How to Explain the Dale Brown Freak Defense

Dale Brown spent 26 seasons as the innovative head coach of the Louisiana State University basketball team. Brown's constant search for competitive advantages led him to employ what he called the freak defense. With his team ravaged by injuries during the 1985-86 season, Brown used the freak defense to propel the 11th-seeded Tigers to the Final Four. The freak defense involved employing a different defense for nearly every situation in the game, which kept offenses guessing and off-balance. Explaining the freak defense to your team will take time, patience and extreme attention to detail, but a well-executed freak defense can lead to more wins.

Instructions

    • 1

      Set up your five defenders in a base zone defense. You might start in a 2-3 or 1-2-2 zone. Your defenders will be constantly changing schemes so the original alignment will not be permanent.

    • 2

      Determine the defense you want to run depending on the position of the basketball. You want to have a different defensive strategy when the ball is passed left, right or taken up the middle. For example, when the ball is passed to the right, the defense switches to a man-to-man. When it goes left, the defense plays a 3-2 zone. Up the middle might call for a 1-2-2 zone. The idea is to confuse the offense. These defensive alignments should be set before the game and known by all your players.

    • 3

      Create hand signals that communicate defensive changes to your players. For example, a single fist in the air by the coach tells the defense to play a 2-3 zone. Two fists switches the defense to a full-court press with man-to-man coverage. Another hand signal lets the defense know to play "full freak," in which the alignments based on ball position are implemented.

    • 4

      Practice the many intricacies of the freak defense until it becomes second nature to the players. Johnny Jones, Dale Brown's assistant at LSU, once told USA Today that the freak defense was confusing even for the team's own players. The strategy requires extensive practice time. Players need to know their assignments as well as the hand signals. Because the defense is changing on every possession, and sometimes changing multiple times during one possession, make sure your team fully comprehends the details of the strategy before trying the defense in a game.