Friday, March 17, 2017

Not defending the three is not optional

Because the game is so disproportionately weighted in favor of the three-point shot, and because players have focused so predominately on shooting from that particular spot, and because the three has become so glamorized in today's game and other aspects of the game correspondingly neglected, teams today have no option but to focus their defenses on defending the arc. Occasionally a team will come along that is bad enough at shooting that it can be de-emphasized momentarily, but that does not happen very often.

How many times this weekend will we see a player on the backside of the defense cheat inside to provide help defense, only to have the opposition quickly reverse the ball or penetrate and kick out, and the man he was supposed to be covering make a wide open three? It happens all the time. It ought not to happen any time. You just cannot afford to leave shooters with more space than the defender can close in about half a second. Does that mean that your interior defense is going to get neglected to some extent? Certainly it does, but that is today's game. The rule makers have said, "Ignore everything but the three," and have shaped the game accordingly. I don't like it; in fact, I despise it, but there it is. You neglect to defend the arc at your own peril. The good news is that if you shut down the three these days, a lot of teams do not have a good Plan B.

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