Has anyone used extreme positioning to guard the perimeter and what are the general results? I'm facing a team that shoots almost 50% of their shots as 3s but the teams he lost to actually went -3, -3, and +1 in positioning, which leads me to think that +3 to +5 are not a good idea?

I never go above +3 but would likely use it against that team

I'm with Al.  You need to look at your matchups.  If his shots are coming from his guards and you have strong guards high in ATH, SPD and DEF you should be fine with +2 or +3.  I never go higher either.  If he is getting affective 3 point shooting from his PF and/or C position you may have to play something higher.  A +3 will extend your PF and C but it won't bring them out far enough to defend a 3 pointer.  And if he is playing a run and shoot with a 4 guard 1 SF type of lineup you may want to even switch your lineup around to match up better.  I guess it really just depends on how good this team is, how well they shoot all these 3's, and what positions are shooting the 3's. 

I have no problem goping +3 to +5 with this "offence happy" engine.

tianyi, I wouldn't hesitate to go +3 against that team. I think the real common denominator in the games that he lost were the teams were just better than his (the -3 losses were to the same team that's 29-1 and 60+ pts better per man, so I wouldn't read into that; the others were +1 and +2). Most of his other games were against crappy teams/sims.

As a coach on the receiving end of high + defenses from time to time, I've really grown skeptical as to whether they have much appreciable impact. At +3 or higher, my team over the last three seasons has, on average, taken fewer 3-pt. shots in games against them, but this difference is only about 10 percent from the norm (so instead of 24-25 attempts behind the arc, I take 22 or so against a +3/4/5). Percentage-wise, it drops from 39 percent against all D's to 36.8 percent vs. +3/4/5.

So, yes, there is some tangible effect. To me, though, the rebounding advantage I get from an opponent running at +3/4/5 more than offsets these minor dips. Two put-backs/tips/buckets of an extra possession pretty much covers the lost offensive production on the perimeter.

I guess if you have a decisive rebounding edge, you can safely extend to a higher + without risking as much. From my vantage though, the difference in a +3/4/5 isn't as radical or beneficial as what one sees running a -3/4/5 to slow down an inside game.

I stuck with +1 because I didn't have time today to change my gameplan. It worked out well since the ath/spd diff between us was huge but this thread is helpful in case I ran into anyone else that goes so 3pt heavy.

Thanks for the help.

I use +3 to +5 often, especially against Sims, and I've had good results.  It's perfectly usable.

I agree with all the other guys, I use +3 quite often. The real question though isn't that he's shooting 50% of his shots from 3pt land, it's what % of those shots is he making. Just because he's taking 25 of his 50 shots per game from 3pt land (example to make the math easy), doesn't mean he's making them. You have to look at the 3's made vs. the 3's taken to get a better idea of how well he shoots the 3's. If he's only making 5 of the 25, that's only 20% and I would worry about it. If he's making 10 to 15 of the 25, that's 40% to 60% and you definitely need to make ajustments to your game plan. Take the number of 3's made and divide by the number of games played and take the number of 3's taken and divide by the number of games to give you his averages. I.E. if he's played 13 games and he's 72 of 153 for 3's than his average is 5.38 made of 11.77 taken.

Court, to me this is a minor factor -- maybe a tie-breaker if I can't decide between (for example) balanced or +1. I say this for a bunch of reasons. If he takes a ton of 3p's and you don't adjust appropriately, you're leaving the door open to lose the game because he simply has a good shooting night. Also, even if a team hasn't shot all that well so far, that's not necessarily indicative of their actual 3pt shooting strength due to sample size (although of course that arguments does diminish depending on how deep into the season you are). But overall, I've seen so many people lose games because they didn't properly adjust vs. a team that shoots lots of threes.

Girt, I agree with what your saying, I was just pointing out that after he does decide to move out some because of what you said, he can use my thought as a barometer of how far to move out. I.E. so as not to leave the door too wide open for getting out rebounded by a substantial margin and than losing the game because he gave up to many offensive rebounds and inside points.

just used a +3 slowdown as a 36 point underdog with my only good big man out injured to beat the #2 team in the country with my previously 1-5  Bethel team (granted we are better than most 2-5 teams...both wins against top 25 teams so maybe the size of the spread was not warranted).

but still.  i almost feel guilty getting that win.