Defending the 3 point shot

[Gary]

I watched some of the USC women's game tonight with A&M and I noticed how they played defense.   In their half court defense, both teams stayed inside the 3 pt line pretty much all the time and A&M really tried to guard the paint even more than USC did when I was watching (first half).   

Then I looked at the stats for the men on threes and I found that A&M has the best 3 pt percentage (offense) right now at about 38%.   They have made 126 threes in 16  games which is an average of just under 9 threes made per game.   9 threes is 27 points per game.   The USC men hardly ever foul anyone who is shooting a three.   Since one of our problems right now is committing excess fouls, I was thinking that it might be a good strategy for the men to run a half court defense that is more like the women run:  stay inside the 3 point line, guard the paint well.  If the opponent makes 15 threes, that's only 45 points, (not enough to beat you).   The more threes the opponent takes, the fewer fouls we commit.    I would rather have the opponent making 15 points on extra threes than 15 points on free throws.    I invite your comments.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Not a bad idea.  It falls in line with my thinking that we rarely change defenses and it would help in the areas you described.

 

[markymark550]

Sounds like you want us to run a pack line defense or some modified version of that? It's not a bad strategy -- Tony Bennett won a national championship using that defense. The only thing that makes me hesitant is that the defense has to really work well as a unit. We still have guys out of position or not knowing what to do, which can lead to large gaps and easy scores. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but changing defensive philosophy halfway through the season would not be a good decision imo.

 

[Gary]

I think defending the paint, (keeping the ball out of the  paint and when it gets in the paint making sure whoever has it there has no path to the basket unless it means shooting over defenders) is more important than guarding the three point shot.    I don't think most teams can make enough threes to beat us.   What beats us is layups and dunks and free throws that we give up.  I understand this is a different defensive philosophy than Frank uses.   But when we go to a zone, that is a different philosopny than the agressive man to man Frank prefers too, so more than one kind of defense can be used in a game.   Personally, I would rather have the opponent shoot threes than to have them drive the ball on us for a layup, or we foul them and give them free throws.