Chapter 4: Clinic Part 2

Defense is one if not the most important aspect of basketball for key reasons: a) defense allows you to control the rythm of the game. b) with defense you can make opposing teams make adjustments and throw them off of their game c) you can minimize opposing team's ace players touching the ball making them useless and d) defense is something that you can more easily control on the basketball court.

You can't always control how many three point shots fall in the basket, but you can control the intensity, effort, and execution of your basketball defense. This topic has been carefully discussed to Jared to highlight the importance of defense.

"Defense doesn't necessarily mean that to be a good defender you need to be strong and fast, you just have to be aware of your surroundings" Dad discussed with unwavering enthusiasm. "if their big? no problem, if their fast? no problem at all, what you want to do is, of you don't have the strength and speed, just have the intensity and awareness, if you can't stop them, force them to miss, make them uncomfortable, make your opponent commit mistakes, Basketball is more of a mind game than you think" Dad continued.

That last line resonated within Jared. As he understood the necessity of defense, his sharp memory and awareness will definitely be his most important tool.

"Remember this son ... if you are the best player on your team, and you're not good in defense, trust me your opponents are gonna target you in defense. Why? because you're gonna be forced to foul and when that happens you'll get benched, what happens if the best player is benched? it's an advantage to them, coz your team won't score. But what if the best player is also a great defendee?" Dad asked Jared.

"They'll avoid me as much as possible, they'll be forced to attack my other teammates, if the defense collapse I can still provide help and be the last line of defense!" Jared answered in an excited tone as if he solved a challenging riddle.

"Bingo! three points for Jared!" Dad celebrated, feeling so proud.

"Now, in defending, the most important thing to consider is scouting your opponents, look for their mannerisms, tendencies, what do they usually do after receiving a pass, do they shoot? fake? or do a drive? does the ace player finishes with his right hand? any weaknesses? you always have to look for these things in order to defend, put yourself in their perspective so that you can predict what they're gonna do" Dad explained.

"Team's have different philosophies for deffending, my philosophy that i teach when i was in Team Ignite is, as a team you guys are not just defending the ball handler, y'all are defending the entire team as well, therefore i'll teach you On-ball defending and Off-ball defending" Dad said. "On-ball is defending the player who holds the ball while Off-ball defending is for the other four who doesn't have the ball, you might ask, why do you even need to defend the player that doesn't have the ball? simply because, you're taking away the options of the ball handler to pass, it makes the opposing team easier to control, you control their options..." Dad paused.

"You control their movement" Jared replied.

"Exactly!" Dad answered. "Now ... On ball defending is actually easier than anyone thought, first off, in defending you need to find a comfortable position, I always teach players to lower down their upper bodies ..." Dad placed himself in a near squated position, slightly bent legs, arms stretched on either side.

"Remember, lower your body low enough that it's comfy enough that makes you ready to move in any position instantly, but not high enough that you won't be able to have the balance to move at will." Dad instructed.

Jared replied, "Understood" as he watch and scan his Dad's demonstration in his mind, memorizing it.

"When guarding the ball handler i want you to observe these two things, the player's eyes and his body's mid section where the belly button is, before a player makes a move, his eyes will move to where he wanted to go or where he wanted to pass, however, you can't just rely solely rely on the eyes, some great athletes especially in the NBA uses their eyes to misdirect their defender, so... you go for the other option, watching their mid section." Dad explained.

"No matter what the player does, dribble, fake a pass or fake a shot, move their hands or do a jab step, their belly button, mid section, isn't going anywhere, it sticks in the middle of your peripheral vision, now when their mid section started to move left, right, forward or back ward that's the only time you move your feet and follow them, if their midsection moves, you follow" Dad explained.

"While following them, never forget your footwork. Taking long steps often will mess up your pace so take shorter, choppier steps and remember to "push-pull" off your front foot, this way you can keep up with the ball handler" Dad added, showing the moves while discussing.

"Always keep your hands active, if they move their hands, follow it in case they shoot or pass, if they shoot, one hand on the ball one hand to block their view, never leave your feet when they attempt a shot okay, becausd if they attemot a shot but turns out it's a fake and you jumped, you're out of the picture..." Dad explained.

"Got it" Jared understood.

"Just get your hands active on defense but never ever touch or hit the player, coz you'll foul the player if you do that, if you accumulate fouls your coach will sit you on the bench and we don't want that" Dad explained, Jared nodded.

They performed defensive drills with multiple repetitions so that Jared can get used to it, At this point his parents are no longer surprised for keeping up and doing great even though he's taking his first lessons. Mom is always cheering on the side.

The father and son then moved to off-ball defending, Dad explained the mechanics.

"Usually in defense most players always has their eyes on the ball handler and the ball, which leads to them leaving their mark unattended, when that happens, it leads to cuts, players making screens, relocations and wide open shots, on the other hand when they focused too much on their mark, they'll have no idea where the ball is going, if the ball handler lost the ball, went outbounds, shot missed, they won't know..." Jared interrupted while raising his hand.

