Fronting

Fronting is when a defensive player stands in front of the offensive player (often a post player). It is quite difficult to get a ball in the paint through a lob pass and there will always be help in the paint. Fronting is especially effective at the moment that the post is near the rim.

Defending the post

A post player is the most dangerous under the rim. If he receives the ball there, the chance of a score or a mistake on the shot is the highest. We should therefore keep the post player as far away from the rim as possible.

There are two ways to defend a post player: 3/4 fronting and full fronting. We do not want to defend behind the post. If you defend behind the post, it will not be possible to denial the post without making a foul. You will therefore have to allow the pass to the post.

3/4 fronting

A good mid post will always try to receive the ball in the ‘line of deployment’. This means the imaginary line from the ball to the basket. In this position he will be most likely to receive the ball.

In a 3 / 4th fronting situation, the defender will control a post-player with his forearm in the direction of the baseline. He must push him out of the line of deployment, away from the playing field. The other arm of the defender is in the pass line, to make the pass more difficult.

When the post is gets open above the line of deployment, the defense is reversed. The post is pushed away from the basket with the forearm, but now to mid court. In both positions the fore foot of the defender stands in front of the post, the rear foot next to the post. Hence the term 3 / 4e fronting.

After receiving the ball by the post player, the defender must perform his jump back. This is specific to the defense on a post player: the defender goes from his position on the side of the post to the position between attacker and ball, but keeps with his forearm contact with the attacker.

Fronting the post

When the post player to defend is physically stronger than his defender, is pushing the post away not an option. At that moment the coach has to decide to call for additional help from the weak side or to front the post.

The defender must pay attention to:

• Keep his hands high, to avoid a lob pass
• Stay close to the attacker in order to respond quickly when the attacker tries to get open
• Stay in front of the post player, making it impossible to feed the post after a pass to the guard.

This is an aggressive form of defending, which puts pressure on the post and assumes active hands. Fronting the post also means that help defense is organized from the other side, so that a lobe pass can be avoided.