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billmountjoy7
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Karma: 17 |  | JOHN WOODEN UCLA PRESS PACKAGE
« Thread Started on Jun 2, 2011, 1:45pm » | |
This is John Wooden's 2-2-1 Full Court Press rules:
JOHN WOODEN: "Why do teams use a pressing defense? At UCLA, we chose to use it for two primary reasons. One was to avoid getting stuck in a half-court game in which the opposition could dictate the pace and-even if outmanned-reduce the number of possessions to keep the score close. Two, we believed the press allowed us to exploit opponents who were not fundamentally sound in their spacing, cutting, passing, and dribbling."
-----------------------------O = Inbounder
---------------------X1-------------------X2 = foul line extended
---------------------X3-------------------X4
______________________________________1/2 court_______
---------------------------------X5
X1’s responsibility is to invite the other team to pass the ball to a man in the area in front of him. He advances on the receiver, and keeps him from driving on by the sideline. If he starts to dribble, try to make him stop and turn away, where he will be double-teamed by #2. If he does not dribble, X1 advances on him and tries to force him to throw a lob or bounce pass without too much time to locate receivers. X2 discourages the pass to his side and moves over quickly to discourage a return pass to the inbounder in the middle of the floor. X2 should be alert for a double-team with X1 in case the receiver of the inbounded pass would start to dribble.
X3 is responsible for the area from behind the center line to the foul line and to stop the driver that might get by X1 on that side of the floor and prevent a receiver from getting the pass either from the man inbounding the ball or from the man who did receive the short pass from him. He should intercept any lob pass thrown to a receiver in this area.
X4 is responsible for covering the middle of his floor to his left, as he faces the inbounder. He is responsible for the area to his side from the center line to the foul line, or even deeper when X2 moves over. As soon as the ball is inbounded in X1’s area, this becomes an important responsibility.
X5 gets to the center circle as fast as possible and directs the defense from there. He is responsible for any man who went down the floor and is expected to intercept any pass thrown to any spot on the offensive end, if it is thrown from any position as far back as the foul line extended. He should challenge anyone to throw the ball over him and past him.
IMPORTANT DETAIL: The backboard with the net hanging down helps to discourage opponents from passing the ball in on the opposite side. If they did happen to do this, the roles were just reversed
****************************************************
When he aligned in a "1-2-1-1" Press - the alignment changed, but the ASSIGNMENTS did not.
----------------------------X2 = on inbounded
-----------X1-----------------------------X4 = foul line extended
----------------------------X3
________________________________________1/2 court_____
----------------------------X5
X1 = SAME RULE AS 2-2-1
X2 = SAME RULE AS 2-2-1 (after pass inbounded)
X3 = SAME RULE AS 2-2-1
X4 = SAME RULE AS 2-2-1
X5 = SAME RULE AS 2-2-1
This made it very simple to interchange these two presses!
****************************************************
Additional facts to keep in mind when using a zone-press defense are:
1. Gambling type of defense – requires continuous effort and limitless patience if it is to pay off.
2. Value will come from demoralizing opposition and upsetting their game.
3. Can speed up game – force the opponent out of their normal style.
4. Can cause disharmony and disunity.
5. Do not reach in to attempt to take the ball away from opponents; play position and force errors when opponents “hurry”. Cuts down fouling and helps to establish proper philosophy. I don’t want my defensive men to get their hands out in front of their body. I want team balance, physical balance, mental balance, emotional balance, and floor balance.
6. Permit only lob or bounce passes forward. Passes back toward your offensive basket will not hurt you, but crisp passes forward can cause trouble.
7. When the ball passes your individual line of defense, turn and sprint toward your defensive basket. Pick up the most dangerous man open. Strongside men should be alive to “two-time” as they go back, weakside men should be alert to intercept.
8. All players must be well grounded in individual fundamentals. I use only a man-to-man pressing defense with our freshmen, but employ zone principles.