"But how can a player defend all that without sacrificing the other, i mean not all players can see everything?" Jared asked, of course he can see everything thanks to his God's Eye, but what about his teammates? even though he got the God's eye he can't guard all five on his own, atleast not right now.

"That's a good question!" Dad exclaimed "This is where the technique that I teach players comes in, i call it "See Man & Ball" to do that always keep the ball handler and your man within your peripheral vision, if the ball handler is on the other side of the wing, you need to drop your position further to compensate, this way you keep the two within your periphery" Dad explained, Jared nodded, indicatingbhe understood.

"That's a good technique" Jared thought to himself.

"Honey can you hand me my tablet please" Dad asked Mom.

"Hold on" Mom turned, grabbed the tablet and brought it to Dad. Dad then showed Jared videos of players doing the technique.

"Not all the times that technique is ideal depending on the situation and positions of players on the court but majority of the times it's effective, you can check out other clips how players defend off-ball" Dad suggested. Dad showed clips of players to Jared doing Off-ball defense.

"I can get him a tablet so he can use it for basketball and of course for school, i'll just put a parental control on it, in case he might get lost in the internet" Mom looked straight in Dad's eyes, Dad smiled and nodded as he's lookinh at Mom, Jared immediately recognized their talking about porn. lol

"Alright let's just take a last break, since we only have one remaining lesson for today..." Dad suggested.

They both took a couple of minutes before continuing. Mom stayed there for a while to chat with them then, she goes back inside after they began their lesson.

"For our final lesson, we're gonna be talking about, Rebounding, also known as "Boards", this is when a player recovers the ball after a missed shot or free throw" Dad explain as Jared is attentively listening, Dad continued.

"In rebounding we have two-types, Offensive rebound and Defensive rebound. Offensive rebound is a rebound caught by a player on the same team that shot the ball, while Defensive is a rebound caught by a player on the other team" Dad explained.

"You'll have an advantage if you're a big and strong type of player, however, the to reboubding is the timing, your strength and length won't matter if you're not on the right place or if you have been boxed out." Dad continued. "To utilize timing you must first observe the ball, now, you might wonder how can you predict where the ball goes if the shot misses, the only for you to predict that is play the numbers game (percentage) majority of the time a shot misses the ball will most likely goes to the opposite side of the court than it is going back where the shooter is. And with that being said, once the ball has been shot, even if it hasn't reach the ring yet position yourself already as if the ball is going to miss, always assume that it's gonna miss" Dad said.

"Once you get to the right position, find your man and box him out to prevent him from recovering the ball, this would make it advantageous for your team to grab the rebound" Dad explained. "Here's how ypu do box out.." Dad instructed Jared to come closer, in order to guide him on positioning his body for the box out.

"Before you box out always place yourself between the ring and your mark, then get your back against your mark, lower your hip and keep your feet apart, then spread your arms straight out, push backwards with your buty, this would keep your mark from going around you and keep him out of reach for the ball, watch the ball as you watch out, once you foubd the right timing, extend your arms and jump for the ball, once you got the ball, a way to secure i, is to "Chin the ball" which means to put the ball underneath your chin with your elbows out. Which makes it harder for the defense to steal the ball from you after you secure the rebound" Dad demonstrated the move as he explained.

Again, they ran drills to practice the reboubd, incorporating the previous lessons as well, drills where after rebound Jared runs and dribble then pass the ball and then repeat, While some other drills, solely focus on rebound, Jared goes in position box out while Dad shoots the ball intentionally missing it, Jared will rebound that pass it to Dad then repeat. They do multiple drills after that before concluding the topics.

With all the lessons discussed, piece by piece, Jared is slowly piecing together his Ideal playstyle based on what his Dad is teaching him, integrating all of the concepts, techiques and mechanics that he learned and all he needs now is practice and application.

"Now! ... Since you already learned the basics, let's put it to the test ... Let's do a one-on-one, with the application of all that you learned" Dad challenged Jared.

"Oh it's on!.." Jared replied in an enthusiastic tone with dark grin on his face.

"That's the spirit" Dad commented, "Wait right here, i'll just gonna get something, be right back" Dad runs off to the house, then went back out after a few minutes. This time he's holding a black metallic sphere, as Dad gets closer, he noticed that the black sphere is as big as his hands, the surface is in matte texture.

"Dad what's that ..." Jared asked.

"Oh this, this is one my toys ... " Dad replied in confidence, as he held up the sphere, he opened his palm, 4 curved propellers aligned with each other on either side popped out of it's midsection, then it turns, letting out a soft buzzing sound, after a few secounds it floats and hovers above them, it goes into position then after that it projected lazer like lines on the ground where they're standing, as Jared looks he saw that the lines are lines of the halfourt.

"It's called "Iris" it was initially designed for recording and scanning realtime movements, they just added the basketball feature on last years update, its sensors can record everything and you can play it back on VR or project it with "Beacon" hollographically (beacon is an image projection device but projects it hollographically, where images were displayed in 4d hollogram)

"Woah" Jared is impressed, on his previous world, they didn't have Iris yet.

"Now that everything is set ... let's Begin"