{"id":297211,"date":"2025-11-20T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297211\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T14:30:08","slug":"meet-the-press-why-full-court-defense-is-on-the-rise-in-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297211\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Press: Why Full-Court Defense Is on the Rise in the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s never been harder to slow down NBA offenses. Can full-court pressure help defenses fight back?<\/p>\n

During the third quarter of a mundane November matchup against the Golden State Warriors, Phoenix Suns backup guard Collin Gillespie is standing near the top of the key as Devin Booker knocks down a free throw. When the ball drops through the net, the rebounders break off the lane lines to jog downcourt, but Gillespie goes the other way. He veers toward the baseline near Golden State\u2019s bench, attaching himself to Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski in the backcourt. It\u2019s a small maneuver, but a meaningful one. Gillespie and the Suns have made it a point to pressure opposing ball handlers full court this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one way for me to stick in the league,\u201d Gillespie tells me. \u201cI got to play hard. I got to compete. That’s probably my calling card as an NBA player.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On this possession, Gillespie\u2019s defense won\u2019t show up in the box score. Podziemski uses a Draymond Green screen to shake Gillespie and bring the ball across half court. But the cumulative effect of plays like this has paid dividends for Phoenix in the early part of the 2025-26 season. The Suns are applying backcourt pressure more than three times as often as they did last season, according to Synergy Sports. Their overall defense has improved, their opponent turnover rate has spiked, and they\u2019ve jumped out to a surprising 9-6 start behind a newfound feistiness.<\/p>\n

The Suns are hardly alone in this; the rise of full-court pressure has been one of the most pervasive trends of the NBA season\u2019s first month. Leaguewide, full-court pressure has increased substantially<\/a>. Two-thirds of the NBA\u2019s teams are pressing more than they did last year, per Synergy, with the Portland Trail Blazers leading the way. \u201cIf you’re playing defensively full court, you’re speeding the game up and getting a team to play faster than they like,\u201d says Rick Carlisle, whose Pacers harassed guards like Jalen Brunson and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the backcourt during their improbable 2025 playoff run. \u201cThat can be uncomfortable, and there can be turnovers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The press is also inextricable from the transformation of basketball over the last two decades, in which the abolition of hand checking, the explosion of pace, and the proliferation of long-range shooting have given ball handlers the upper hand. Can full-court pressure help defenses get back on level ground?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Picking up ball handlers for 94 feet brings a trove of potential benefits. In the best case, a defender nabs a steal in the backcourt that leads to an easy two points. But even in less immediately fruitful scenarios, pressure can wear down an offensive player\u2014especially one who shoulders large playmaking burdens for his team\u2014over the course of a night, giving the pressing team a late-game advantage. At minimum, on a possession-by-possession basis, pressure can slow down the game and limit the flow of the opposing offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTry to make them take at least six seconds off the clock,\u201d says Suns guard Jordan Goodwin of his goal when pursuing a full-court press. \u201cSo they start offense like 15 [seconds on the shot clock], instead of 20 or 18.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wider adoption of full-court pressure is creating another pathway for defensive-minded players to affect the game. Before he went down with a fracture in his foot, Blake Wesley had carved out a unique role for himself as a defensive menace in Portland. Wesley shot just 20 percent from 3 in six games before his injury, but he averaged 1.7 steals in just 16 minutes per game and made an outsize impact on the Trail Blazers defense. In Phoenix, Gillespie and Goodwin have similarly latched onto the opportunity to dictate the terms of engagement without contributing volume scoring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to affect the game in a different way, and that’s defense,\u201d Gillespie says. \u201cPressuring the ball, competing at a high level, being scrappy, grabbing rebounds, deflection, steals, all the little things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rise of full-court pressure is also opening up a new cat-and-mouse game between the defenders hounding the ball up the court and the guards tasked with getting past them. For Podziemski, it hearkens back to his AAU days, when many defenses favored full-court pressure over the structure of playing in the half court. The 22-year-old has benefited from fireside chats with a pair of all-time greats at his position. During his rookie season, he peppered teammates Chris Paul and Stephen Curry with questions, which allowed him to learn from two point guards with very distinct styles of combating pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cChris is more back to the basket, per se, full court,\u201d Podziemski tells me. \u201cHe’ll just skip, skip, skip, skip you down. Where Steph is like, \u2018I’m just going to make one move, maybe two moves, and get past you and then slow down.\u2019 So there’s different ways you could do it, and both are effective.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Against Phoenix, Podziemski relies on both tactics. \u201cIf it’s a longer guy, usually, I know my quickness, I got that edge per se, so I can just get past them and then just set on my feet,\u201d he says. \u201cIf it’s a smaller guy, like Collin Gillespie or Dennis Schr\u00f6der, guys who are smaller, I can use my body and keep my body between them and the ball.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After beating Gillespie\u2019s pressure up the floor, Podz passes the ball to Curry on the right wing, before the ball finds him again on a curl. With Gillespie still trailing and out of position, Podziemski rams his shoulder into Gillespie\u2019s chest, gets into the paint, and Euro-steps for an easy score.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get by them, it’s five-on-four now offensively,\u201d Podziemski says.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Golden State\u2019s influence on the game is a catalyst for the current defensive trend. In Curry\u2019s 17 seasons, the Warriors have taken the game out of the paint. Golden State has routinely finished near the top of the league in pace, points, and 3-point shooting on the way to four titles in the past 10 years. Many teams have attempted to emulate the Warriors\u2019 beautiful game, and now they\u2019re searching for ways to disrupt the blueprint altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I ask Warriors coach Steve Kerr if the league\u2019s defensive trends are a response to the offensive explosion he helped create. \u201cYes,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the patterns of the 3-point shooting and the kind of heliocentric offense. So, the Luka [Doncic], James Harden offense\u2014high pick-and-roll, shooters everywhere, get downhill, kick, drive, kick, swing, 3-point shot\u2014that’s been the pattern of the league. Between that and pace, teams get into a rhythm, all of a sudden everybody, they’re making 3s and it’s like, \u2018How do you disrupt that?\u2019 And I think full-court pressure is one way of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where is all this going? Will we see even more teams embrace the press, or are NBA guards just too skilled for it to have sticking power? Will pressure lead to a more entertaining product, or will it grind the game down and lead to more fouls? Carlisle believes that the levels we\u2019re seeing now are just the tip of the spear, one manifestation of an NBA that is becoming more physical and more competitive each season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has become a hard-play league,\u201d Carlisle says. \u201cIt\u2019s great for the game. It\u2019s great for our fans. People want to see a high compete level, and when players are picking up full court and playing to exhaustion, that glorifies the NBA game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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