9. If no opponent in your zone, close in toward the zone that is being attacked.
10. Use tight man-to-man principles if the man in your zone has the ball, and floating man-to-man principles, depending on how far from the ball your man is in the other areas.
11. Results often come in spurts, so apply immediate pressure after acquiring the ball through an error. Often, they will make more errors. Our 1964 team had at least one “spurt” in a period of approximately two minutes in all 30 games in which we outscored our opponent from 10 to 20 points. Sometimes, it did not come until the middle of the second half, but we woulkd usually have at least one spurt, before the end of the first half.
12. Players must realize the necessity and value of and be willing to make necessary sacrifices to attain and maintain top condition.
13. Players must be unselfish in regards to scoring. I like players who can pass, and will pass, if passed to. Walt Hazzard was that type of player. The rest of the boys liked to pass to him, because they knew he would pass it back to them.
14. An outstanding player for the important #5 position is essential. Must be quick, alert, courageous, unselfish, able to “read” the man with the ball, very good at handling deep defense when outnumbered, a fine rebounder, one who can get the ball out very quickly, very aggressive, with the judgment that prevents committing himself too soon, and a player who really loves a challenge.
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billmountjoy7
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Karma: 17 | | Re: JOHN WOODEN UCLA PRESS PACKAGE
« Reply #1 on Aug 4, 2012, 7:50am » | |
December 06, 1965
A Press That Panics Them All
UCLA's swarming defensive style exhilarates spectators, upsets opponents and has carried the Bruins to two successive national titles. Now it has become all the rage, and college teams everywhere must prepare to handle the press, whether or not they play UCLA. Here some of the best brains in basketball discuss countermeasures
Mervin Hyman
The way defenses are operating these days," says SMU Coach Doc Hayes, "the other team starts, picking you up when you walk out of the hotel lobby on the way to the field house."
Hayes is barely exaggerating the case. He is referring to the amazing popularity of a technique that is sweeping college basketball—the pressing defense and especially the zone press. Twice UCLA has used this shattering weapon to win the NCAA championship, and now every coach in the country is either planning to use it or worrying about how to beat it, or both. Even the pros, who have a rule outlawing all zone defenses, are copying it.
The pressing defense is not a new basketball concept. Back in 1952 Coach Phog Allen's Kansas team won the NCAA title with it. So did San Francisco in 1955 and 1956, California in 1959 and Loyola of Chicago in 1963. What is new is the way UCLA has used it. Soft-spoken, genteel Coach John Wooden has, first, installed his zone as UCLA's basic style; it is not just a sometime tactic when all else fails. In addition, it is thoroughly integrated with the UCLA offense, so much so that it is hard to say where defense stops and offense begins.
What makes the zone so intriguing is that it does not take a big man like a Russell or a superstar like a Robertson to make it work. The UCLA teams of the last two years were of average size and, though Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich are fine players, neither one is a Cousy, a Bradley or a West. Both teams, however, were made up of well-conditioned athletes, dedicated to a demanding philosophy of play through superb coaching.
In this age of remarkable shooters many a college coach, with the limited time available to him, has chosen to neglect defense. Why bother? is the theory; we can always outrun and outshoot our opponents. Forced to concede the efficacy of the UCLA system, these same coaches fall back on the notion that Wooden's success is all a matter of personnel. With Wooden's players, they say, we'd win the NCAA, and with a press, too. This is a pat answer, but it simply is not true. Through hard work, patience and intelligent use of talent, Wooden has won with the kind of players available nearly everywhere in the country today.
Wooden's preoccupation with the zone press did not come about accidentally or incidentally. Like many other coaches, he toyed with it for years, but used it mostly as a sudden "panic" defense when his team was behind in the late stages of a game. However, the idea of using it as a planned weapon intrigued Wooden, and he finally decided to take the gamble. Long before he actually began to use the defense, Wooden, with typical perseverance, taught his players fundamentals only and got them into top physical condition. Then he thoroughly schooled them in a man-to-man press.
