Guards

Normally the shortest people on the court play on that position. Their role is to organize the offense, call the offensive plays of the team, guard the perimeter in most of the cases. Usually, guards are quick, with good technique and in most cases they are the most skilled players regarding ball control, passing and shooting.

There are two main guard positions according to the typical five-position distribution in basketball - those are point guard(1) and shooting guard(2). Both positions differentiate with the responsibilities they represent. The point guard (PG) is usually the floor general of the team, he organizes the offense, tries to distribute the ball between the players and guards the perimeter. While the shooting guard has more scoring responsibilities like shooting the ball, driving to the basket and overall he is heavily relied on by his team to contribute with points. On defense, SG usually needs to be above-average perimeter defender and in most cases, he also guards the best perimeter scorer of the opposing team. A typical signature move for this position is running through a lot of off-ball screens.

Of course, in modern day basketball those stereotypes are not mandatory, there are also quite a lot of pre-qualified newly created positions like combo guard, scoring guard, defensive minded guard, etc. but still guards are mostly listed as PG or SG.