Defensive Charting on the Bench by Adam Spinella

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.

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Basketball Coaching

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January 25, 2015

Defensive Charting on the Bench by Adam Spinella

Charting your team’s defense on the bench is a fickle task. Defenses don’t change very often, so you are really looking to aid your head coach if and when you must change your defense. Essentially you are charting where on the court the shot comes from, whose man is shooting and what led to the shot – a ball screen, an off-ball screen, a poor closeout.

Defensive charting comes in the same form as offensive charting: you structure your page by the type of defense you run. Man-to-man (and any wrinkles you may throw in), zones, full-court pressures, transition. BE THOROUGH! If you change your ball screen coverage from hedging to trapping, make sure you note how that influences your team’s performance.

In addition to listing the types of coverage and noting the results of the play, I add a shot chart on the side of the page for each coverage. Then I can show tangible results of where the shots are coming from – that is the most important part of game-planning. If you force 15 long mid-range jumpers in the first-half but your opponent makes 9 of them, you may stick with that defense because the percentages reinforce that those are bad shots. If it were 9 of 15 on layups, you may say that 15 is too many and you need to change defense to keep them out of the paint. Context with shot location based off defensive scheme is vital.

I structure my defensive charting sheets onto two pages, to avoid clutter. On offensive charting, I was worried about flipping back and forth between pages because that makes everything complicated. Defensively, not only do you switch defenses less often but you will know what defense your team is playing, whereas offense is reactive.

In short, you simply want to know what type of defense is most difficult to score against, where the shots are coming from against that defense and if the offensive team is able to break down your coverage.

Coach Adam Spinella is entering his first season as an Assistant Coach at Culver Acadelinmies in Culver, IN. Spinella spent the three years prior as a Student Assistant Coach at Division III Dickinson College. The Dickinson Men’s Team advanced to two NCAA Tournaments and accumulated an overall record of 59-26 (.694) during the three-year span, with the 2013-2014 season ending in the Division III Elite Eight. A native of Bow, New Hampshire, Spinella has a keen interest in X’s and O’s, particularly in professional basketball, and skill development.

defensive charting