Lock 2 Defense

The idea of a Lock 2 Defense is simple: your two short sticks shut off and the long sticks play defense.  This works fantastically against teams that are not well balanced on offense -- short sticks shut off the best two offensive players to let the long poles play!

Perfect execution puts my best 4 defensemen against your 4 worst offensive players.

If you are ready for the inevitable problem that will occur this is a great defense.  So what is the problem?

What do you do when the player who is being shut off does get the ball?

Here is the answer:  

• First of all, know and expect that the player who is being shut off is going to sometimes get the ball.  You are assigning a short stick to negate him as much as possible because he is so good, and if this offensive player really is that good he is going to get open eventually.  

• The 4 defensemen need to know to sluff in and communicate with each other regarding who is the 1st and 2nd slide. 

• Another option is for them to know that if one of the short sticks is playing the ball they automatically fall into a 4 man zone.  Much like if they are playing 2 men down.
  

When the strong player has the ball the 2 defensive short sticks remain guarding their assignments and the 4 defenders' "zone” should be in the form of a box angled so that the player who is on ball is between the two defenders at the top of the box.  Note that it might be useful to coach players to think of it as a diamond, and it will look like a box or a diamond depending on where the ball is, but the result is that the short stick guarding the strongest player has adjacent support to both his back right and back left.

The likelihood is that the strong offensive player will carry the ball or make some kind of play he initiates with a dodge, and that if he is so good his dodge will probably work, so once the offensive player moves the box rotates towards the offensive player.  This creates a double-team, which is good for the defense, or a draw and dump, which is logical for the offense, but remember the defense has now forced the offense to move the ball to a less threatening player.

Once the pass is made the Defense needs to recover and pick up a guy again, going back to the original Lock 2.  This ability to recover quickly is an essential part of this defense.