Team Defense

There are three types of team defensive schemes: Personal defense (man-to-man), Zone defense and Mixed.

Personal defense is when each player guards another player from the opposing team and each player is personally responsible for the guarding of their personal match up.

Zone defense

Each player from the defending team is guarding a specific zone in front of their own basket. It is very similar to the way players are defending their goal in soccer. There are several types of zone defense, depending on the formation of the defenders:

2-3 zone

This is the most used zone defense in which 2 players guard the perimeter at the top, while three players have divided the area between the three point line and the rim into three separate zones. As for the three back players, they can be structured in one line which is a typical 2-3 zone, they can be structured with the middle men higher than the other two (2-1-2) or lower than them (2-2-1)

3-2 zone

Three defenders guard the perimeter and 2 are near the basket. The front three can be playing on one line (3-2) or the middle man can be higher than the wing perimeter defenders (1-2-2)

Mixed defense

This is a combination of man-to-man and zone defense, some are calling it match-up. Usually, some of the players are guarding a specific zone, while the others are guarding a player personally. This is used for high-scoring players where they are guarded personally, while the rest of his teammates are guarded in zone. There might be a mixed defense 4+1, where 4 players are guarding in zone (in most cases 2-2, but 3-1 and 1-3 also can be executed) or even 3+2, where 3 players are in zone, while 2 players are guarding personally. In Youth games, even some coaches practice 1+4, which means 1 player (usually a big man playing below the rim) plays zone and the rest are playing man-to-man. Also, a mixed defense is when during a defensive set the team changes from zone to personal, or the opposite, or from one zone defense to another. Coaches have a wide variety of defenses to implement to their defensive schemes and all different and extraordinary types of team defense are recorded and analyzed by InStat.