I'm fairly flummoxed with presses at this point. Multiple games this year that I feel were lost almost solely because of 25+ turnover performances.

My D-II PG with 99 speed and 90+passing and BH, who should kill a press, had multiple games this year with 5+ turnovers against pressing teams.

The obvious ones are to slow the tempo down(I run FB so this means going to normal speed offense), give a little more distro to your better passers/BH guys, etc. I've also expiramented with starting 3 guards against a press more often, but even guys with 85spd, 60/60 BH/pass seem to have very high TO count against the press. My teams generally have plenty of spd/ATH which should in theory also counter-act press.



What are some strategies that you use, both in recruiting and in game planning that have been successful against the press for you?

Send me a sitemail.

Go uptempo instead of slow

I never run anything but normal tempo against the press.

I try to spread my distro fairly evenly - much more evenly than against zone/man. Concentrating your distro will lead to guys forcing shots against the double-team. As you said, I concentrate my distro in the better bh/pass guys but I also try to put distro in my higher IQ guys.

I also keep track of the players my evals tell me are "unselfish" and those where the player is a "slightly less hairy teen wolf". Avoid the teen wolf guys in your distro as they'll force it against the dt more often than the unselfish guys.

Quote: Originally Posted By cheeznsweet on 2/22/2010
I never run anything but normal tempo against the press.

I try to spread my distro fairly evenly - much more evenly than against zone/man. Concentrating your distro will lead to guys forcing shots against the double-team. As you said, I concentrate my distro in the better bh/pass guys but I also try to put distro in my higher IQ guys.

I also keep track of the players my evals tell me are "unselfish" and those where the player is a "slightly less hairy teen wolf". Avoid the teen wolf guys in your distro as they'll force it against the dt more often than the unselfish guys.

Thanks Cheez, good call on the evals, I need to pay more attention to those in general.

I agree with cheez. If run correctly, the press will turn more possessions into turnovers than the other defenses. If you go uptempo, you're trying to "beat" the press. There are times when that works, but if you're not insanely faster than the other team, you're essentially upping your turnovers even more. Meanwhile, if you go slowdown, you're minimizing the possessions, but the turnover ratio still has the risk of remaining the same, which kills the offense dead before the game starts.

to cut down on turnovers give the ball 50/50 to two guys that can handle the ball and can score. their to's will be higher, but total and asst/to ratio will improve dramatically. if the two 50/50 guys are not pg's this will improve even more.

I have experimented recently against the press with the strategy of going up-tempo and putting every player on "-2" for treys. My hypothesis was that based on the combination of a press, a fast pace, and everyone driving to the hoop on every possession, my team would draw so many fouls that the opponent would lose key players to foul trouble, and that his remaining players would be too tired to be effective at the end of the game.

I'd consider it a failed experiment, though. However, my team is pretty poor from the free throw line. Possibly a team that shoots FT's better would be able to get somewhere with this approach.