Basketball Press Break

One December at College Prep in Italy, Alex Sarama's team got zone pressed and, in his words on episode 39 of the podcast, did terribly against it. Afterwards he talked it through with Francesco Rossi, College Basket's youth director. Many coaches, as Alex put it, would have put a zone break in. Francesco remembers suggesting something else instead: the opponent had used full-court pressure, so play the Animals game, a passing game he runs every day early in the season, and add defenders.

Alex's recollection is that the team's principles of play got better within a couple of times of playing it, without a press break ever going in.

The usual way to prepare for pressure is to walk a press break through 5-on-0: inbounder here, release there, middle flash, reverse. Transcending Basketball lists 5-on-0 pattern execution among the drills worth making over. The concern is that when players rehearse a pattern with nobody guarding it, they may regurgitate it in games instead of acting on what the defense gives them.

On EP37 Alex went further with 5-on-0 generally: add at least three defenders, up to five, and then constrain them. For example, two can't use their hands, or some can only defend outside the paint. His example was an opponent that blitzes: the defense can't blitz twice in a row, but gets three points when a blitz forces a turnover. You could set the same rule for traps, so the offense meets the pressure at moments it can't predict.

A clean run-through shows players where to start. Whether they can get there against a live press is another question. Transforming Basketball makes the point about the shell drill, and it holds for a press break too. When players struggle against something unpredictable, coaches tend to reach for more control, but control removes the mistakes players learn from.

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21 small-sided games you can run and adapt at your next practice, each one keeping the defenders, decisions and scoring of the real game.

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"Beating the press" is several different problems. George Vaz's article on intense ball pressure started from a member's question. Brian Loomis wrote:

George's answer was to design small-sided games that mimic the problem, which first means identifying the rate limiter, the part of the possession that keeps stopping your team. Watch a few possessions and find where the ball stops progressing.

If the ball is getting stolen before anyone can help, start smaller. These games keep a live defender on the ball and give the handler a clear task: keep the ball first, then attack.

Alex explained the reason for banning turning your back on EP37, using his own version, Stay Alive 1-on-1: the offense handles pressure for five seconds in a small area while the defender tries to steal, and if they stay alive they get to play: a three if you're constraining it, or a normal 1-on-1. Add a rule that turning your back to the defense for longer than a second loses, and the handler has to find solutions other than being a turtle. A player who keeps their back to the defender in a game has no easy chance to drive or pass.

Francesco Rossi's cage, from the same EP39 conversation, is the simplest version. Put a ball-handler in a small area marked with cones or lines, with a "pit bull" defender whose only goal is to touch or steal the ball. There's no basket to defend. In Francesco's version, the handler has a basket to face, so they can't turn their back, only a shoulder.

This game has no inbounder and no teammate to pass to, so it isolates one part of the press break rather than reproducing the whole thing.

Transforming Basketball has two close relatives. In Touchdown Tag 1-on-1, the handler has seven seconds to get from the baseline to half court without a two-handed tag from a defender who starts on the free-throw line. In Gauntlet 1-on-3, the handler has ten seconds to get through three defenders, each guarding one third of a narrow corridor. One of the book's constraints for the Gauntlet is made for this page: start it off an inbound catch against full-court pressure. Both games, with their rules, are in our ball-handling guide.

When the handler is trapped and nobody is available, use Animals. Francesco described it on EP39; he uses it with his under-15s every day at the start of the season.

Francesco was clear on the podcast that the game isn't only for the offense. Defenders decide whether to fake, jump a passing lane or stay home, so the offense has to read live decisions rather than a scripted defense. For more passing games built the same way, see our passing drills guide.

You don't need a press-break block in every practice. George described a different route on EP108. With the London Lions academy U16 girls, in the program's first year, opponents pressured and the team turned the ball over. So every practice game, whether 2-on-2 or 3-on-3, started with five seconds of handling pressure. George's observation was that turnovers went down over the following tournaments, especially the unforced ones and the possessions where a player dribbled into two defenders. That's one team's experience, not a promise.

Alex, who coached that program with George, added the other half on the same episode. Pressing in practice made the offense better against pressure.

The inbound is part of this too. On EP137 Alex described a setup his London Lions team used against teams that trapped and pressed early. As he put it, it wasn't a press break, it was more principles: get the ball in as quickly as possible, catch it high, and try to get to dominoes immediately. To build the habit, practice with a two-second constraint: if the ball isn't inbounded within two seconds, it's a turnover.

Small games isolate a problem, and the full-court game shows whether the solution holds up. This one is an application for you to adapt rather than a session we've documented. Play full-court from a baseline inbound against the pressure your team needs to handle. Keep the game rules your competition uses. Let the offense pass or dribble, and let the defense respond rather than follow a scripted route.

• Pause after a short set of possessions to identify the recurring difficulty.
• If the offense can't complete the first catch, adjust the defensive starting distance.
• If the first catch is easy but the trap stops play, begin some possessions at that moment.
• Return to the full sequence after working on the smaller problem.

For a documented full-court game, Transforming Basketball suggests flipping Three Trips so the first possession starts a player down, which gives players more chances to play against pressure from a disadvantage.

Watch the players away from the ball as closely as the ball-handler. Are they getting open before the next defender arrives? Can the receiver control the pass and keep going? Check passing distances as well, because a pass that's open in theory may be beyond a young player's range. George noticed the same thing in the U16 girls' pick-and-roll offense: some of them didn't yet have the strength to throw the skip pass over the top.

Once the offense gets past the first trap, the defense is scrambling and the offense has an advantage. The first of the three dominoes concepts in Transcending Basketball, adapted from Ross McMains, applies directly: drive, pass or shoot in zero seconds on each catch, to keep the dominoes falling and stop the defense getting back to neutral.

Transforming Basketball calls transition the part of the game where dominoes appear most readily, because the defense is out of position. A broken press is transition with the defense even more scattered. To make players keep attacking, the book suggests scoring rules such as double points for a score within five seconds of gaining possession, or crossing half court within four seconds after a make.

From here, the ball-handling guide goes deeper on the individual games, and the transition offense guide covers what happens when the advantage turns into a fast break.