Basketball Transition Defense Drills | 4 on 4 on 4 Drill

Written by Coach Peterman

I have coached at the NCAA Division 2 (Southwestern Oklahoma State University), NAIA (USAO), and JUCO Levels (Blinn College and Carl Albert State College) as well as high school. I just felt that fellow coaches especially young coaches need to constantly work on their “game”. Just like the basketball players that we coach. We as coaches need to improve ourselves. That is my story and why I do this blog.



Basketball Drills



0 Comments(s)



February 10, 2014

Basketball Transition Defense Drills | 4 on 4 on 4 Drill by Mark Chapman

The 4 on 4 on 4 drill is one of my favorite basketball transition defense drills both as a player and as a coach. This is a drill that my high school coach used, it was competitive, and had a lot of components to develop different aspects of transition.

Transition defense is probably one area that every team struggles with. As coaches, the worst part of transition defense many times comes from our own mistakes on offense. Our team either turns the ball over or takes a poor shot that puts the offense at an advantage, usually outnumbering the defensive players that are back. This drill teaches the outnumbered defenders that they need to hold the offense off for about two seconds until the rest of their teammates are there to help! To many times players give up easy layups because they don’t think it’s worth the fight. By using basketball transition defense drills, you’re not only teaching your team that it’s good to fight on defense but that there is help on the way.

On the offensive side our players are taught that they need to execute quickly and limit the number of passes. The best scoring option when running with numbers usually happens within the first or second pass. If your offensive players are running 4 on 2 and make 4, 5, 6 or more passes the chances are the opponent will have recovered and the advantage is now gone.

We usually run this kind of basketball transition defense drills with 3 teams for 3 minute segments, keeping score. My players love the competition and hate to lose to their teammates so the tempo is like a normal transition. We don’t call a lot of fouls because the offense has the numbers advantage and we want our players to learn to finish through the foul.

Here is how the drill is run:

– 4 players start on offense going at 2 defenders

– 2 teammates of defensive teams are at half court

– 2 defenders for the third team are at the opposite side are waiting

– Once the ball crosses half court the 2 defenders at mid court sprint across and slap hands before sprinting to help their teammates

– After a score, turnover, or def. rebound occurs the defensive team transitions to the other end and as the ball crosses two defenders slap hands and sprint back to help their teammates.

We have a new basketball coaching contributor in Mark Chapman He is doing an excellent job in providing basketball coaching clinic notes, basketball drills, and basketball plays. He is the Head Boy’s Basketball Coach at Hamilton Township High School in Columbus, Ohio. I think that you will enjoy these basketball clinic notes on these Basketball Transition Defense Drills.

Follow Coach Mark Chapman on Twitter!!!

Click on the pdf link to download the basketball transition defense drills: