This is an article on defensive strategy, and I should probably disclose my bias up front. I have a strong preference for defensive strategies that involve pressuring the ball and attempting to create turnovers. This probably comes from my experiences as a defenseman at Hobart, where Coach Austin “Jerry” Schmidt converted me from attack to defense.

The choice of defensive style is a function of available personnel, of course. However, consider that the top twenty (20) teams in Division I averaged only about a 38% success rate when they were man up in ‘06. In other words, the best extra man teams in the country only scored about one-third of the time when they had an extra man advantage. Thus, the penalty for attempting to take the ball away and failing is not great. Even if you fall down completely in an attempt to pressure the ball, even against the best teams, they will only score one-third of the time against you. Second, playing pressure defense gives you the chance of creating offense in such a way that the defensive specialists of your opponent might be kept off the field creating favorable match ups at worst, and fast breaks at best. It is just plain a lot more fun for athletic defenders to try and create turnovers.

Brodie Merrill has been receiving accolades recently (and deservedly) for his disruptive style of play. I watched a game in which Georgetown was losing 6-1 in the first half, and Merrill started to take the ball away, pick up loose balls, make clears and even score a goal on the way to a one goal victory in which he was the difference between the two teams. If you have defenseman who can actually go out and win games, you should really give them the opportunity to do it.

There are other advantages to a pressure defense. Despite the challenges defenses face because of current stick technology (another rant beyond the scope of this article), if you have a deep, well conditioned team, you might be able to wear down your opponent by making the other team work much harder to score as you push out farther away from the goal and force the offense to start their plays farther from the goal. Jerry Schmidt was a great attackman from Johns Hopkins, and a great lacrosse coach. He always said that his defensive strategy was heavily influenced by the difficulties he faced when playing against Navy. The Midshipmen were always well conditioned, aggressive and gave him a hard time all over the field. Coach Schmidt thought the sensible thing to do was to teach his defenseman to do the things he hated to face as an attackman. He wanted his opponents to be as uncomfortable as he was when he played against Navy.

Finally, a team that plays pressure defense has a chance to create variation in the game that a more conservative style of defense cannot--risk taking on defense has the potential for greater reward. For me, playing aggressive, pressure defense can create turnovers and disruption, and variation in the game that can produce “statistical outliers,” great performances that can’t be achieved by simply sitting back and trying to repulse the attacker. Of course, if not properly managed, that variation and risk taking can create performances that vary around the mean in a negative direction too.

I have long believed that lacrosse shares the greatest strategic similarities with basketball, particularly on defense. Basketball and lacrosse require the same kind of footwork, positioning and team defense. Playing the pick and stopping a fast break are practically identical in basketball and lacrosse. However, one major difference between basketball teams and lacrosse teams is that basketball teams routinely know, and utilize, many different kinds of defenses. Basketball teams know how to run a full-court press and a half-court press. They know how to play different kinds of man to man and zone defenses. Sometimes man and zone concepts are mixed, such as in a box and one defense. It is not unusual to see basketball teams use three (3) or four (4) different types of defenses in one game depending upon the game situation. Sometimes changes are made in defensive strategy for the sole purpose of disrupting the other team’s offensive strategy. Football teams do the same thing by changing up defensive looks constantly to keep the offense guessing. Even soccer has several types of defenses that are used depending on the game situation. Special defensive strategies in football and basketball are often driven by the other team’s offensive personnel. Recall how the Detroit Pistons implemented “the Jordan rules” when playing against the Chicago Bulls.

In watching the typical lacrosse game, it is rare to see a lacrosse team demonstrate the variety of defenses and attention to personnel that basketball and football teams do. This may be due to the intrinsic differences in the games. One could argue that the amount of space to defend in basketball is much smaller, the specialization of personnel is greater, and there is a shot clock and no goalie with which to contend. Football offenses must attempt to advance the ball on every play. The consequences of trying new strategies on defense and the amount of scoring in other sports allows for more risk taking and variety on defense. That may be, but it only impacts the degree of variation, not the basic idea that defensive variation is an important part of a good defensive strategy. In my opinion, every high level lacrosse team should be prepared to play several different types of defense, and coaches need to have a strategy in place to respond to different game conditions.

For example, every lacrosse team should have the equivalent of a full court press such as a pressure ride that is put in if you are behind late in the half or in the game. In fact, with the time limitation on clearing, riding is an area of the game where new strategies might be rewarded with ball possession. Every lacrosse team should have the equivalent of a half court press. If referees start requiring teams to keep the ball in the box as they should (another rant beyond the scope of this article), then the equivalent of a strong half court press can be rewarded with possession. Every lacrosse team should have the ability to absolutely stop one or even two of the other team’s offensive players that are really causing trouble. Every lacrosse team should be able to switch up from man to zone and back to confuse the offense. Watching most lacrosse games, it does not appear that many teams have the ability to switch up defenses in any discernable way. Too often teams that desperately need to change up the defense to get back in a game, instead continue with the exact same defense, as if they were one goal down with a lot of time left on the clock. It is said that one definition of insanity is doing things the same way, over and over, and expecting a different result. Conversely, in situations where the team is winning and wants to limit the other team’s offensive opportunities, perhaps a more conservative, tight zone could be used. A well prepared team should be able to make these adjustments as readily as any basketball team.

Although many teams do this well, some lacrosse teams fail to make adequate personnel adjustments. I watched one college team assign the same defender to play a 250-pound power attackman one week and a 150-lb water-bug attackman the next. This would be similar to having the same player guard Shaq one week and Dwayne Wade the next. It is very important to pay attention to match-ups. More specialization makes sense in lacrosse as the number and athleticism of good defensive lacrosse players continues to increase. The match-up idea goes in the other direction as well. If you have a particularly good takeaway defender, or your defense can recognize a match up in the defense’s favor, a defense should be able to force the ball to be passed to the favorable match up and then immediately shut off the outlet pass. In sum, coaches should try and put in at least three different defenses that can respond to different situations in a game.

This is the first in a two-part article. In the first part, I discussed some basic ideas about playing defense and my ideas about defensive strategy. The second part will focus on specific types of defenses that are out there that might be of some help to lacrosse coaches with how to handle different situations.