Handler Defense
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"Heels," Roles, and Basics (Response to Issue 12, "Endzone Cutting")
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Scattered Thoughts:
1) Several players mention bum-rushing the defender to “get [them] on [their] heels” before making another move. That’s all well and good, but…can that really be a complete strategy? I suppose if you’re the faster cutter, it is (which of course begs the question of ‘why juke them in the first place?’). That statement really triggers my common sense detector though…there ARE defenders out there who aren’t put on their heels so easily. What then? I like to tack on “…or get him to turn
his hips” on the end of most references to “on his heels,” as I think that situation confers the same advantages to a cutter looking to gain separation.
2) I absolutely LOVE Peri Kurshan’s talk of delegating an “end zone cutter” role. Brilliant. Energy efficient, strategy efficient. And if you’re using the “one guy creating an open-side break opportunity” cutting strategy or a similar iso, this makes perfect sense, too. This also seems very easily applied in terms of strategy, which leads me to…
3) Where’s the bona fide strategy talk? I suppose the idea of this issue is more to cull pearls of wisdom for playing, particularly for the individual cutter, but I really feel like this stuff assumes you’re familiar with the conventional wisdom to some extent (or at least, it’s enhanced by such familiarity). Perhaps none of this is new to you, but much of what I write is predicated on the belief that there are people out there who are still learning.
Steve Sullivan’s mention of the “gut cut,” along with the many references to dump and swing O by several authors, alludes to probably the basic/default end zone O for many teams…cuts from the back of the stack towards the cone. On the open side, this means one guy to the cone, and a second shortly therafter in the inside line (the “gut cut”), with another (or perhaps the first to the open side, if he’s quick back) to the break side as the disc is dumped and swung. Sometimes this is a “default,” sometimes this is a set play. Depends on the team.
Other common endzone offenses include some kind of isolation play, which gets all but one of the cutters out of the way to feature a stud with enough space for a decent thrower to get the disc to the endzone somewhere stud cutter can catch it uncontested (this is the sort of situation where a lot of the cutting advice dispensed in this issue comes in handy), and a lot of teams allude to a similarly-minded offense perhaps without the overt isolation to it (front of the stack open-side break throw juke, or a cutter from the back doing something similar in the lane while the rest “keep their defenders busy”).
The final major endzone offense (at least, in my mind; feel free to chime in if you have others) I can think of is the handler-driven O. I don’t mean the simple dump-swing, or even strategies that rely upon a good break from the handler.
I mean full-on dominator style weaving, with lots of give-and-go style moves (as Nick Handler alludes to. By the way, Nick probably brings up the most salient strategy points to consider in endzone offense, for any of you aspiring coaches/play designers out there). Perhaps the give-and-go is less common at the elite level, where dump defenders presumably stop the upline cut with more regularity, but I’ve seen that cut made successfully for a score many a time at the elite college level (often by my teammates over the past years).
This tends to work in conjunction with other strategies–the iso or stack motion lets the cutters work for opportunities, but when you look to dump-swing, an aggressive handler set can look to attack the endzone without help from the cutters with the upline, too. The sort of around-the-back “break” that Ben Wiggins talks about would also be the sort of play I’d characterize as a product of a handler-driven O.
4) My own thoughts on endzone cutting: don’t just apply one of the strategies discussed in the huddle: seek to learn and apply them all. I’ve had points where my endzone cutting has been little more than recognizing my defender’s open-side overzealousness and using a chop-step (or a straight-up opportunity cut) to catch a hammer to the break side wide open, and I’ve had points where I’ve run my defender into the ground from the stack, and I’ve had points where recognizing and exploiting the “open-side break” opportunities led to easy goals. The key is recognizing what’s available to you–when your teammates are aggressively cutting from the back of the stack, try to wait and find your opportunity. When nothing’s doing, consider creating some motion and injecting some energy with the brute-force approach (with appropriate tricks employed to increase your odds).
One thing that almost every author hit on–know your teammates, know your thrower. The rest will flow from knowing your thrower, and from your thrower knowing you. It’s when things get tight that chemistry really shines, and more often than not, things get tight in the endzone.
Marks: Or, the OTHER Most Important Thing in Ultimate
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...The mark is to defense as the dump is to offense.
To lack in either is to invite defeat to even the best systems; to excel in both provides the foundation upon which any system will thrive.
Ben Wiggins has said it before (audio, hard copies), but the mark is THE most important defensive position at any given point.
Think about it. How much of the field does the mark take away? Perhaps not the full half of the field that’s expected (that you ask that speaks to the importance of the position as well), but it authoritatively takes away a fair portion and adds additional pressure to a heck of a lot more than that. A great mark can make even great throwers work for anything but the easy open side passes, while a weak mark exposes the weak underbelly of a defense (otherwise known as the break side), leading to more running and, generally, quick scores. If you’ve ever seen a quick break completely open up the field and get an offense into flow, you know what I mean.
So why is it, then, that marking is relatively under-emphasized in the big scheme of ultimate strategy? You can spend all day talking about zone sets, refine the fundamentals of man defense and dictation, but at the end of the day if you can’t force the disc to go where your defense wants it to with a strong mark, you’re spinning your wheels.