That sounds like a curious way to approach a zone type of defense, but Wooden reasoned, "When a zone press is beaten, a team is in trouble if it cannot fall back and properly protect itself. By first working on the man-to-man press we learned how to fall back naturally when we had to."
Finally Wooden taught his players the zone. This was not a one-week or even a one-season affair. Over the years the Bruins mastered the exhausting technique, sharpening their reactions and learning to anticipate each other's moves. And each new group of players absorbed both the inspiration required and some of the technique itself from the older players. What developed was a zone press that kept the pressure on an opponent almost constantly. It irritated, harassed and confused, and worked so well in 1963-'64 that UCLA won 30 straight and crushed Duke in the NCAA final. Last year Wooden changed his defensive alignment to put still more pressure on the offense. He moved a man up the baseline to play the opponent making the inbounds pass. The effect was devastating, because opponents then had trouble even getting the ball into play. But the essential qualities of the press were the same—quickness, precision and extreme confidence in execution—as Michigan sadly learned in the national championship playoff last March. For this season Wooden plans other changes. "If we don't change," he says, "coaches will soon figure out how to lick it."
Basically, the press, whether it is full-court, three-quarters, 2-2-1, 2-1-2, or UCLA's 1-2-1-1, is an attacking defense. Its immediate aim is to cause an otherwise good team to panic. It is designed to upset the rhythm of the enemy offense, create instant confusion and force errors. When it succeeds, it can overcome a 10-point deficit in minutes. In UCLA's 1-2-1-1 the defense forms immediately after UCLA scores a field goal or a foul shot. The center plays the out-of-bounds passer tight, the guards protect the areas on either side and one man—usually the quickest and with the best reactions—assumes a position midway between the baseline and midcourt, ready to intercept a medium pass. The safety man lines up deep to guard against the long pass and to protect against penetration. When the opponents do put the ball into play UCLA usually will double-team the first receiver, trying to harass him into a fumble or into throwing the ball away.
Occasionally UCLA will permit the first pass, offering only token resistance, and retreat upcourt into a more conventional defense. Then, when the floor position suits them, the Bruins revert to their swarming and double-teaming. Often the swift change of pace upsets the opposition, and the panic is on.
The zone press does not always work, of course. Because of its concentration on the ball rather than the man it is a gambling defense, and once beaten it often results in an easy field goal for the other team. But more often than not it at least succeeds in upsetting a planned attack. At best it creates panic. Either way, it sets the tempo for the game.
"Before the presses came along, the offensive team always dictated the court action," says Iowa Coach Ralph Miller, one of the earliest advocates of the full-court defense when he coached at Wichita East High School in the late '40s. "The defense had to wait to see what the offense was going to do. But now the defenses are forcing the issue." Pete Newell, who coached the California team that won the NCAA championship with a press, cites other advantages: "The zone press promotes an unselfish style of play. It does not emphasize individuals on offense alone. There is great squad appeal in this type of defense; it is a builder of team morale. The zone press is like a boxing pattern in which the boxer refuses to allow his opponent to get set, but stays in close, leans on him and makes him tire in the late stages."
What Loyola's George Ireland likes about it is its effect on the big man. "The zone press is basketball's first successful attempt at neutralizing the big man," says Ireland. "If George Mikan were playing today, I doubt if he would be nearly as effective as he was in his time. I don't think Mikan was agile enough to handle the press."
"It's the most effective defensive weapon in use today," claims Michigan's Dave Strack. "But you just have to have the quick, strong players to make it work. And they can't be lazy. The game is played at full speed all over the court, and every player must be ready to go all the time. The coach must be sold on the press, and then the players and the coach have to live and die with it."
