Seth Wiggins
Steal, steal, steal. If you are the smartest play to have ever played the
game, you may have reason to rely on your own originality. If not, find out
who is—be it player, team, or just a better division—and how they position
themselves to be successful. Any stoppage of play, between points, after
timeouts, after violations, will allow you to see what they want to do, given
the context on the field. Pay attention during your games. Scout opponents
during your bye round. Watch film. Stealing from others may seem unoriginal,
but ignoring available information about successful strategies makes your team
worse than what it could be. Watch and learn, but remember what you’re looking
for. Effectiveness in Ultimate is the combination of strategy and athletic
ability; enough of one often makes up for a lack in the other. Unless you
realistically plan on doing the same, ignore strategy that aims to out-muscle
other teams—look for teams and plays that are successful even against superior
athletes. Then use it like you drew it up yourself.
An example of a stolen play is one that comes (I believe, but who knows or
cares?) from Vancouver’s Furious George. It can be run with any formation
downfield, but it starts with the disc near the middle of the field, and two
players on the sideline—one even with the disc, and one downfield. To start
the play, the cutter even with the disc makes an up-line cut towards the
middle of the field, and then goes deep. The cutter downfield near the side
line then sprints parallel with the sideline back to the disc. Thrower gets
the disc to the sideline to the downfield cutter, who then looks up to the
handler cutter either continuing his cut deep, or coming underneath.
This play is currently run by most teams in the Northwest. We’ve all seen it
many times, but it continues to work again and again. The reason for its
continued success is what you should be looking for in a well designed set
play: Its ability to force a defense to concede what the offense wants. When
the defense knows this play is coming, it can adjust in a number of ways, but
none of them (at least that I’ve seen or tried) could consistently provide a
better outcome then what the offense wanted in the first place. The downfield
cutter’s defender could come all the way around to stop the first cut under,
but this would give the thrower, usually the offense’s best, a deep shot to a
receiver with space. Deep help could come, but would also free their cutter to
get an open look in the middle of the field. The mark could adjust to take
away the sideline, but this gives up a dangerous downfield break opportunity.
Zone defenses, full of holes themselves, lead to dangerous match-up problems
later in the point. The defense is stuck—and forced to give the offense what
it wants. Think as hard as you can how your plays can do the same—but if a
different team or opponent is doing a better job, be smart enough to recognize
as well as benefit from their work.
Seth Wiggins
A great defensive handler first and foremost plays defense. The defensive unit
will only get a handful of opportunities to try to score; most of their time
spent on the field will be defending. To be valuable to their team, a
defensive handler will need to produce more than they give up, and the offense
has a big advantage to start with. Effective defending from a variety of
positions is well covered in other issues of The Huddle.
Aside from defending, there are a few attributes that separate among defensive
handlers the great from the rest, and those attributes are largely based on
the realities of playing with defensive units. Among the top teams today, most
put their smartest, most experienced players on offense, usually taking those
with the best disc skills with them. As most defensive units attempt to
specialize at defending, they spend relative to offensive far less time
practicing their offense sets. Further, most offensive teams are kept
intentionally small, while defensive teams take the remaining 14 or so
players. With any weather affecting play, defensive teams tend to defend
downwind most of the points. So how does a great defensive handler manage to
get a less-experienced, less-practiced team with far fewer disc skills to
score upwind? Among the greats that I have watched and played with, a few
factors have stood out:
Use Only What is Needed
Offensive players will generally be put in enough situations to utilize their
strengths. Over the course of a game, and even a tournament, defensive
handlers will be limited in available options. The pressure to force their
strength on the situation is usually the greatest on defensive handlers, and
the best ones I’ve seen have been extremely patient to use only what would
work, instead of what they thought they could do.
Be an Effective Reset
As the effectiveness of cutters goes down, the number of dumps thrown goes up.
Great defensive handlers are able to consistently provide an open, safe throw
for players with less disc skills in order to maintain possession.
Break the Mark
Similarly, as the downfield cutters are less able to get free on the open
side, breaking the mark becomes even more important. A great handler for the
D-team will be confident and able to break the same mark repeatedly in the
same point.
Be Comfortable at High Stall Counts
While usually wise to move the disc to the first open option, a great
defensive handler might need to deal with several high stall counts per
possession, as open options might be few and far between. The ability to
maintain composure to get out of high stall situations is often the difference
between a turnover and a break.
Deal With Weather
The great defensive handlers I’ve played with have been able to do all of the
above in the wind. When the weather gets more difficult, even more pressure
gets put onto the handler, as lesser throwers will be even more reluctant to
take risks with the disc.
While hardly comprehensive, these attributes stand out the most in the great
defensive handlers I have played with, from high school to Club Nationals.
These aren’t fixed: you can improve your own ability with every one of them,
and doing so will help your team’s chances to score breaks.
