Building team play is very important and will be a progressive process over a number of years. Building team play should be closely linked to improving individual fundamentals and developing tactical decision-making, so that players learn to interact using the appropriate individual resources.

Team play development combines both defence and offence and both aspects should be built up simultaneously.

Distance from an Opponent

The first defensive concept that players must understand when introducing team defence is the distance that they should be from the person that they are defending.

The player guarding the ball should be close enough to their player that they can touch the ball. If their player has a “dead ball” (i.e. they have already dribbled) then the defender may step closer.

The position of a defender guarding someone that does not have the ball, depends upon where their opponent is relative to the ball – the further away from the ball the opponent is, the further away from the opponent the defender is!

This is often described in terms of how many passes away the opponent is from the ball. Many players will be able to throw the ball from one side of the court to the other, reaching any player in 1 pass. However, in determining defensive position, we use the number of short passes: