Triangle and 2 Junk Defence

The Triangle and 2 Junk Defence is one of the more popular hybrid defences across basketball. This form of a Junk Defence is useful against teams who have two pivotal scorers while on offense. A Triangle and 2 Junk Defence allows for two defensive players to utilise man-to-man defence principles while the remaining three defensive players form a triangle and employ zone defence rules.

One of the advantages with the Triangle and 2 Junk Defence is that it still has strong defensive rebounding positioning while limiting the strongest offensive options of the opposition.

The match-up for the man-to-man players can be either guard, forward or center. If there are two guards that are needing to be matched up against then simply change the positioning of the reminder of players within the triangle. Depending on the scouting notes, the players in the man-on-man match-up can be guarded any number of different ways.

Help defence principles for the two players involved in the man-to-man principles can be varied as well from no help defence to application of normal principles if their player is on the weak side of the floor. In most instances, these defensive players are encouraged to deny fully the offensive player from receiving a pass within the team’s offense.

The strength of the triangle is that all three players are in a very strong help defence position for when the players involved in the man-to-man math-up are broken down by their offensive player. When this happens the closest player in the triangle formation will rotate to help.

A variation to the triangle formation is to have the players set-up in a line along the split line. The players in this situation take up the positions of Ball, Top and Home.

The Ball player (Two) moves to guard the ball handler.

The Top player (Three) fills the position on the floor at the foul line.

The Home position (Five) is on the front of the basket.

In this situation, the “Home” and “Top” positions must always be filled.

When a ball handler makes a pass to another offensive player on or above the foul line then the player in the “Top” position rotates to guard the ball. In this situation the “Ball” player rotates back to fill the now vacant “Top” position.

When the ball is passed to a player below the foul line then the “Home” player will rotate. In this example, the remaining two zone defensive players slide down the split line to fill the “Top” and “Home” positions again.

The rotations for the triangle will be explore in this article.

When a pass is made to a player who is to be guarded by the triangle only, then the following rotation happens.

A defensive player guarding the ball cannot follow the pass to be guarding it once again. So the closest other player in the triangle must rotate.

In the example above Three (3) is the closest player and initiates the close-out. The interesting situation created here is that Three (3) can always beat the offensive player to the spot should dribble penetration be initiated. This is really what the Triangle and 2 Junk Defence is all about, It provides opportunities for the offense to score, but it asks the third, fourth and fifth string players to do this, not the team’s two primary scorers.

Two (2) rotates to defend the high post.

Five (5) rotates across the keyway to the strong side low post now left vacant after the close-out by Three (3).

One (1) and Four (4) rotate depending on the rules established for these two players in man-to-man defensive coverage.

In situations where the ball is passed to a player in a man-to-man match-up of the Triangle and 2 Junk Defence; the three players involved in the triangle simply move into help positions without rotating the guard the player with the ball.

The triangle players should only rotate to help once the player guarding the ball is beaten.

Two (2) rotates in behind the player guarding the high post target (Four) in this situation.

Three (3) in the weak side low post rises to the split line and the low side of the high post.

In all situations faced by the Triangle and 2 Junk Defence it is a high priority for the three players involved in the zone defence component to maintain their positioning and structure.

It is naive to think that the two primary scores will be nullified by the Triangle and 2 Junk Defence. What this formation will do is decrease the response time for help and reduce the shooting percentage of the opposition overall.