Trapping Tactics to Smother Ball Screens, Dribble Handoffs and Baseline Drives

Matt Ridge, the head men’s coach at Davison-Davie Community College has utilized a trapping, tenacious style of defense to lead his program to the most wins, and the highest winning percentage, in all of NJCAA over the last 15 years.

The ability to trap ball screens and dribble handoffs has helped Coach Ridge’s teams to be one of the best defensive teams in the country, year-in and year-out. 

In this highly valuable video, Coach Ridge breaks down how he teaches ball-screen defense and baseline-drive traps to create chaos in the half court while helping to control tempo.

Trapping Philosophy, Defending Ball Screens & Dribble Handoffs 

Creating a fun, up-tempo style of play by using a ball-hawking, trapping defense can be engaging for your players. By trapping ball screens, players can force opponents to play faster than they would normally like to and play right into your hands strategically. 

Coach Ridge explains all the ways to control tempo and keep the ball out of your opponent’s best players hands through a defensive system of guarding ball screens and dribble handoffs. This type of defense builds your team's confidence and can force turnovers, which leads to easy baskets in transition.

With ball screens being a very popular offensive tactic, Coach Ridge demonstrates by using a presentation method that combines whiteboard-diagramming, film breakdown and on-court presentations to teach you how to trap ball screens and dribble handoffs, as well as how your other defenders should rotate to prevent easy buckets.

Whether your offensive opponents utilize a two-outlet or three-outlet pass strategy, Ridge shows you how to teach players to properly rotate in the ‘interceptor spots,’ while having a ‘goaltender’ ready to prevent any easy layups around the rim. 

Defending Baseline Drives, Trapping Drills

Whether a team is playing 5-out or 4-out with 1-in, Coach Ridge outlines how to place tremendous on-the-ball pressure by trapping the baseline driver. Ridge explains that this type of defensive pressure – when combined with your trapping ball screen and dribble handoff defense – creates tough scoring opportunities for opponents, as they will feel like you are constantly swarming the basketball and leaving no possible way for them to get an easy scoring chance.

To best understand this style of defense, you must have a teaching system in place that breaks down your rotations and actions. Coach Ridge shows off a highly effective trapping drill called the ‘Box Drill,’ where players learn how to create trapping situations with two players trapping the ball, while maintaining two players playing the interceptor spot and one player defending in what he calls the ‘goaltender spot.’

The ‘Box Drill’ is effective in showing players how to cheat to one side of the trap or another as they read their ball handler’s shoulders and eyes.

This is also a great drill for teaching any trapping defense, while increasing your player’s ability to get deflections and steals.  

Trapping defenses can be a fun style of play for players and is a great way to get a lot of players involved in the game. Trapping ball screens and baseline drives increases your team’s chances of creating turnovers and disrupting your opponent’s offense. 

This defensive video will help take your defense to a whole new level – regardless of the level of competition you coach!

Customer Review: 5 Out of 5 Stars. ‘Coach Ridge provides a terrific combination of on-court demonstrations, whiteboard diagramming and game-film examples to teach these important defensive concepts. These teaching strategies will help players better understand how and when to trap and rotate!’   

45 minutes. 2023.