Pressing Mentality

One of the staple items coaches use over the course of a season is the press.  Presses are often used to change the tempo of the game and increase stressful situations for your opponent.   The increased tempo forces teams and players to have to think more quickly which in turn speeds up their judgements.  Against the right team and in the right situations it can really change the course of the game in terms of changing the momentum.  A good well executed press is probably one of the most difficult things to simulate in practice.  Pressing can really give your team such an advantage.  

No matter what the press looks like there are always some standard staples that should be included in pretty well every press.  

Hustle: 

Presses simply do not work without players getting to the spots on their court where they need to be.  The most successful pressing teams are the ones that can crank the level of pressure and intensity level up to the next level.  This is when the offensive team is really challenged and may be pushed beyond their capacity to deal.  Even when the offensive team thinks the press has been broken great pressure teams force them into taking poor shots which achieves the same result since you get a stop if the rebound is secured.  

Pressure the Ball: 

The first part of ball pressure is forcing the person with the ball to make quick and uncomfortable decisions.  They cannot look around and over the press to be able to reason it through.  With someone right on them it helps to force the ball handler into make poor choices including putting the ball on the floor.  Make sure when you are pressuring that you aren’t fouling.  This can take away the entire purpose of the press as you are stopping time, allowing them to think as well as potentially getting players in foul trouble.   

Anticipate and Rotate: 

When pressing you cannot second guess and wonder what is going to happen next.  There are only a limited number of options that opposing players can execute at any given moment and perhaps one of the most important points is to be able to work on not letting the other team beat you by breaking the press the same way twice.  One of the ways to read effectively what is going to happen next is to look at the eyes and body positioning of the passer.  There is a very important point in making educated guesses at where you think you can take a chance and get a steal.  Some players make the mistake of gambling a lot but remember if you are wrong that could lead to the opposing team breaking the press and scoring.  Make sure to learn from mistakes and the wrong decisions of others in order to maximize the effectiveness of your press.  If you do make a wrong decision communicate while hustling back because someone will have to cover and rotate for you so you will probably have to pick up another check in the process of getting back.