Since Wooden and his players are living very well with it, the press, regardless of its disadvantages, will be the fashion for some time. At clinics and informal bull sessions last summer, more hours were spent on the press than on any other subject. At the Clinic of Champions held in Kansas City for 210 coaches, it was the only subject. Clinics usually list a dozen coaching problems. This is welcome news to Wooden and other coaches who plan to use some type of press this season. "That's the main value of it," says Wooden. "The more worried coaches are about it, the better it works."
Ohio State's Fred Taylor, who has had excellent results against the press—he calls it "the rat game"—goes at the problem analytically. "There are several things you have to know about a press before you can attack it," he says. "Like why are they pressing? Does it complement the offense or become a total offense, the way UCLA works it? Then you have to determine the type of press, its zone alignment and coverage of key spots. Does it become man-to-man in the second line? Do they put pressure on the ball out of bounds? Sometimes a pressing team wants you to have the ball inbounds and they play it soft. That gets the clock going. Then they swarm you. In other setups they'll wait for you to come to them in a roadblock-type defense. Finally, you have to compare your own team to the opponent."
Once all this is determined, Taylor says, "there are countless avenues of attack, but first we try to bypass as many defensive men as quickly as possible. We'll look for the long pass. If it's a true zone press, we'll try to eliminate a couple of defenders in a hurry. Secondly, our basic premise is to get into the heart of the defense. Penetrate and get back out, because the ball draws a crowd. Then it boils down to the pre-game planning, whether you're going to try to ram it down their throats if you beat the original press or set up and try to make them play half-court defense. The crux of beating the press is the way you determine what your personnel can do. You have to decide quickly whether or not you can ram it or if you must set up. But do it your way, not your opponent's way."
Taylor will know soon enough whether his way works. His Bucks will try to handle UCLA's "rat game" this Friday in Los Angeles.
The most important requisite, agrees California's Newell, is for a team to have a plan of attack. "If a coach does not provide a plan," he says in his book Basketball Methods, "he should not expect his players to react properly. The best way to force a pressure defense to retreat is to have the threat of men cutting to the basket all the time."
When Newell was coaching, he always designated a forward or center to take the ball out of bounds. "This was done for two reasons," he says. "A smaller player often has trouble passing over his defensive man, and his vision upcourt is impaired by the defensive man. Also we could more easily determine if the defense was playing man-to-man or zone. Next, we wanted to create a passing lane for the in bounds passer. One guard lined up approximately 15 feet from the baseline, head on to the player taking the ball out of bounds. He had the opportunity of breaking in either direction to create a passing lane. The other guard was parallel to the first guard on the opposite side of the court for an alternate lead. The two remaining men went upcourt, one on either side. They hesitated at the center line, to receive a long pass or to move back to help if needed.
"The out-of-bounds man passed to a guard, then moved into the lane for a return pass. One deep man cut back to meet the ball while the other guard cut upcourt. The player with the ball then had the option of passing to the deep man coming back or the guard heading upcourt."
Theoretically, this causes the pressure defense to spread, and when it does it is licked.
Howie Dallmar of Stanford is probably more familiar with the UCLA press than most coaches, because he has to face it twice a season in the AAWU. "The offensive problems are twofold," he says. "First, teams have to organize for the throw-in, and then they have to regroup to take the ball upcourt. Some teams, on the initial pass, like to have the guard throw upcourt to either forward. But they must be very careful, because the zone press can quickly adjust to 2-2-1, with both defensive forwards rotating to cover the long pass.
"Others like to flood an area to overload the zone. But once the ball is in, you face another problem—bringing it from back court to front court through the meat grinder. For this you can use a 3-2 attack, with the two guards and your most active forward bringing up the ball, or the more standard 2-3. In either case, the idea is to pass through the zone with a minimum amount of dribbling."
