Dictate Your Basketball Defense

Throughout the years there have been several different defensive philosophies that have attmpted to exploit the offense by either forcing the basketball to the left side of the court, or forcing players to use only their weakhand to dribble and pass. This defense is often referred to as Lock Left Defense, Force Left Defense or Man Left Defense .... all have similar principles and here are 5 advantages of forcing left:

1. Players can't use their weak hand as well to shoot or pass
2. Offense is disrupted
3. Less ball reversals offensively (which is great for the defense)
4. Lower shooting %
5. More turnovers created

Playing against a team that forces your players to the left side of the court or to use their weakhand can be an EXTREMELY effective philosophy that can help elevate your team to the next level. As a matter of fact, when done correctly, you may even create a defense that Coach Kryschevski would not want to face...more on that in a bit.

Force Weak Hand Defense Philosophy

Some of you have probably heard of the Carleton Defense or Dave Smart Defense, well those terms got their names from Coach Dave Smart, the former Carleton University head basketball coach. Coach Smart had tremendous success coaching the Carleton Basketball Team. His force weak hand defense was his calling card. It was smothering and forced teams into an extremely low shooting percentage. Coach Dave Smart has over 550 wins, a .992 winning %, and numerous victories over NCAA powerhouses such as:

• Wisconsin
• Baylor
• Wichita State
• Cincinnati

Plus many more! In fact, Dave Smart's team even attempted to play Duke when they came to Canada to play some teams, but were turned down. It seemed NCAA power houses were becoming wary of playing against a defense they couldn't solve. And many were choosing to not play Carleton University.

Man Left by Coach Brost

Coach Rob Brost of Bolingbrook HS has had a lot of success. One of the reasons is his defensive philosophy.

He started with the belief that his teams would be most successful if they could force the ball to one side of the court... AND KEEP IT THERE!

His teams play the largest class of Illinois HS basketball. His teams have been Nationally ranked, he has had two top 4 finishes in the state of Illinois, and has had 7 straight seasons with more than 20+ wins. He has developed his team into constant power in the state of Illinois (currently as I write this his team is ranked #1 in the State of Illinois by MaxPrep).

Coach Brost wanted to implement a lot of the ideas Coach Smart was using at Carleton University but realized the complexity of what Coach Smart was doing simply wouldn't work at the high school level. He needed a defense that could be implemented:

• Quickly
• Easily
• With different players each year
• With different skill levels each year

But most importantly, he needed a defense that would allow him to compete for CHAMPIONSHIPS! Coach Brost decided to implement a Lock Left & Force Left Defense philosophy called Man Left Defense.

5 Advantages of Man Left Defensive Philosophy

Why should you try Man Left Defense? Below are 5 reasons playing Man Left Defense has been so successful for Coach Brost.

1. Play More O and Less D -All teams want to be on the offensive end of the floor as much as possible. Man Left Defense forces teams into quick shots. HOW??? The ball is on one side of the floor and not allowed to be reversed. Most possessions see players driving quickly and out of control to the hoop and taking a BAD shot or getting stuck on the left hand side of the court with nowhere to pass. The offense is forced to take quick, bad shots when Man Left is run correctly!
2. Prep Less For Opponent's Sets -As a coach you must prep for your opponent. But what happens when your opponent runs 20+ sets in a game. You can't spend your entire practice going over their sets (and your players won't remember all of them anyway. Man Left doesn't care what sets are being run (of offense for that matter). The Man Left Defense is determined to get the ball on the left side of the court and keep it there. The sets teams want to run become irrelevant.
3. Simpler Than Force Weak Hand -Forcing each player to their weak hand is ideal. Having all players on the court realize who has the ball, which direction it will be driven (based on right handed or left handed) would be great, but it is not realistic for most teams to be able to implement. Some colleges can probably do this, but realistically it becomes a challenge to do effectively at all levels ESPECIALLY HIGH SCHOOL AND BELOW. And the fact of the matter is, 10% of the population are left handed. So you are forcing 90% of basketball players to use their weak hand already... and the philosophy to lock left is much easier to implement for teams!
4. Control Tempo -Man Left Defense can completely control the pace of the game when done correctly! Coach Brost loves to play at a fast pace offensively. Man Left Defense allows him to do this. Often the offense is taking shots or turning it over in the first 10-15 seconds of the possession...even if they were trying to slow down the pace! What if you want to slow down the pace? Fine, playing Man Left Defense simply gets the ball back you your offense's hands more quickly. From there, your offense can still play at whatever tempo you choose, but the best part is, your team will end up being on the offensive end of the court much longer than the defensive end...and this is always a good thing!
5. Force Tough Shots -Man Left Defense forces teams to take low % shots. Players are not allowed 3s and players are forced to drive left to a "gray area" on the baseline where they have no offensive options. Their best case scenario is taking a contested pull up jumper going left. And as a coach, you know that this is a low % shot for most players.

Tried & True

Great coaches have the ability to take defense or offense and tweak it to make improvements or simply suit their needs. Each year running Man Left Defense, Coach Brost made changes. If something didn’t work one year, he made adjustments to his Man Left Defense to make it more effective. It is one thing to have a great philosophy, it is another to be able to implement and change in a practical manner. Championship level coaches do this, and Coach Brost has made many improvements to Man Left over the years.

Taking Away the 3!

For instance, against the high level competition they were playing, his teams were often giving up open 3s after teams would penetrate and pitch to an open offensive player. Ultimately Coach Brost knew his team could not consistently compete for titles if they were giving up open 3s so he began implementing his Fake & Fade strategy. Fake & Fade allows his defenders to play help defense and stop penetration, while still getting to their player when the ball is kicked to them, and taking away their 3 point shot opportunity. Most teams and players these days are simply too good to help off of and give up open 3s. Defensively they can completely destroy your team and you need a philosophy to combat it like Fake & Fade.

Primary or Secondary Defense

Man Left can be used in several ways. It can be used as your primary defense that you use for most games and most possessions OR it can be used as a secondary defense. If it is a secondary defense maybe you implement it

• After timeouts
• At the start of a new quarter
• Once each quarter and stay in it until the offense scores
• Against teams that run lots of sets
• Against teams who run their offense primarily going right (which is almost every team)

Whatever the case may be, as you can see, you have A LOT of options for implementation. A Force Left Defense can simply be an extension of your man to man defense. While there are many details to learn and practice with a Force Left Defense, the principles are still man to man based defense, so players pick up on it more quickly, and many of your defensive concepts should carry over to a Force Left/Man Left Defense.

Dictate on Defense

There is absolutely no reason your defense should sit back and wait to see what the offense is going to run or what sets they want to execute.

Take the offense's options away by dictating to them where they can go on the court (left only), and when they get to the left 1/3 of the court, they STAY on the left 1/3 of the court!

Good Luck!
Related Pages and Helpful Resources:

Rob Brost's Man Left Defense
Basketball Defensive Strategies
7 Best Basketball Defensive Drills


What are your thoughts on this? Please add your comments below.

Comments Most Likes First   Oldest First   Newest First Bruce says: 11/15/2023 at 1:18:07 PM What are some of the most successful offenses that are run against lock left? Should I be more concerned with man or zone offenses? Like     login   register

Leave a Comment Name : Email (not published) : Three minus one is equal to?  (Prevents Spam) Answer :  Load New Question Comments : Leave this Blank :