Nocione Attacks his Defender that is chest-to-chest

I like this clip because it shows that you must be aggressive when playing against aggressive defense. You must make the defense pay for playing you chest-to-chest by attacking the basket and making the defender back-pedal. This will make your defender think twice about playing you so aggressive. If you pull-back, that is what the defense wants you to do, so do the opposite. Watch the video and then you can read my thoughts below.



This is a great concept especially if you coach girls who by nature tend to be more timid. When playing against a defender that is really in your face, you must go right at them. Instead, I see a lot of players pivot away and bend down. Not only are you playing right into the defender's hand allowing the defender to encroach into your space (which is legal because you are letting them do it), but also by pivoting away and bending down you are facing away from the court and cannot see the rest of your teammates. What you must teach your players to do is the opposite with is attack.

As a team, you want your players to develop a swagger. You want them to project confidence in themselves. I think to be a championship team, you want to have some arrogance, not a lot, but some. Championship teams look and feel like championship teams because of the confidence they project. They're unafraid, aggressive, and they look mean. I've never seen a championship team made up of a bunch of overly friendly happy go-lucky types that apologized every time they bumped you.

We run an offensive toughness drill where we do 1-on-2s. The setup is to form a circle around the 3-point line with about 4 or 5 lines of players in each of the spots. One offensive player anywhere inside the 3-point line and one defensive player inside defending.

The ball is passed from one of the spots to the offensive player and they immediately start playing 1-on-1, the original passer will go to help double the 1 offensive player.

I like the drill because it works on getting your players to be tougher in game situations when 1 or more defenders are really attacking you and forces players to attack back and score quickly.

There is a great DVD that goes over becoming more mentally and physically tougher through practice. It's Phil Martelli's DVD on practice drills to help build mental and physical toughness, it should give you some ideas on building up your team swagger. There are a ton of notes uploaded so head over the X's and O's Basketball Forum to take a look and see what is there.