Seth Wiggins
I can’t really answer these questions. The right answers depend on too many
factors, many of which can only be judged during your game. Variables such as
individual’s athleticism, defensive abilities, your opponent’s strengths,
current conditions, number of defenders available, ect, are all part of the
equation.
Having an answer to these questions is hard, but judging the quality of your
answer is even harder. At best it’s incredibly difficult to evaluate results
based on your coaching input alone. Most of the time your defense will fail to
get a block, and when it succeeds the question remains whether the offense
would have otherwise thrown a turnover anyway. Further, in any competition
based sport, your success is always (always, always) relative to your
opponent’s performance. A great defensive effort might have been due to poor
offensive play, and vice versa.
So is all defensive strategizing merely blowing hot air, no better than
randomly choosing a given defense to try? Yes and no. You are gambling with
whatever defense you choose, however you can improve your chances by thinking
about your relative strengths and weaknesses, and how they relate to those of
your opponent.
Try this: imagine coaching a defense in a game against an offense where the
defense never gets to play offense; their goal is to only get blocks. Your
team cannot poach or switch. Fully unconstrained by stamina, both teams need
only seven players. Each of the seven offensive players are uniform in their
ability to handle, cut, and catch long throws. Likewise, your seven defenders
are individually equal in their ability to mark and defend both longer and
shorter cuts. However not all players are equal - but the difference between
players is one unit, so the defense’s fourth best player, or D4, is three
units better than D7, and O1 is six units better than O7. One last assumption:
Offensive players have a two step advantage over the defender with their
corresponding number so O3 beats D3 by two steps, every time.
So how do you match your defense up with the offense? The easiest answer is to
match corresponding numbers, so O1 is guarded by D1, O2 by D2, and so on. This
makes sense, as it minimizes the overall advantage that the offense has over
the defense, for O1 will gain less against D1 than any other defender, O2 will
beat D2 by less than anyone else save the already assigned O1, and so on.
However given the last assumption where the offense has the advantage,
everyone in this scenario is open - a big problem for any defense.
What about the opposite - guarding O1 with D7, O2 with D6, O3 with D5, and so
on? That would make life much harder for O’s 5-7, as they are now playing
against the D’s best. This could be great strategy against a team that likes
to use all of its players, for it will limit their options that otherwise they
would depend on. However it also will leave O’s 1-3 with greater amounts of
separation, which a team relies heavily on its top players will love to see.
Some teams favor using their D’s 1-2 on O’s 3-4, shutting down the best O
players they can, while minimizing losses elsewhere. Others focus on rotating
their D’s 1-4 on Os 1 and 2, in order to give different challenges and levels
of difficulty for their best opponents. Some use D’s 6 and 7 on O1 to prevent
long throws, giving O1 open cuts back to the disc and trying to stop everyone
else. There are teams who favor choosing one strategy and sticking with it the
whole game/season, allowing them to specialize in their given roles, however
this also allows their opponents to study and practice their response. Other
teams forgo specializing particular roles and change their strategy every
point. While this limits their defensive abilities, there is a large advantage
in not allowing the offense to know what is coming.
Whats the best strategy? Even in this sterile environment, no one knows. The
definition of a successful defensive strategy is limiting the offense’s
effectiveness more than any other strategy would, which often means getting
beat repeatedly , and scored on often. Further, just because a given offense
favors on approach, for example throwing only to their top players, does not
mean, if stopped, they will be unable to use O’s 4-7. In fact, it might make
them better. It’s difficult to both devise and evaluate any particular
defensive strategy, but in doing so you can improve your odds in a very tough
gamble. While you certainly will not know everything you might want,
especially before you try a particular strategy, if you can think about how
your strengths and weaknesses relate to your opponent’s, and devise a strategy
based upon this information, your defense will be much better for it.
Seth Wiggins
I started playing for Seattle’s Sockeye in the Spring of 2007. Among the great
athletes and throwers and minds one thing stood out the most—an almost
singular obsession on beating their main rival, Vancouver’s Furious George.
Throwers needed to have five options because at nationals, against Furious,
you could be sure four would not be open. Three-step separations were not
enough, because Oscar and Alex could make it one. Running trap zone? With
Savage and Cruickshank with the disc? Not likely. Any man-to-man against a
cutter like MG would need a lot of help on the mark.
Cool story Hansel, but what’s the point? That Seattle team had players who
using solely what they do best could walk to semis at nationals. Disc to Ben
to CK x 15 x 5. But what would happen when they got there? What happens when
that team comes up against another that can stop their best option?
