Youth Man-to-Man play
Youth Man: Defending the Backdoor
- Court
- Half court
- Length
- 10 steps
About this play
The deny concedes one thing, and this play shows the offense trying to take it twice: when the defender is up the line denying the pass, his man cuts behind him to the basket. The answer is not to stop denying; it is to see it coming. The denying defender keeps his head on a swivel, seeing ball and man, and the moment the man plants to go backdoor the defender opens to the ball, drops a step, and slides with the cutter with his hand still in the lane, so the backdoor pass is denied the same way the wing pass was. This play runs a whole possession: the ball goes to a wing, the corner backdoors and is denied, the ball reverses, the other corner backdoors and is denied, and the offense ends up passing around the arc. Why keep denying if the backdoor exists: the deny forces every catch out and late; the backdoor is the offense's one answer, and a defender who sees it coming takes that answer away too. What the defense concedes on a backdoor: the cutter clearing to the corner. Where the advantage lies: a denied backdoor leaves the cutter in a corner and the ball still on the perimeter, which is where the deny wanted it. Common youth mistakes: watching the ball and losing the man (the cutter is gone before the defender turns), turning the back to the ball while chasing, and denying so far up the line that the backdoor is a step ahead before it starts. The only outside source I leaned on here is Coach's Clipboard's 1-on-1 defensive drills, which cover playing the backdoor cut; that page will take you deeper if you want the drill progression behind it.