I would contend that most or all of the best teams out there apply dedicated practice to their marking on a regular basis. If you’re not at least doing marker drill consistently in some form or another (break mark go-to or some other variant that includes movement is good too), you’re not training to play to your potential. It’s a great hubris indeed to assume that players will better themselves on the fundamentals, or even worse, that players are already good enough. If they’re fundamental it shouldn’t even be an issue to practice them and keep them sharp, should it?
So on to the mark itself. How do you leverage it?
I’ll spread out the technical points over the coming month or so (and would welcome input there, as well, as I’m not at the pinnacle of marking). In short, however, be mobile (on your toes), be smart (know your thrower, and know your situation), and be active (apply pressure and take away looks–don’t simply react to the thrower).
In terms of strategic use, a mark is less a tool for point blocks and more a tool for forcing bad throws or close plays (of course, some players have the tools, wingspan and/or intelligence wise, to get the point block more than others, but this is not necessarily something you can plan a defense around). It’s a tool for taking your opponent out of their comfort zone and forcing them to use the field in ways that either they don’t want to/aren’t used to or in ways that you anticipate and are in a position to D/will eliminate the threat potential of your opponent. Simple adjustments, deciding to pressure the huck with more of a straight-up mark, etc, can have profound effects.
If you don’t have adjustments on the mark in your toolbox as a player and especially as a coach/team strategist, you’re missing out on a very potent tool indeed.
Again, don’t get caught up in the flash. The greatest defense–team defense, that starts with the mark and ends with the last defender downfield (really, with the sideline–but that’s for another post)–never makes the highlight reel, but it’s exactly that which puts a team in a position to make those highlight reels in the first place.
Resets: Or, the Most Important Thing in Ultimate Frisbee
(No Ratings Yet. Click to Rate!) Loading ...Yeah, yeah, throwing and catching. Fundamentals aside, here, let’s talk about one step up–the dump. Absolutely essential as a building block for any offensive strategy (even if you Huck and Hope, you’re going to make some dump-like passes to set that up at some point).
It doesn’t take a team strategist to figure this out. Dumps give you a reset on the count, and, when leveraged correctly, are a WEAPON. Anybody who played against Dartmouth last year (particularly our D line) can attest to the lethality of the dump if you fail to contain it. Conversely, a team that dumps poorly is going to give up its fair share of short turns, and if you can’t dump with competence, then these same dumps will lead to a slower, more predictable (read: easier-to-defend) offense.
You know the whole analogy about how the running game sets up the passing game in football? With ultimate, the dump game similarly sets up the rest of the offense.
There are tiers of dumping. How comfortable are you?
- The “get a reset” dump. You look dump at high stall, and have to rush a throw. OR the dump cutting is ineffective (you have a “dancer” who doesn’t get open by much, and takes 4 seconds to do it). Either way, the throw winds up more or less shovel passed to the receiver, who gets the disc somewhere within the vicinity of 2-5 yards of the thrower (and likely coming toward the thrower or moving straight back). No advantage gained, merely a new count to look upfield and insist that somebody “CUT!”
- The early/competent dump. Note that those two terms tend to be synonymous. The decision to dump the disc is established early in the count more often than not (before stall 4 or 5–this will vary depending on your team’s offensive philosophy), and/or the dump cutter has an easy time getting separation from her defender. In this situation, the pass is usually made to a receiver in stride, perhaps going upline with the defender trailing (“power position,” anathema to all defenses–the thrower has a free shot deep, with momentum from the run to put it even farther), or likewise going backwards–in either case, the defender is not in a position to stop the next throw, which sets up a dump-swing style offense or a deep offense (hence the “running game” of the dump sets up the “passing game” going deep or side-to-side). This is the level of dumping which most good teams have; I’ve seen many a team that works the upline dump VERY competently, setting up a very powerful deep offense. Less common these days is the team that really works the width of the field, but your Harvards and Dartmouths will still flash this style with some effectiveness.
- The skillful dump. Taking the competent dump one step further, this is dumping not just for a reset, and beyond the dump as a building block for your offense. This is the point at which the dump becomes a FEATURE of the offense–the degree of thought and setup that goes into the positioning ensures that (almost) every dump puts the receiver in a position to further the offense. This is the sort of thing that Frank of RSD fame would often go on about with his ambidexterity rants and the like. Being able to run the give-and-go, for instance, not just as a every-so-often technique, but as the basis for your offense (see Minnesota and their often super-quick resets and movement–I don’t know that I’ve ever worked so hard on defense for so little gain), makes it a very potent tool, and can absolutely destroy teams unprepared to deal with it (which is, interestingly, becoming more and more the norm as teams fall into the glamour trap, opting for the big plays and the big players over the big fundamentals).
It’s all about raising the level. I don’t care who you are, you’re not going to go very far without at least competent resents (and you’re not going to thrive unless you can raise it a step beyond that–or you happen to so outclass your competition otherwise that you can make up for it).
If you’re a burgeoning team–high school, club, college–you MUST emphasize the fundamentals. You might key in on the flashiness of it all, the big hucks, the huge plays, but keep in mind that more often than not 90% of the highest-level games are anything but–just good fundamentals, solid cutting, hard defense, and GOOD RESETS. Model yourself after the “boring” parts–the plays that look easy, because they’ve been practiced and polished to seamlessness–and you’ll more often put yourself in a position where the flashy plays actually make a difference, instead of becoming a footnote in your recap of the blowout loss to stud team x.
More on fundamentals next week.
