How to beat a tall person in basketball

How to Guard Taller People in Basketball | Live Healthy

By Dan Howard

Matching up with a player who is taller than you has some pros when defending far from the basket, but presents a matchup problem in the low post. You can use your quickness to crowd and take away your opponent's perimeter shot and steal the ball away if they try to dribble at you. Dealing with a taller player close to the basket is a tougher proposition, so do your best to establish proper defending position and play passing lanes to keep your opponent from catching a clean entry pass.

Perimeter Defense

Beat your opponent down the court and be prepared to defend by the time he reaches the three-point line.

Stay as close as possible to a tall, skilled shooter when you guard him near the three-point line. Actively slide your feet from side to side to stay near your opponent and minimize shot opportunities.

Chop your hand downward at the ball to slap it loose as your opponent starts a shooting motion. Stripping the ball before it reaches shoulder height is more effective than trying to block a taller player's shot.

Raise your hands straight up and position your body as close as possible to your opponent's without fouling them during a shot attempt.

Wave your hand in front of your opponent's face to disrupt his view of the basket as the shot is released. Take care not to hit your opponent in the face.

Lunge forward to slap the ball away if a taller opponent faces you and dribbles. Aim your arm swipe for the airspace a few feet above where the ball hits the court, and time your steal attempt so that you begin reaching at the moment the ball leaves his hand for the floor.

Fronting the Post

To front the post, stand between your opponent and the player with the ball. Only front the post when you have a teammate positioned to help on a pass over your head.

Turn your torso so that it's at a 45-degree angle to your opponent.

Extend your near arm into your opponent's waist and extended your other arm up into the passing lane.

Look over your shoulder at the ballhandler.

Rotate around your opponent to stay between him and the ball as it is passed or dribbled around the perimeter.

Spin back to a normal post defense stance if the ball swings to the other side of the court or if your help defender becomes busy and can't help guard against a pass over the top.

Post Defense

Make contact with your opponent as far from the basket as possible.

Lean a bent forearm into your opponent's lower back to maintain your current position.

Bend your knees and crouch down if your opponent tries to push you out of position. Pushing back at a point below your opponent's center of gravity improves your chances of maintaining defensive position.

Call for a teammate to help if your opponent gets the ball in a good position that you can't defend alone.

Rotate your body toward the basket the moment a shot goes up. Spread your arms out and thrust your bottom into your opponent to box him out. Push backward with a low center of gravity to move your opponent away from the rebound.

References

• Layups Coaching Blog: Guarding a Taller Player
• The Coach's Clipboard: Basketball Rebounding

Writer Bio

Dan Howard is a sports and fitness aficionado who holds a master's degree in psychology. Howard's postgraduate research on the brain and learning has appeared in several academic books and peer-reviewed psychology journals.

How to Play Against Taller Basketball Players

Basketball can be a tall task to take on if you are a small player. The better the skill level you are playing, the taller the players you will face in competition.

How do you play against taller basketball players? There are a number of different strategies that you can use to gain an advantage against your taller opponent. Using your skill, ball handling, and basketball I.Q. will go a long way in competing against your bigger competitors. Being able to make the open shot consistently when you do get an open look at the basket is important as these opportunities become much more difficult for the amount of space a taller player can gain when compared to a smaller player.

Using a variety of the tips listed below will help you score more points and play better defense on the players you come across who have the height advantage. These tips will help you outsmart your taller opponent and help you realize what you need to work on to help you at the next level.

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How to score over bigger defenders?

You may have played against players that are much taller than you playing the same position. You realize while your playing you are finding you are having to adjust to the taller players and bigger talent. Basically the better you are, the better the competition you will face, the better competition is always taller in basketball. This means you are going to have to be an excellent ball-handler and shot-creator to be able to score on taller defenders.

Smaller players need to have an advantage and that is the ability to have the ball on their hand like a string. Now that doesn’t mean you absolutely need to be able to cross players up like Kyrie Irving, but it does mean your ball handling has to be polished. The times you do get an open shot, you need to be able to make the shot with high accuracy.

