Behind the screen: Inside the defensive mind of Andre Iguodala

[GoldNugg21]

Fantastic article by Matt Moore over at CBSSports. Lengthy, but worth a read if you love basketball, or are interested in hearing a great defender talk about defense. Includes video clips with Igoudala discussing how he defends different players.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/blog/ey...andre-iguodala


Excerpt:

There are tricks to the trade, of course. Iguodala is far less secretive with them than I would expect. Tactics in the NBA are guarded like national security. Teams are uncomfortable with media showing pre-game strategy, despite the readily available number of means to know what teams do, the fact that scouts talk all the time like barflies and that little of the information is a shocker.

But Iguodala reveals one.

"I learned one move from Joe Johnson which is pretty funny," he says. "Sometimes when they're driving or want to get open and they're pushing off on me, they push off a lot, and they get away with it. So when they push off, I just lean back, but I grab their hand with me, so as they're pushing me, I grab them so they gotta come with me. When they're trying to come off and I'm holding that, that gives me a second to recover. That's them shooting the ball or catching and shooting the ball, right there is one second. So I'm back in front just by doing that."

[chips93]

that was pretty interesting

really emphasised how much preparation is involved in defense, learning the other players tendencies.

[brantonli]

I just finished reading this article and man, what a great post. For people too lazy even to open the link, the article has Iguodala narrating his own defensive moves, with little clips showing Iguodala vs Kobe, Westbrook, Harden, Melo, LeBron, so it's not all just words. This article should be mandatory reading for people who say defense no longer matters in the NBA.

[chips93]

Originally Posted by brantonli

I just finished reading this article and man, what a great post. For people too lazy even to open the link, the article has Iguodala narrating his own defensive moves, with little clips showing Iguodala vs Kobe, Westbrook, Harden, Melo, LeBron, so it's not all just words. This article should be mandatory reading for people who say defense no longer matters in the NBA.

really interesting to see how he has different strategies for each guy, knowing their tendencies, and acting accordingly.

[GoldNugg21]

More people should read this. Just saying