The full-court diamond press, on the whole floor
Basketball · Defence · 5 of your players and 5 opponents
A press is a full-court idea, so it needs the full court to draw it. Five defenders in a diamond meet the inbounds pass after a made basket and try to turn the first catch into a trap on the sideline.
Opens on a basketball pitch with the shape already drawn. Free, no signup.
How the diamond lines up
Your team has just scored at the top basket, so the other team inbounds from under it. The front defender stands on the inbounder, arms up, taking away the pass straight up the middle. Two wings wait at the free-throw line extended, one on each side, ready to trap whoever catches the ball. A middle defender sits at half court, reading the passer's eyes. The safety stays back near your own basket at the bottom of the court, the last line against a long pass over the top.
Read top to bottom it is one, two, one, one: the shape that gives the full-court diamond press its other name.
What it is trying to do
The press wants the first pass to go to a sideline. The moment it does, the front defender and the wing on that side close together and trap the catch against the line, where the boundary is a sixth defender. The middle steps into the lane back to the middle of the floor, the wing on the far side drops to take away the skip pass, and the safety reads the long one. Every pass the offence can still make is a long, lobbed one, and long lobbed passes are the ones that get stolen.
Play it when you are fitter or deeper than the other team, after a made free throw or a timeout, or when you need turnovers to get back into a game. Leave it in the bag against a guard who can dribble through two defenders, because a beaten trap is a four-on-three the other way.
Habits worth drawing
- Trap, do not foul. Draw the two trappers arriving together on the sideline catch, and animate it. Arriving one at a time just lets the ball handler split them.
- Rotate behind the trap. Mark where the middle and the far wing go once the trap is set. That second picture is the one coaches skip and teams score against.
- Know when to get back. Draw the retreat after the ball crosses half court, so every player knows when the press is over and the half-court defence begins.
Drop the full-court diamond press onto the court, turn it sideways on a laptop for room to draw, and animate the first trap to see if your rotations really arrive in time.
Also known as
- full court press
- 1-2-1-1
- diamond press
- trapping
- pressure defence
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Put the Full-court diamond press on a pitch
It opens with the shape already drawn. Move the players your team does differently, drag the runs, and send your squad a link that animates.
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