Pros & Cons of Pressure Defense

Keys to pressure defense:

• Force the offensive player to the weak hand

• Force the offensive player to weak shooting angles

• First slide be ready to go quickly

• Players further away from the ball that are not adjacent and not the first slide should be sluffed into the crease.

Skills needed to be efficient:

• strong understanding of angles with the understanding that the on ball player can get beat, but if they do it should be towards a low angle.

• Be able to slide and recover quickly 

• Should be athletic

• higher level of cardiovascular endurance than your opponent.  

Mindset of Pressure Defense:

• Your players and your staff must all understand that you may/will get beat at times, and you must be able to deal with it.

• Be ready to slide early and often and enjoy the chaos

• The sooner an individual defenseman feels he is on an island and enjoys that, the better the defense will be.

  3 general Types of Pressure Defense:

• Shut off everyone, do not let the ball carrier have an outlet forcing him to go one on one

• Pressure the ball, shut off the adjacent

• Slide very early, hold the double team.

Pros of pressure defense.

• You’ll get more offensive possessions

• Works well against teams that run “SET” plays.

• Doesn’t allow your opponents to set up their offense and prevents them from getting into a rhythm.

Cons of pressure defense:

• You are going to get beat!

•  Can wear down your defensemen more quickly, especially if you don’t have a lot of depth.

• Can cause lots of penalties