Matt Painter: Building a Defensive Philosophy

with Matt Painter,
Purdue University Head Men's Coach;
2024 Big Ten Regular Season Champions;
2x AP Big Ten Coach of the Year (2023, 2024);
2023 Big Ten Tournament Champions;
2023 AP Co-Big Ten Coach of the Year;
2022 Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame;
2019 NABC National Coach of the Year;
2019 Elite Eight;
4x Big Ten Coach of the Year (2008, 2010, 2011, 2019);
5x Big Ten Regular Season Champions (2010, 2017, 2019, 2023, 2024);
2009 Big Ten Tournament Champions;
2009 US U19 National Team Assistant Coach (Gold medal);
Purdue University Associate Head Coach from 2004 to 2005;
Southern Illinois Head Coach from 2003 to 2004;
2004 MVC Regular Season Champions;
2004 MVC Coach of the Year;
Southern Illinois Assistant Coach from 1998 to 2003;
Eastern Illinois Assistant Coach from 1995 to 1998;
Barton College Assistant Coach from 1994 to 1995;
Washington & Jefferson Assistant Coach from 1993 to 1994;
played college basketball for Purdue from 1989 to 1993 (guard)

Most kids today want to be an offensive superstar, so building a defensive culture can be a hard sell. However, building a culture that is defensive-minded can narrow the gap between talented teams and teams that are lesser skilled, since having a strong defensive presence is more often attributed to effort and desire than pure talent.

2019 NABC 'Coach of the Year' Matt Painter gives you strategies to help build your defensive culture. Rather than rehashing familiar drills, Coach Painter goes into detail about the principles behind building an effective defense. In this video, he discusses his underlying coaching philosophy that is reliant upon a strong, "disrupt and then contain" defensive principle. He also demonstrates the rules within his program regarding defending full-court, transition, half-court, and screening actions.

Building your Defense

Building a defense from the ground up is what every coach should do. You will see:

• How to use the safety and jammer position in your press and transition defense
• How to be Early, Loud and Continuous (ELC) on calling screening action
• The benefits of having both an open and closed stance defensively
• How to have compact help to have more effective movement on defense

Transition Defense

Coach Painter shows how Purdue sends three to the boards and utilizes their point guard to jam the ball off the rebound or bucket. With point guards communicating early and denying the easy kick up, you are able to focus on defending your opponent in the half-court.

Half Court Defense

Establishing your half court presence is a must. Coach Painters identifies shooters and non-shooters so players can learn who they need to commit to right away. In his 3v3 shell drill, players have to identify and close out to shooters and non-shooters. This is established early in practice so players develop a tough defensive mindset right from the start of practice.

Help Defense

Any good defense must have players who can rotate and help each other. Coach Painter describes his 'Compact Help' philosophy, which has players get to their spots to stop drives and force an outside shot off of a kick out. Being smart and leveling the dribbler rather than committing a foul has taught his players to force only one contested shot and keep dribblers out of the paint. His players have developed a "Gotta Make It" mentality when it comes to rotating into and out of help defense.

Ball Screen Defense

Nearly 75%-80% of offensive actions contain some form of screening action. Using 4-on-4, half-court shell, Coach Painter demonstrates how to defend the flare screen, down screen, back screen, and iso ball screens. He does this by having the screener's defender open up and stare the ball handler in the eye while the other defender chases or attaches to the cutter. This prevents easy passes into the paint and forces a long skip pass.

Defensive Closeouts

Coach Painter gives you the keys to effectively perform defensive closeouts with his "Spots" drill. You will see:

• What type of closeout to use based on a player's shooting percentage and number of makes per games
• How to closeout to 5 different spots while on defensive
• How to make sure your closeouts do not allow players to get to the middle of the floor

Defending the Post

Having multiple defensive tactics to use when double teaming or helping against post players allows you to minimize your opponent's ability to exploit your double team/help. Coach Painter shows you:

• How to keep the post player from getting to the middle on the defense
• How to teach having a defensive pivot when the wing defender has to help in the post, but is also guarding a good shooter
• How to trap the post using the snap back technique
• How to build a wall around the post while the wing is guarding a non-shooter

Coach Painter's teams consistently rank among the best defensive teams in the country year after year. In this video, he gives you everything you need to help instill a shut-down defensive culture on your team.

"With most defensive-minded videos devoted to individual defense and are drill-heavy, it's great to see a 'big-picture' video that instead demonstrates the overall philosophy and scheme and illustrates how to defend the most commonly used offensive actions" - Customer Review

Produced at the Spring 2016 Myrtle Beach (SC) clinic.

80 minutes. 2017.