Players in the NBA who are 6 feet and under are not like their taller competition, they have to stand out in a way that makes them taller than their actual height. This means they have far superior strengths in their game that stand out among other players. Usually, this is speed, ball-handling, and a consistent jumper.

How to get past taller defenders in basketball?

The truth is the smaller you are when compared to your opponents the quicker and more skilled you need to be, period. A taller player guarding you can afford to be the slowest guy on the court if he is long in stature. The player can get to where he needs to be on defense using his length to his advantage.

Having a great jab step with some fakes is necessary to be able to blow by the taller defender. In some cases it may not be enough to just get past him if he is trailing behind you ready to block your shot from behind when you attempt a layup or shot.

Taller players love to jump and block shots especially when the player they are guarding are smaller than them. This is a great opportunity to pump fake when you are in a triple threat stance to get them off their feet. Anytime time you can get them of their feet you are going to be able to get an open shot off if you follow the pump fake with a dribble towards the basket.

Speed Kills

You need to use your speed to your advantage, and not just when you are setting up on offense. You have to get the taller defender to bite, or in a bad position so you can use your speed to not just go by him but blow by him.

This can be in transition, in which you are pushing the ball down the open court.
When you receive the ball on the outside and the defense is trying to recover.
Taking advantage of the speed vs size mismatch at the top of the 3 point-line.

These are just a number of examples of when you can find the opportunity to score. look for these opportunities on the court, they are the same every game. Find your advantage, don’t play the game aimlessly, but actually think.

Smaller players have had this happen to them often, they are one on one with a much taller player who is meeting them at the basket. They go up for a layup, only to get the ball blocked viciously at the rim. What did this player do wrong? They didn’t finish high off the backboard.

Finishing high off the backboard is necessary against taller opponents to not get your shot blocked. Not only will you not get your shot blocked but your shot will not be altered either. When you shoot the basketball high off the backboard your giving yourself more space between you and your defender to shoot this type of shot. When shooting the basketball high with your right hand you will need to shoot it over the right corner of the layup square, this height can be between the top of the backboard and the top of the square. Somewhere in this middle is where you can aim for.

The top of the backboard is thirteen feet and the op of the white layup square on the back board is 12 and a half feet, you want to shoo the ball high when you lay it up between those two heights or more specifically between 12 feet and 12 and a half feet.

You must be able to use your body well on offense, if you as a smaller player this will help create space while protecting the basketball at the same time. If you are not doing this, your at a disadvantage as the bigger players will naturally over power anyone who is weaker then them, based on instinct alone.

There will be times where you will be hip to hip with your much taller defender and the only way your going to get up a shot is to use your body to do so. The best way to do this when attempting a layup is to think of using your body to push your defender underneath the basket while your able to get the layup off. This will not only help with avoiding a block but also drawing a foul in the process. This may require hanging in the air for a brief moment or picking your dribble up deeper in the painted area.

Basketball is a physical game, and as a smaller player you need to work on being able to use your physicality to your advantage on offense while also not shying away from it on defense. Player will take one look at you and think they can power through you with ease, unless you stand your ground and play physical defense yourself.

The closer you get to the basket and shoot the softer the touch needs to be when you release the ball this is why players use floaters. Two foot floaters are much more controlled an much more accurate then one foot.

This is a skill anyone can develop especially smaller guards. This is crucial to add to your game in order to score when meeting taller players just before the rim. The ability to beat your defender to the spot in front of the rim and shooting a floater is a high percentage shot. Shooting a 5 to 10 foot floater will help you get 4 to 6 points a game if you can make this a go to move.

Taller players who leave their man to help when you attack the paint to shoot a floater, this will allow you to drop a pass to your big man down low. The floater is a very difficult shot to block as it is a quicker shot and is very hard to time your jump to block as a defender when the player is shooting the ball.

