Sue Phillips: Defensive System For Success

Over the last two decades at Archbishop Mitty High School, Sue Phillips has had incredible success with her multiple defensive system, winning five state championships.

In this on-court presentation, she demonstrates 10+ drills you can use to teach the concepts of her "black" and "white" man-to-man defenses.

• Black - An aggressive, denial-style defense.
• White - Players back into the gaps to support the ball defender.

Individual Defense
Coach Phillips explains how she teaches basic defensive movements, on-ball defense, helping on penetration, rebounding, denying passes and defending the on-ball screen.

Any style of defense will struggle or excel based on whether players can properly execute these universal defensive techniques.

Coach Phillips shares five warm-up drills that develop the defensive mechanics players use when sliding, boxing out, and closing out. These drills include:

• Push-pull - fine-tunes proper slides and develops explosiveness
• Push-back - a box out drill
• Recover Runs - teaches players how to cover the entire court
• Full Court 1-on-1 - a competitive drill to "turn and stop" the ball handler
• Closeout Drill - a competitive drill to cement fundamentals

Team Defense
Discover a progression of team drills starting with a 2-on-1 match up and building up to 5-on-4.

Any defense will occasionally have breakdowns and your players need to practice these situations in order to know how to successfully handle them.

In the "Dribble-Drop Triangle Shell" drill, players learn how to rotate to help on penetration from the weak side. Coach Phillips only allows players to stunt and recover on the strong side. Help in this defensive system must come from the post stepping up to stop the ball. This rotation requires team coordination, as another defender must drop to help cover the post.

The 3-on-3 Penetration Progression expands this concept to dribble penetration from the sides and works on negating middle penetration, closing out, helping outside the paint and recovering with crossing defensively.

Coach Phillips also shares two drills that she uses to teach players how to deny the passing lanes. Players practice denying on the perimeter and shutting down cutters in the 4-on-3 Circle Chug drill. This drill improves physicality, not allowing face cuts, defensive court awareness and team defense principles. In the 4-on-3 Two Post Shell drill, players learn how to deny the post and quickly switch from help defense to on-ball or post defense as the ball moves in the drill.

Lastly, you see two different ways to defend ball screens in the 4-on-4 shell drill. Black will have players trapping the ball and looking for the interception. White is a vertical hedge at the screen to deter the attack of the dribbler. Coach Phillips also shows a variation of the drill she uses to develop her transition defense in full-court play.

Coach Phillips' on-court presentation covers all elements from philosophy to individual skill to team strategy. With this knowledge you can build a defensive system that will frustrate any opponent..

Produced at the Spring 2014 Pittsburgh (PA) clinic.

57 minutes. 2015.