Gonzalo Rodriguez

In this Playbook, you will find concepts and plays to attack Zone defenses.

- Simple concepts to teach the fundamentals involved in attacking Zone defenses.

- Plays to use against any kind of Zone.

- Ideas to use in SLOB and BLOB vs Zones.

The "Next" defense is the integration of several individual techniques into a team defensive philosophy, giving the players the chance to make defensive decisions in order to make the defense more aggressive and smart.

As Coaches, we must look for a way to achieve the team´s defensive goals using both team rules and individual readings. 

We encourage the players to read the game when we are in the offensive end, despite of the way we want to play (set plays, series, read and react and so on) coaches tell the players to make decisions based upon their readings. Plays create spacing and put players in the best positions, but players read and make the moves.

But few times we encourage our players to read and make decisiones in defense. We create a strategy for P&R defense, off screens defense, and even 1on1 and heps defense. We make rules.  This rules rely on our way to understand the defensive preferences for us in order to win: do we allow spot ups? do we close the paint as main concept? do we press pass lines and disrupt the offensive balance? Do we play packline and keep good and balanced positions no matter what?...

This defense, along with the "Hot" option (a more aggressive and difficult to attack version) gives players the freedom to read and react, making defensive decisions based on the opponent´s spacing, the way the ball is being driven, the players with the ball and close to the ball, the motion of the offense,... It provides the team with a sense of awareness and readiness, improving the concentration and focus of the players.

Each coach can look for ways to organize the use of the concepts explained in this Course.

I explain the concepts and the individual basics, as well as some ways the Next and Hot defense can be used, but the greatness of this defensive ideas is that they can be used in many other ways, and they can be used in all basketball levels.

This Course will be helpful to Coaches teaching the basics of the man to man defense and also the basics of zone defense. It will be helpful to Coaches that are looking for a way to create more aggressive teams, smart teams that want to anticipate and disrupt all kinds of offenses. And also, this Course can be a great help for Coaches who want to develop smart players, able to make defensive reads and using basic defensive techniques that are going to be great addition in their careers.

In these pages, I put together some ideas to start a press break from different alignments and for different goals: 

- Inbound in a safe way.

- Put the ball in the best ballhandlers' hands.

- Start an organized offense from the flow of the press break.

- Stablish different entries and ways to beat early traps.

In more than 100 pages, Coaches will learn many different ideas to build advantages coming off screens, from the top European Coaches and teams.

This playbook brings many off-screen concepts, such as:

- Floppy plays.

- Pin downs, down picks, and double-way situations.

- Flare screens.

- Hammer screens.

- Off screens for the "4".

This playbook brings many ways to build advantages from the screening game from different entries and finishes.

FREE SAMPLE OF THE COMPLETE P&R PLAYBOOK

In this 233-page playbook, I present some of the most played situations from European Top teams. 

Topics covered:

- CENTRAL P&R SITUATIONS.

- SIDE P&R SITUATIONS.

- DOUBLE HIGH P&R.

- DOUBLE DRAG SITUATIONS.

- PICK & POP PLAYS.

- SPAIN P&R PLAYS.

- FLEX & P&R PLAYS.

- SCREEN SCREENER SERIES.

- SHUFFLE SERIES.

- MULTIPLE OPTION SERIES.

As the first part of a complete P&R course (coming soon...), this playbook provides coaches with many ideas about entries, spacing, and ways to attack any P&R coverage.

NOTE: 

The different colors in the plays represent the timing of the play. Black lines are the first move, Red lines are the second move and Blue lines are the third move in the diagram.

One of the options teams have to defend P&R situations is to deny the pick, often sending the ball handler to the sideline or denying the possible way to the pick, sending the ball to the player´s weakest hand.

When a team faces this kind of defense, some adjustments have to be made, not only from a spacing point of view but also from the skill point of view. 

If our players don't have the appropriate set of skills or if our team is not prepared for this disruptive type of defense, our offense will collapse, not being able to find solutions to counter this defensive option.

In this course, I bring solutions that can be used at any level and within any offense. So this course is not about a system. It is about picking up different ideas and taking whatever fits better your offense.

Based on the idea that the most important part of attacking efficiently is the skill part, I break down some deep details of individual techniques, so you can give your players the weapons they will need to be successful when finding the Ice defense.

The course is divided into 16 lessons, each one with some different concepts and skills to be learned.

Based on a zoom clinic, I added many clips to present all the concepts in a clear way.