This is part of the game that I used to struggle with as I didn’t want our defense to get soft and allow the switch. I thought it was too easy to get into a “switch so I don’t have to work as hard” mentality. And I coupled that with the fact that I did not want to have any mismatches. Then I read a statement that Del Harris said that really got me thinking. He said: “mismatches won’t hurt you, but open shots will”

This got me to really analyze what I was willing to give up. It also made me go back into the film room to analyze how often the opponent actually took advantage of this mismatch. It turned out that they did not take advantage of it as much as I thought they did. But I did notice that when we didn’t switch on a great screen that was set, it gave them a great shot.

So I changed and put certain guidelines into our switching system:

• only like sizes/positions may switch (4’s and 5’s; 2’s and 3’s; and I would evaluate my point guard that year to make my decision on whether he would be allowed to switch — and more times than not he was)

we wanted to switch to deny the pass rather than just to exchange players

we had to talk the switch out with the screener’s man calling the switch as we felt he saw the action developing much better than the cutter’s defender (and he was usually moving away from the ball and not as much of an initial threat as the cutter coming to the ball off the screen)

we practiced it on a regular basis and made sure to include this in our scouting report

So now you have these decisions to make:

what will hurt me more — open shots or them trying to take advantage of the mismatch?

what rules will you put in for these situations?

I only ask that you give thought to this area of defense. I’m not suggesting you change, but I am suggesting that you evaluate all options and then become committed to which one you feel is right for you. Players will definitely see, hear, and feel commitment from their coach. And if your are committed, chances are they will be also!