Packline Defense Shell Drill by Cody Sarensen

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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January 15, 2018

Packline Defense Shell Drill

Below are our concepts, methods of defending, and the series we go through during our defensive section of practice. Our packline defense is similar to what Jim Boone at Delta State University teaches. There are also some concepts from Chris Mack’s teams at Xavier University that we use as well. We play a man-to-man packline defense because players are better ball handlers and not as good without the ball then what they were 10-15 years ago. However, our defense is not “soft.” We are aggressive, we pressure the ball, and we have excellent off-ball positioning.

Our philosophy on defense is to force our opponent to take “low percentage shots”. We want our competitors to take long 2’s, and we want to contest every shot, regardless of where it is shot from. We want to limit the number of times that ball touches the paint. We want to limit the number of straight-line drives our opponents take to the basket. We defend these drives to the bucket by forcing them to the baselines and sidelines on the court.

Our team identity is based on our defense. We scout opponent’s tendencies, defend those tendencies and play an aggressive packline defense where we force our opponents to take difficult shots.

The Packline Defense Shell Drill is a drill we do every day in practice. We break down our defensive section of practice by developing our footwork for closeouts, gap protections, defending specific offensive movements such as cutting, dribble penetration, and various screens (ball, down, pin, flex, flares, and handoffs). Regardless of how we defend, our most significant emphasis is on rebounding. We believe that every possession ends on a box-out and securing the rebound. If we cannot rebound, our ways of defending will not matter.

Below are a few Packline Defense diagrams that illustrate our defensive alignment, positioning roles, gap protection responsibilities, and how we defend certain offensive tendencies: