Your defensive mindset

Each time you play defence, you should have a focus for what you, as an individual, plan to do on defence.

There are many factors that influence your choice: previous points in the game, what your leadership has set as a focus, what the offence is trying to do, who you are guarding, and what your personal strengths and weaknesses are.

Some guarding tactics are:

• cover my player cutting under
• cover my player cutting deep
• look to be a help defender on deep throws
• look to be a help defender on short throws
• stay physically really close to my player
• clog the passing lanes
• interfere with the offence's set plays

And there are marking tactics too:

• stand off the thrower
• bait a handblock
• force to make the inside break harder
  
• force to make the around break harder
• hold a constant force
• move around with the thrower as they rotate to find a dump
• hassle the hammer
• go clown-crazy hyperactive
• change the tempo of your mark (from a passive, flat-footed stance, to an active, moving stance as the count increases)
  

Know what you want to do. Smart defenders will think about what approach they can use, reflect on how it worked, and adapt.

Just chasing your player around the field produces seven games of one-on-one. Team defence is far more powerful, and it starts with individuals having flexibility in how they play defence.