One of the best times to run a diamond press is out of a made free throw. This drill will help you simulate that in practice.
Note:
We're going to show player 4 making a free throw, but during practice if it's a missed free throw, players 1, 2 and 4 will rotate until a free throw is made.
The drill starts with a free throw situation.
On a made shot, the offense takes the ball out of bounce and the defense sets up in their diamond press.
The diamond press works so well out of a free throw situation because the back two defenders are already set up and the front of the diamond is a quick transition from the free throw lineup.
The shooter becomes the front of the diamond and the two players on the blocks pop out to the wings.
Here we see the defense has quickly setup in the press and the offense is taking the ball out of bounds to set up their press breaker.
If the ball goes to the corner, it's an immediate trap while the other wing and interceptor get into passing lanes.
On a flash to middle, the wing would cover this because we want to avoid any middle passes and we're okay with the sideways pass to 3 because we still have time to rotate and trap again.
Once offense has crossed half court the drill stops and resets on the other end, switching offense and defense.
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