If you are already a pretty good shooter this will immediately work to your advantage. Tall basketball players in general love to block shots, especially against their smaller opposition. Being able to shoot and a make a shot, or if the player knows you can shoot will be a big advantage to you. Whenever you do get the basketball you want to pump fake him hoping that he bites just a little bit. If so you can one-dribble pull up or get to an open spot in front of you and shoot. The pump fake especially works just after a made shot as the player thinks you want to shoot again and you do want to but only when your open.

Starting in your athletic stance, using the jab step is simple, when you jab step forward as if to say you want to drive, if the player moves just a little bit backwards, this will be a signal that you may return back to your athletic stance to take a shoot as the player as transferred some of his energy back to is heels. Think of the jab step as using your foot to either push the player backwards, or if the player does not go backwards you can go by him. Timing is very important!

The step back is an advance move. I only recommend this if you have good basketball shooting mechanics. If you don’t know how to do a step back here is a video that can help.

How to guard a big man in basketball?

When we talk about big men were not just talking about height but a player that is playing in the post and you are guarding that player. This may happen due to a mismatch or switch. It is extremely important to make it difficult for the post to receive the entry pass from the wing. This can be done by going from protecting the basket to three-quarter fronting to fronting the player completely back to protecting the basket. I would do this quickly, so the entry passer has to guess where you will be. You must not allow the post to seal you, he can’t seal you if he isn’t touching you so you may need to take a step back and as he backs up with you you can front him.

When there is a mismatch let your teammates know and have the wings deny the entry pass, you can also front completely hoping weak side defense helps.

The advantage you have over a taller player would need to be quickness and speed in order for this to work. When playing defense you really need to be in the player’s bubble making it very difficult for this player to dribble and get a shot off over you. This will require you to be aggressive and being a pest in the process, frustrating your opponent so that he is unable to do what he would like on the court. This is called hard nosed in your face defense.

Form time to time take a charge this will also frustrate them. When you are able to shift the player from comfortable to uncomfortable they tend to do things that are not apart of their game. Such as shooting from further out, dribbling too much, and taking bad shots.

An original way to beat a defender in basketball

Hello, dear visitors of basketball-training.org.ua (how long have I not written this phrase…). A few days ago, while playing basketball on one of the courts in Kharkov, I ran into a player who, when beating, used one very interesting trick that I myself like to use (but which had not yet been used against me until now).

It was then that I realized how effective this method can be, especially if it is performed by a player who is not as slow as me. Yes, I'm really far from the fastest player, so most of my "feints", if you can call them that, are based on using the opponent's speed against him (and a little physics, which you can still come in handy even on the basketball court).

So, today we're going to talk about the defender's supporting leg, the leg where the weight is transferred, and which we will use for our own purposes. Let's get started.

3 elements to beat successfully

First, you must get the ball in position from which you can attack the ring. Well, or your defender must think that you can do it. Everything is trite, but nevertheless, over and over again I come across the fact that the majority are either just too lazy to spend their energy on getting rid of guardianship and they ask for the ball a couple of meters from the three-point line, from where it is very problematic to threaten the ring. Or they just don't know how to open up.

Topic article: 3 easy ways to get the ball in basketball

So, your goal is to get the ball at least on the three-point line, as much as possible already inside the arc. This move will not work if you get the ball under the basket or on the edge of the three-second zone.

The second stage is to stagger the defender 2-3 times, simulating a pass. You just do a few lunges to the side, and at this point you need to concentrate on the legs of the defender: which of them is his weight on. Which leg becomes his support during the execution of your false display for the passage. Did you see?

The third point is the passage itself. If you know which foot the defender is on, where his weight is concentrated at the time of your deceptive movements, then you should know the following: he will not be able to step with this foot. In any case, for this the defender will have to shift the weight to the other foot - and even if he is very fast, these fractions of a second will be enough for you to beat him.

Yes, this technique will not work every time. Yes, you will not beat the defender with 100% probability. But by using this trick, you can buy time and create space. Another "trick" - step as close as possible to his supporting leg: even if he reacts very quickly, he will most likely break the rules.

