Force Unforced Errors
4 ways to generate free turnovers
I was watching Bravo’s awesome win at US Nationals yesterday, and at halftime the commentators were remarking that Truck Stop were making unforced errors to allow Bravo to build their lead.
Unforced errors are not unforced errors
Some unforced errors are random, but some are created by the defence. These are 4 foundational principles if you’d like your team to benefit from more random luck.
1. Pressure on the mark
No thrower likes being persistently put under strong pressure. I have met plenty of throwers that say they like it, but I can tell you they are all lying to themselves.
Although there are strategic benefits to marks that are further away from the thrower in terms of the angles you can take away from the thrower, what you are conceding is your ability to make the thrower uncomfortable.
2. Cut down on free resets
I say cut down here because there are numerous situations where conceding a free backwards or sideways pass is a good option. One obvious issue with conceding these is that you’re not going to generate turnovers on resets very often. An equally big problem is that it’s very relaxing for the thrower to know they are going to be able to reset. Relaxed throwers are going to execute better and make higher quality choices. Throwers that feel doubts make more errors.
3. Cause confusion
When a good offence with structure and chemistry plays well they are playing almost entirely using the unconscious part of their brains. In this mental flow state a good offence is not going to make errors. Execution and decisions are much smoother when you are operating on automatic.
Your job as a defence is to take an offence out of this flow state.
On a macro level, you can try out different strategies to try and show the offence something they are not too familiar with. As an example, with Ranelagh at Euros in our knockout games and our pool game vs CUSB we didn’t play any defence points of a one-way force, we always played some combination of force middle or straight up forces. These aren’t revolutionary tactics but it was crucial to our strategy that we didn’t give offences any comfortable, traditional offence point.
It’s important to remember though that you generate an edge by having your defense in a flow state vs. an offence that isn’t. You can’t just throw out totally random configurations and expect results.
4. Run More
No matter what else you do, you cannot make an offence uncomfortable if you don’t challenge them consistently throughout the point. Every point. Watching US nationals over the weekend I was baffled in numerous games at how little some of the defences ran. Every time an offence gets a free pass or a mark doesn’t move in after sealing or the defenders try a bad switch instead of running - the pressure in that point collapses.