5-Sprawl Saturday

Keeping balls off the floor

Earlier this week I discussed the first Digging Profile, teams that excelled at keeping the ball off the floor:

The most common digging move is “2 Arms, 2 Feet”, meaning the ball is dug with 2 arms, while staying on both feet. You can’t be good at defense without being good at this most common defensive play. However… we want to be great, not just good, and you’re going to have to do a little more than that to be good. Here’s 5 examples of players getting on the floor to dig a ball in various ways. Feel free to share with your players.

Simple Forward Push

This move is the foundation of being able to get on the floor to dig a ball. The defender pushes forward, scoops up underneath the ball, and recovers onto her stomach. The key here is that the front (left) knee doesn’t fall to the ground. She gets a Double Push. The first push is extending her back (right) leg which moves her center of mass toward the ball and then the second push comes from that bent front (left) leg, which extends her platform under the ball.

Lateral Push

Here’s a similar move but with the defender going laterally, rather than forward. Also note that, since this ball is attacked with a lot of pace, there’s a less active motion to scoop the ball up and move of just a simple redirection to angle the ball high and up.

A True Collapse Sprawl