How to defend yourself against such a technique?

No matter how interesting and promising the above trick looks, there is a defense against it and it is quite simple.

First method: block the attacker's strong side from the passage, positioning yourself at almost a 90 degree angle to it. Either close your weak side (let the player go to your strong side, or to the side where there is a safety net). This is a budget way. You save energy, but still give the attacking player more freedom of action.

The second way is to do hellish footwork. I won't tell you too much, it's better to look at the video, as Andre Iguudala shows in the video for Nike:

See the topic: Nike Signature Moves Part 1

where is your body weight now. Of the minuses - an unprepared player after 2-3 such defenses will “sit down” very much and become slow in defense.

The third option - get as close as possible to the player, even in the process of receiving the ball. Thus, the attacker will not have much time to think: on which leg is your weight concentrated, where to stagger you, etc.

Small conclusions

• The method described above is suitable for a measured pace of the game, even more so for a streetball match in which there are no quick breaks and the probability of an effective 1v1 beat is much greater.
• The method described above is not a panacea, but simply one of the ways to use the laws of physics and the lack of experience of the defending player.
• This method is difficult to use in its pure form if you are far from the basket (1-2 meters from the three-point line) or if the defender is very active.
• Defending against such a technique is quite simple, the main thing is to understand that the opponent is going to use it (most often, he looks at your feet).

And this concludes the article, I wish you successful training, success in both attacking and defensive actions and I look forward to seeing you on the pages of this site.

not all useful materials on basketball training are published on the site. You can find additional information about training, ask a question or share your successes in our community on the social network Vkontakte: https://vk.com/uroki_basketbola

Maxim Gordienko

How to effectively beat your opponents? Passage under the support

Among the many deceitful movements and options for beating opponents in basketball, there are both very effective tricks and not the best ways. For players who cannot boast of good speed data, there is a particularly good solution. So, we will talk about the supporting leg of the defender, which can be used for your own purposes.

Get new forecasts: Vkontakte and Telegram .

3 components of a successful prank

1. First and perhaps most important, you must get possession of the ball in a position that allows you to attack the ring. At least the defender should think you can do it. It would seem trite, but in fact it turns out that many players frankly do not think about the need to release from custody, as a result, getting the ball a couple of meters from the three-pointer, from where it is very problematic to threaten the ring. Thus, the task is to get the ball on the line of a three-point throw, and better - inside the arc.
2. The second point is to loosen the defender 2-3 times, simulating a pass. Making several lunges to the side, you should pay attention to the position of the opponent's legs. Your task is to determine on which leg the opponent's weight is located. You need to understand which leg is the supporting one for him when you perform a false show on the pass.
3. The third stage is the passage itself. If you are sure that you know on which foot the defender's weight is concentrated, then you must understand that he will not be able to step with this foot, and if he can, he will lose some time to transfer his weight to the other foot. These few moments should be enough for you to beat.

Protection against such reception

The described way of playing looks very interesting and promising, but painfully simple defense can be used against it.

• Positioned at right angles to the attacking player, it is necessary to cover the strong side. Accordingly, you can close your weak side. Thus, it will be good to save strength, but the opponent will still have a relatively large freedom of action.
• A more costly and more effective way to neutralize an attacking player is active footwork. If you can quickly work with your feet, then the opponent will hardly get the opportunity to figure out which foot is the supporting one.
• Even in the process of getting the ball to the opponent, you need to get as close to him as possible. In such a situation, the attacking player will simply not have time to determine which foot your weight is on.

Summing up

• The method described above is far from a panacea, but only a method of using the laws of physics and the lack of experience of defenders;
• The presented method is best suited for a measured pace of the game, in which there are no sharp breaks, and the probability of a successful 1v1 beat is much higher;
• If the attacking player is away from the ring, then this technique is quite difficult to perform;
• Defending against this method can be extremely simple - the main thing is to understand that the attacking opponent will use this method.

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