Kansas State's Tex Winter, on the other hand, does not believe in setting up definite play patterns against a press. "The defense can too easily size them up and block the passing lanes," he claims. "If you can execute the skills of the game while moving fast you are difficult to press successfully. What I want to do is outpressure the pressure. A fast-breaking team is best suited for this. I want fast passes rather than a dribble, but if no pass is open, then I like a quick dribble to escape a possible double-team trap.
"I tell my center and forwards to keep the pressure on their defensive men by continuously working behind them toward the offensive basket. But if they see a guard in trouble, they must be alert to come back and help out, the forward on the ball side first. He keeps coming until he gets a pass or is within 15 feet of the ball and has not received a pass. Then he should reverse quickly and head upcourt fast for a possible long pass over the heads of the defenders." A few of these for baskets, Winter figures, will soon discourage any press.
"My theory," says Michigan's Strack, "is to run with the ball, and despite what happened to us in the UCLA game last season I still think the zone press is vulnerable to quick basketball. What we tried to do against UCLA was to get the ball to our strongest man, Cazzie Russell, and have Bill Buntin go to mid-court and hook back to help." (Interestingly enough, many press advocates believe it works best of all against a team with a star like Cazzie Russell. Says Harry Lancaster, Adolph Rupp's astute assistant at Kentucky, "A Russell will take the zone press as a challenge and try to beat it singlehanded, even if he has to try to dribble through it. This is the worst thing to use against the press. We want to hold the dribble to a minimum. But a guy like Russell may try to go all the way with it. A poorer player, with less confidence, will be afraid of getting trapped by the zone press. He won't want to handle the ball and will get rid of it quickly. That's the thing to do.")
One thing that has contributed to the recent success of pressing defenses, says Providence's Joe Mullaney, is the lack of good ball handlers in the game today. "A press takes advantage of this lack," he adds. "Some teams have one, or maybe two, ball handlers, but they must get rid of the ball sometime and eventually the weak men on your team have to touch it. That's when you're in trouble. You just can't bury a couple of bad ball handlers against a zone press." (One beneficial result of the trend to presses may be a return to thorough grounding in ball-handling fundamentals by coaches.)
A man-to-man press is really no problem, says Mullaney, because "any kid who can put the ball on the ground will easily beat it. Everybody just clears out to let him operate one-on-one. But, regardless of the type of press we have to face, we teach our players one theory for attacking it. There are no set patterns, because zones, even presses, bend so much that a player must be flexible enough to adjust quickly to any pattern. We want to split the defensive men, always giving them the problem of moving to us. Also we want to spread the defense and then get to open areas with the ball. The first receiver should be our best ball-handling guard, and if he is a good one he will escape the first double-team in backcourt. After that he heads upcourt on one side, almost inviting another double-team, with the other guard trailing on the other side at about a 45ďż˝ angle. If the first man finds himself one-on-one, he tries to beat his opponent on the dribble. If he is shut off by a double-team, he tries to shoot the gap between it with a pass, or passes off to his trailer, who is in the only open area." But, admits Mullaney, this can only work when you have the ball handlers.
Iowa's Miller is sold on the aggressive approach. "To combat attack, you must use more attack," he says. "But it does not have to be reckless. It can be careful, though not cautious, because caution implies fear, and fear is fatal to any offense. I don't think it matters too much what kind of specific offense you use against a zone press. The best way to attack it is with a passing game. When you dribble the ball, the defense simply moves with it and the defense's form remains intact. Coach Phog Allen's theory is as sound now as it was in the 1920s, and I subscribe to it: 'Pass the ball to a man in the open and then move to a new position yourself.' "
Notre Dame's Johnny Dee favors the bounce pass out to the first man. He thinks there is less chance for an interception that way. "The basic fundamental of the zone press is that it is going to play the ball," he says. "So we want to overload the zone and try to set up screens to break a receiver loose. I bring a third man to the ball to get four against three in the backcourt."
