NFL
By: Rob Botts
The perimeter. One of the most important geographical locations that needs to be protected. It all starts there. If you don’t have a secure perimeter, you don’t have security period. No, this isn’t a persuasive ad for your local home security company. Nope. This is about the current sad state of defensive affairs that is taking place on the perimeter on basketball courts all over the association. It’s an epidemic. Sure there have been flare ups over the many years, but nothing as consistent and foul smelling as what we have witnessed this season. And the playoffs are upon us!!
You can just hear every coach at every level of basketball in the history of the game say one or more of the following at one tutorial point or another:
Get low and stay low.
Shuffle your feet
Move laterally
Keep your head up and on a swivel for a possible screen coming
Active hands
Get back
Stop penetration
Deflect with your off hand
Close out on shooters
Deny the ball
STOP THE BALL! STOP THE BALL! STOP THE BALL!
Now, I’m sure these same nuggets of defensive advice are still being communicated but it appears we have a game of “telephone” going on here. I could go on and on, but let’s shine a light on what is NOT being done by most of our perimeter players in the league this year. First of all, players are applying faux ball pressure. This kind of pressure gives pressure a bad name. It has the people over at Wikepedia thinking about sticking in an updated definition in there. The defenders are there but they certainly are not harassing the offensive player and making it more difficult to set up the offense on a consistent basis or that effectively. They also have continually left their hands down by their sides or not completely raised at all to stop, bother or alter a jump shot. It happens all the time and is even more noticeable now because of players taking and making more deep twos and threes than ever before. Most close outs have been more like open outs if anything.
One of your biggest and most important responsibilities as a perimeter defense is to not allow penetration. If that happens defensive rotations begin to happen but it immediately weakens the defensive plan. How are dudes blowing by dude this year? Well, in every way possible. Whether it is an up-fake, a pump fake, a stutter step or a complete blow by, there has been almost no resistance. Defenders just seem not to be doing the ONE fundamental thing that is the most sacred and where no talent is required. EFFORT. Roll your sleeves up, get down in your stance and stop a player’s forward progression. Now, even if you don’t give full effort, the players of today are such amazing athletes that they should be able to cut dudes off at the pass. But that isn’t happening. Most of the time they end up hitching a ride to become an active viewer of the soon to be released shot.
It is this relaxation of defensive fundamentals if you will that is the main culprit. It just looks and feels as if every game is now just a scoring contest. Hurry up and get yours so I can hurry up and get mine. Of course they aren’t thinking that exact thought but it sure looks like it. Whenever you see the ball being peppered around the perimeter by a team on offense it is more about the lack of defensive disturbance than about the actual attacking offense. Usually a decent defense will make you take the occasional exit when traveling in the offensive RV. But not this year. All lanes are open and no tolls are required. Would be competitive regular season contests have been reduced to glorified pick ups games on the defensive end in some extreme cases. Didn’t know I was watching the NBA all star game in April.
But whenever one thing becomes a huge issue whether in life or sports, something always happens to return balance to everything. I’m not talking about sacking a city like Liam Neeson’s character in the classic “Batman Begins” but about a certain player or team of players soon that will step up and fix the perimeter. Save the game. Make defense the difference again. This will fly in the face of the league office in Gotham city that has done it’s absolute totalitarian best to weaken defenses with subtle rule changes over the years that favor and embolden the offensive side of the ball. The NBA has been for years now following what the NFL has done. Make it easier for the offense and harder for the defense. I guess this current lapse of defensive effectiveness by the ballers was a foregone conclusion considering the environment that they inhabited over the years. BUT, just like the Denver Broncos defense did this last football season, there will be a new defensive force that will persuasive and begin the change to bring the balance back. In the meantime, “STOP THE BALL!!!”
As mentioned at the top, the playoffs are almost here and by just a natural raising of the pressure and adrenaline, that should get these dudes to raise the level of the defense. A pulse is better than no pulse. If you go by the expression “You reach, I’ll teach”, there has been a whole lot of classroom hours being logged by defenders all across the league. Talk about a continuing education program.