If you can beat a team going to your number one option over and over again
then that team, relative to yours, is bad. Either they don’t have the
personnel to match your athleticism, experience, or whatever it is you are
beating them with, or they are not smart enough to make that necessary
adjustment to stop getting beat. Either way; they’re bad. So bad, in fact,
that you probably would be able to beat that team using any strategy you
choose—what’s winning the game isn’t just your one play or move, rather it’s
your ‘specialty’ combined with the threat of everything else you could do.
Think about elimination games between two close teams—how many times does one
team actually use their ‘specialty’? The top handler throwing long to the best
receiver works, if they are both playing great, maybe three times.
Significant, yes, but they still need 12 other ways to score. Deeps will be
backed (defender positioned between the player and the endzone), and throwers
will be faced straight-up. The best one-on-one defenders, who already get beat
plenty, can stop only their assignment; there are six others. This applies
just as well to team’s specializing in using players solely to their
strengths: Teams that live on breaking the mark find non-mark defenders
adjusting to the dead side. A team’s best defensive line playing their best
defense will generate maybe two or three additional blocks a game - which
probably isn’t enough as it is, and they only have those seven players to
score.
During those games, being a ‘specialist’ in this sport really means that other
parts of you game will be proportionally easier. The better your specialty,
the more your opponent will give up to stop it, but remember—good teams always
will be able to. Then what? The backed deep threat will be given cuts back to
the disc. But to be effective, first their cut has to be well-timed, and then
they have to be able to throw the disc somewhere. Being able to make well-
timed cuts either away or back to the disc, and being able to throw
afterwards? Sounds fairly all-around to me. A great zone defensive team will
soon find the opposing team’s best throwers making the majority of the throws,
and be forced to defend person-to-person, necessitating the ability to do
both. The best mark-breaker will be countered not only with better marks, but
also more effort preventing them from catching the disc, either by greater
athleticism in their defender, poaching, or both. Again, both the players and
teams involved are all dependent on both their relative strengths and
weaknesses. Against a good team, neither the team nor individual is good
enough to rely on their specialty alone.
Of course conversely, the better your opponent, the less they will need to
sacrifice in order to take away your strength. Further, its easier for your
opponent to focus on stopping your strength than your next options. Seattle
knew that while relying on their best option would work early in tournaments,
in those last two games, there would be teams with players that could stop it.
What led to their successes was their singular focus on beating teams with
players able to stop what they otherwise would do. Or, in other words,
becoming an all-around team, filled with all-around players.
Seth Wiggins
You’re downfield, the disc has stopped, and you’re defending a cutter in the
middle of a flat stack. You’ll need all the speed, agility, and strength you
have—long before the point begins you can better your odds by improving your
physical ability. Chances are if you are reading this you know how.
Although Ultimate is a team game, the flat stack does a good job at isolating
one-on-one matchups. While switching and poaching can work against weaker
offensive teams, intelligent ones will be able to change the position of both
the disc and their cutters quicker than you can react, and will beat your
defense without much effort.
You aren’t reading this to figure out how to guard a one dimensional
player—the tall, fast runner who can’t throw should be backed (defender closer
to the endzone then the disc), and the slow lilliputian thrower should be
fronted (defender closer to the disc than the endzone). What you should be
worried about are the athletes that can be effective either with the disc in
their hands or catching longer throws.
So how do you defend them? Frankly, I don’t know. After 4 years of club
ultimate, I have been beat one way or another by almost every single offensive
player. More will get their chance. I have however been taught a few basic
tips:
Understand probabilities: A good team will complete all throws to open
cutters coming to the disc. These cuts average 10-15 yards, so 5-7 open cuts
will mean a goal. Throws to cutters going away from the disc bring a lower
completion percentage. Even though one long throw can equal the value of 7
short ones, the chance of a turnover is infinitely better than none. The trick
is determining what chance of completion a long throw has, and acting
accordingly.
Understand cutter’s goals: A cutter with one step separation from their
defender coming to the disc is open, however the same cutter with three steps
going away is covered. The cutter’s differing definition of success should be
met with appropriate defensive goals of stopping cuts coming to the disc by
more that those going away.
Watch and match hips: Your cutter’s hips will tell you where they are
running, and yours should be positioned the same as theirs. When defending
your cutter, you need only react to changes of direction by the hips, and not
to arm, shoulder, or head fakes.
Know the location of the disc: Your position relative to your defender’s
should also be relative to the location of the disc. You have three
choices—watch both your defender and the disc, rely on sideline help to tell
you where it is, or (lightly) touch your defender and watch the disc.
Use your body: It is possible at times to position your body in the path
of your cutter before they get there in order to prevent their desired
movement. This is particularly effective against cutters coming back to the
disc after running away. This is risky, as any cutter can use a overly close
defender to their advantage when expected. Never initiate contact.
These might help. Remember, perfect offense beats perfect defense. The point
is to get as many blocks as possible, which is not the same as stopping every
play.