car with CarPlay and Android Auto, and always pick up where you left off. Free to try.

Do you have three defenses or one really good one?



https://teachhoops.com/

Why most preseason defensive installs
try to cover everything and end up covering nothing.

SHOW NOTES

Somewhere in your league there
is a team with almost no defensive scheme at all that is going to beat somebody
good this winter, because they guard the ball. Meanwhile most of us are
carrying three or four defenses and are not actually good at any of them. Steve
walks through the order of operations for installing defense in preseason,
starting with the only question that matters before any scheme decision: can we
guard the ball?

What we cover:

•  
Why ball pressure and stance have to get real practice
time before anything else

•  
Help, recovery, and why the second closeout is where
most threes come from

•  
Teaching one ball screen coverage instead of three your
kids will forget

•  
Why a press is a reward a team earns and never a
starting point

•  
Identical vocabulary October through February, guarding
without fouling, and the honest test of whether your defense is really
installed

This week's challenge: Drop your weakest defense and
give those minutes to guarding the ball.

Resources: Practice plans, drills, courses, and on court
clinics at https://teachhoops.com/

Recorded at the Fifth Quarter
Studios in Madison, Wisconsin.

EPISODE DETAILS

Runtime: 11 minutes 47
seconds

Audio file: 05_defense_install.mp3

LINKS

https://teachhoops.com/

https://coachingyouthhoops.com/

https://heysammi.com/



Do You Have
Three Defenses, or One Really Good One?



















































Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episodes: Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast)

PodliGet the free Podli app
↓ App