In the 30 Second Clock Era, SWITCH DEFENSES AT LEAST ONCE EACH POSSESSION
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Thesis: The 30 Second clock should be exploited by defensive minded coaches by switching defenses at least once and maybe twice during a possession.
Why?
To begin with, by the time the ball reaches half court, it’s really a 27 second clock, assuming no full court pressure is applied.
Because each defensive switch usually requires an offensive team to recognize the change, reposition, and resume. For easy figuring, let’s say it takes 5 seconds. Boom! One defensive change just reduced the effective 27 second clock to a 22 second clock.
You know where I’m headed.
Good defensive teams should switch more than once.
Two switches will take away a total of 10 seconds.
Boom!
17 second clock.
Then mask the initial defense you are in so it takes the offense 3 seconds to try to figure out what defense you are actually in.
Boom!
14 second clock.
Then run a little 3/4 court press. Switch it frequently among m2m press, 2-2-1 press, and 1-2-1-1. Let’s say it forces the opponent to take 6 seconds instead of 3 seconds in order to recognize, maneuver, and get it to half court and then recover their composure.
Boom!
11 second clock.
Who doubts Self Defense will become dominant with only 11 seconds to guard?
It might not work this way in the early part of the season.
Red Auerbach rightly noted that:
“Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.”
Some new offensive schemes will be tried to capitalize on the 30 second clock.
Defenses will take awhile to adapt to those offensive changes.
But once that adaptation occurs, the first defensive team to do the things I have outlined above and so reduce an offenses shot clock to 11 seconds is really going to control outcomes of games.
