As a coach, you need to get your players looking for trap opportunities. Most youth players are often too concerned with guarding their man and fail to recognize opportunities to trap. Teaching your players to yell, "Dead! Dead! Dead!" when their man picks up his dribble is a good way to start making your team aware of potential trap opportunities.

• Anytime a player with the ball picks up their dribble, they are immediately vulnerable to a trap. This player is called "dead".
• The defender of that player should immediately smother the ball by closing-out on the ball and taking as much space away from the offensive player as possible.
• If another defender is close by, they should immediately closeout as well and create a trap by smothering the ball using body position and arms to take away any pass or shot attempt.
• The remaining defenders need to be ready to help in the event the trap is broken and a pass is made.

ANIMATION

This is one of the simple ways to teach your players how to trap the offense in the wing area.

• The defender of the point-guard forces him to dribble to either wing.
• The low post defender flashes up to stop the penetration as the guard defender seals any penetration back into the middle of the court.
• The low post weak-side defender slides over to play help defense on the open low post offensive player.
• If the trap is broken, all defenders play help until recovery can take place.

ANIMATION

The short corner, or corner, is probably the best area to trap the offense. This is because the end and sidelines basically act as two additional defenders giving the ball-handler virtually no place to go if you can effectively trap with two or more defenders.

• In this scenario, a pass is made from the wing to the low-post player on the offense who has popped out from the block and into the short corner.
• Immediately, the low-post defender closes out and takes away any baseline penetration.
• Meanwhile, the defender of the wing crashes down from the top and seals off any pass or dribble from that direction.
• Once again, the weak-side defenders shift over to help deny any pass to the players left unguarded by the trapping defenders.

• Get your players thinking trap in all your practices and games. The reaction time is one of the keys to any traps effectiveness.
• Teach aggressiveness but make sure your players aren't reaching in. Many times a trap is in place and the defense bails the trapped player out with a foolish and unnecesaary foul.
• Teach your players to smother the ball by making themselves wide with their stance and blocking passing lanes with outstretched arms and mirroring the ball.
• You and your players will be surprised how many turnovers result from recognizing trap opportunities and how much fun it can make playing defense.