Throwing Thought: Disc Placement on In Cuts
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Loading ...How small of a margin between receiver and defender are you comfortable throwing to?
One step? Two steps’ gap? What is your primary consideration when you assess whether or not you’ll throw to an in cut?
Don’t think just in terms of gap. Consider your receiver–if you know he’s faster than his man, trust him to accelerate to the disc (and conversely, if the defender has been baiting the throw all game and getting it, perhaps you should reconsider). A very important consideration, and the focus of this post, is the relative positioning of the receiver and his defender, as well as the trajectory of his cut.
Assuming your receiver is making a good cut (vertically/slightly angled, rather than horizontally–more on that in a later thought), you can throw to her with a remarkably small margin and complete the throw successfully. The number one deciding factor in whether a throw is a completion or not (from a thrower’s perspective, and assuming basic competency; obviously there are other considerations) is not the margin between receiver and defender, but where you place the disc relative to the receiver and her defender.
Some visual aid:
This is where you want to place the disc to prevent a D. The receiver is led to space , with the disc coming in to him on the side opposite that of the defender. With the disc placed in such a manner, a defender is forced to go through the receiver for the D. Particularly on cuts that don’t cover a lot of ground (such as handler cuts), it’s nearly impossible for a defender to get around the receiver sufficiently to make a clean D (otherwise, he needs to lay out through the receiver, which is very obviously a foul. In some instances it’s possible to get a D, but with proper catching technique this is nearly impossible. More on that in a later thought, too).
With placement like this–either heading towards the receiver instead of leading him, or placed such that the receiver’s body is NOT between the disc and defender–a defender can move in and get to the disc before the receiver (this also happens commonly with horizontal cuts, which is why those are not the most reliable cut to make, especially at a low level). In the picture above you can clearly see that the disc placement more or less negates whatever advantage the receiver has, essentially placing the two at an equal distance from the play.
Placement is not a universal cure–even with the right intent to your throw, sometimes players will make plays (if there’s a speed disparity, this can negate good placement on longer cuts). However, an awareness of disc placement by both thrower AND receiver (I’ll touch on it more later, but you can cut with this positioning in mind) can make tight defense beatable. It can almost swing to the point of being a disadvantage for the defense to be too close if you place it properly, as overzealous defenders can be baited into failed bids, giving the receiver a few free counts to do whatever she wants with the disc.
disc placement is also a great way to communicate to your receiver which direction he should turn in, and/or where his defender actually is.