Louisville's Peck Hickman warns, "The team that presses the panic button against the zone press is the team that gets whipped by it. So it is of primary importance to retain your poise. For instance, if one of our big men is shut off by two guards, we tell him to take the five-second penalty of a jump ball rather than throw a bad pass. Then he still has a chance to control the jump. That's better than giving up two points. Technically, we will try for area passes—passes into specific areas designated beforehand—and avoid throwing the cross-court pass. We also will screen to get receivers free from a defender, and we want our men to be cutting at angles at all times."
Loyola's Ireland, who uses the press himself, says he is not worried about it at all: "We had no trouble handling the UCLA press last year. We only lost the ball three times because of the press and picked up about six to eight baskets against it. We would have lost the ball three times against any defense. It's easier to crack a pressing defense than an ordinary one, because the defense must cover more floor area."
A corollary to this view is the opinion of Villanova's Jack Kraft that "the team that presses will often get upset if this tactic is turned against it. You'll see it happen many times—throw a tough zone against a pressing team and they'll panic." Kraft, highly respected by coaches for his well-coached squads, also takes positions directly opposed to those generally accepted on three points: use of the dribble, passing and avoidance of the sideline areas. He encourages his players to dribble the ball. "The first thing we want to do is break down their front line and then attack the basket under normal fast-break conditions," he says. "The less passing you do the less chance there is for losing the ball. I like my best ball handler to bring the ball up along the sidelines, because that makes it more difficult for the middle man to double-team. I keep my other guard behind the ball as a trailer for a safety pass, and if he gets the ball his move is to the other side. What this does is spread the middle man so that we can get the ball to the middle from the sideline. When we arrive there, then we have three-on-two, and that's the way we want to be against a zone press. That should finish it.
"The second phase of our play—and the most difficult to get across to our players—is that you must attack the basket quickly. We don't want to give the opposition time to regroup into a normal defense. But you'd better have the ball handlers against the press. If you haven't—forget it. Don't even show up."
Because he agrees with that last statement and possibly because he is a frequent user of the press himself, DePaul's Ray Meyer spends more time preparing to meet it than most other coaches. Hoping to develop player confidence as well as technique, he devotes two full weeks of preseason practice as well as part of every week during the season to playing against it. Meyer has several drills specifically designed to combat presses. His men work diligently on dribbling, releasing the passer and staying away from the man with the ball. "The idea behind that maneuver," he explains, "is to isolate the man with the ball in a one-on-one situation. It is very difficult for one man to take the ball away from another without fouling."
Meyer welcomes a zone press because, he says, "We operate on the theory that we can pass faster than our opponents can run." His rules are: keep the ball in the middle to avoid being trapped on the sideline; once you lose your dribble, get rid of the ball because you can be double-teamed; do not bring your man close to the man with the ball.
So go the arguments. Every coach in the country has an opinion, all the way from Frank McGuire's "Just get better ballplayers" to complicated maneuvers involving overloads and split-second screens. It is all music to John Wooden. "As long as so many coaches feel there are so many ways to beat the zone press," he says, "that means no one is really sure. It is evidence that the press is hard to beat."
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billmountjoy7
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Karma: 17 | | Re: JOHN WOODEN UCLA PRESS PACKAGE
« Reply #2 on Sept 15, 2012, 10:53am » | |
Although John Wooden was best known for his stifling Zone Presses, he used quite a bit of MAN TO MAN PRESSURE. His Freshmen were allowed to use ONLY man pressure, so by the time they got to the Varsity - they knew how to use tight man pressure WITHIN his zone presses. We taught our Freshmen (High School) only man presses, but when they became members of the JV or Varsity - they were taught the UCLA zone presses.
ATTACHED = page 1 of John Wooden Man/Pressure:
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billmountjoy7
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Karma: 17 | | Re: JOHN WOODEN UCLA PRESS PACKAGE
« Reply #3 on Sept 15, 2012, 10:54am » | |
And here is page two of John Wooden Man/Pressure (ATTACHED):
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