Wednesday, June 28, 2006
#1 dumb thing people do when defending cutters
OK, I don't really know that title is true. But this is definitely the way I get open the easiest, and it happens all the time.
I'm in the stack/hostack/whatever. I start moving deeper, often in more of a jog or shuffle than a full run. Often at this time I'm not even thinking about getting open; I'm just moving to stay ahead of the disc and letting other people do the work. But my defender overreacts by turning his hips and jogging slightly deeper than me. If you drew a line straight forward from my hips and straight forward from my defender's hips, I would be crossing the "T" with my line. At this point, all I have to do is take off and run directly behind my defender, and I'm wide open. My defender has to be dramatically faster and quicker to keep up. No fake required - I'm open.
You can take a lesson from this from both an offensive or a defensive persective. From a defensive perspective, just be careful about turning your hips away from your man. Again, this really happens all the time, and it makes it so easy to get beat. I think a lot of weaker players fail to realize how good players get open at will on them. It's not a huge speed or quickness gap - it's just bad positioning.
From an offensive perspective, realize how often you can get open without trying if you keep moving away from the action. I think most good cutters instinctively recognize this and get open in these spots, but again, a lot of weaker players miss this and can't understand why they can't run past their defender while good cutters can. You can get open a lot just by punishing defensive lapses.
I'm probably noticing this because I've played a bunch of league lately, and beaten up on some tryouts at club practices. It happens a lot less at the elite level, although you have a similar situation when your defender is afraid of the deep shot and flies past you. At that point it's not really a defensive lapse anymore - it's just good cutting.
I'm in the stack/hostack/whatever. I start moving deeper, often in more of a jog or shuffle than a full run. Often at this time I'm not even thinking about getting open; I'm just moving to stay ahead of the disc and letting other people do the work. But my defender overreacts by turning his hips and jogging slightly deeper than me. If you drew a line straight forward from my hips and straight forward from my defender's hips, I would be crossing the "T" with my line. At this point, all I have to do is take off and run directly behind my defender, and I'm wide open. My defender has to be dramatically faster and quicker to keep up. No fake required - I'm open.
You can take a lesson from this from both an offensive or a defensive persective. From a defensive perspective, just be careful about turning your hips away from your man. Again, this really happens all the time, and it makes it so easy to get beat. I think a lot of weaker players fail to realize how good players get open at will on them. It's not a huge speed or quickness gap - it's just bad positioning.
From an offensive perspective, realize how often you can get open without trying if you keep moving away from the action. I think most good cutters instinctively recognize this and get open in these spots, but again, a lot of weaker players miss this and can't understand why they can't run past their defender while good cutters can. You can get open a lot just by punishing defensive lapses.
I'm probably noticing this because I've played a bunch of league lately, and beaten up on some tryouts at club practices. It happens a lot less at the elite level, although you have a similar situation when your defender is afraid of the deep shot and flies past you. At that point it's not really a defensive lapse anymore - it's just good cutting.
