Denial

Denial is to prevent an attacker from getting the ball from a teammate by keeping the hand in line of the pass.

In the ‘normal’ defense, the defender 1 used to take a position between the man and the basket. A decision is made to give pressure on the pass in order to make this pass in any case more difficult. We call this position: overplaying the opponent and the stance: denial stance.

Jump back

If the attacker still receives the ball, the defender must recover until he is back in ready position according to the weak hand principle. He also performs a ‘jump back’: a small jump backwards, so that he returns from his denial position to an arm’s length from his attacker.

Points of attention with denial stance:

• Front foot and front arm are in the line of the pass
• The back foot is more on the line attacker-basket.
• Body weight rests more on the front foot
• The palm of the front hand points to the ball, thumb points to the toes.
• The inner hand can be used to keep light contact with the attacker (brush contact) with the back of the hand.

When a forward is defended in this way, he has to work hard to open up for a pass. This can be done by in-out (v-out) and by backdoor. In addition, he can be released because a fellow player screens for him.