This Soccer Tactic Is Making NBA Superstars Miserable

For decades, the NBA treated defense and offense like two separate worlds. You defended for a possession, you survived, and then you ran your offense once the ball crossed half court. The game was split into phases: stop, reset, execute.

That mental model is quietly breaking.

Across the league, more teams are using full-court pressure not as a gimmick, not as a late-game desperation tactic, but as a philosophy—a way to attack an opponent’s structure before their offense even begins. The shift is big enough to show up in tracking data, and it’s meaningful enough that it’s already shaped games on the sport’s biggest stage.

If you’ve watched a few NBA games this season and thought, “Why does it feel like teams are picking up ball handlers sooner?”—you’re not imagining it. More defenders are denying inbound passes after made baskets. More guards are getting turned multiple times before half court. More possessions are starting with 14 seconds on the clock instead of 19.

And the strange part is this: the NBA didn’t invent the idea.

Basketball is borrowing it from football—soccer’s modern era of pressing, counterpressing, and treating the moment after a turnover as the most valuable moment in the game.

A Soccer Lesson the NBA Accidentally Followed

Modern football’s defining tactical evolution wasn’t a new dribble move or a new finishing technique. It was a new belief about time.

In the late 1990s, coaches like Ralf Rangnick pushed an idea that went against conventional wisdom: instead of retreating after losing possession, teams should immediately swarm the ball, create a numbers advantage, and try to win it back within seconds. It was the birth of pressing and counterpressing as a repeatable system—not just a burst of effort.

The logic was ruthless:

If you lose the ball, the opponent is disorganized for a moment.
If you press immediately, you can win the ball back before they settle.
If you win it back in a good area, you don’t need to build an attack—you’re already in one.

That approach spread. Clubs built recruiting models around it. Coaches refined it. Even possession-heavy philosophies absorbed it because it wasn’t just “defending harder”—it was controlling the game’s rhythm.

By the 2020s, pressing wasn’t seen as reckless. It became normal. Football stopped treating attack and defense as separate chapters. It became one continuous script.

The NBA is moving in that direction now—just with different geometry.

The Basketball Equivalent: Full-Court Pressure as a System, Not a Stunt

In basketball terms, the closest equivalent to a high press is full-court pressure—picking up early, denying the inbound, turning the ball handler, and forcing the offense to spend time and energy just to cross midcourt cleanly.

Historically, full-court pressure lived in a very small box:

down late
after a timeout
after a made free throw
for one or two possessions to “change the feel” of the game

It was something you sprinkled in.

What’s changed is how often teams are using it, how early they’re using it, and why.

Leaguewide, full-court pressure rates have risen sharply over the last few seasons. (You’ll sometimes see the early-era number cited around 0.8% of possessions in the late 2000s/early 2010s, compared with something around 4–5% today—roughly a sixfold increase.) What matters more than the exact decimal is the trajectory: in a short time, the league has moved from “almost never” to “a meaningful slice of every night.”

And it isn’t evenly distributed. A handful of teams are pushing into extreme territory—pressing on 10%+ of possessions, with some clubs going far higher. A few years ago, that would have looked insane.

Now it’s a style.

Why This Matters: You’re Not Just Speeding Teams Up — You’re Shrinking Their Playbook

The public often hears “full-court press” and imagines gambling for steals. That’s not what this trend is about. The modern NBA version is usually more disciplined and more targeted.

The goal isn’t always to force a turnover.

Often, the goal is to force time loss.

A typical half-court offense is designed to begin with around 18 to 20 seconds on the shot clock, because that’s where your menu is widest:

you can run your first option
flow into a second action
re-screen
invert
hit a side pick-and-roll
get into a late-clock bailout set

But if the defense can repeatedly force you to start your offense at 14 or 15 seconds, something subtle happens:

your first option has to be faster
your second option often disappears
your spacing gets rushed
your timing becomes less clean
your “automatic” reads become less automatic

It’s not just pressure. It’s compression.

You’re compressing the opponent’s decision-making window. You’re compressing their ability to disguise actions. You’re compressing their margin for error.

That’s exactly how football pressing works, too. The press isn’t only about winning the ball. It’s about making the opponent’s next pass worse, earlier, and more predictable.

The Biggest Change: Pressure After Made Baskets (And Denying the Inbound)

One of the most important tactical details is when teams are pressing.

A lot of this new wave starts after made baskets, when defenses can set the pressure with intent:

deny the inbound
force a secondary ball handler to receive it
trap near the sideline
turn the dribbler multiple times
delay the entry into the offensive structure

This is crucial because modern offenses are built on rhythm. Coaches script early actions not only for matchups, but for cadence—getting to a specific spacing at a specific second on the clock.

When the defense steals 6–8 seconds before the offense even starts, it changes everything without showing up as a steal in the box score.

The best part for a defense: it’s repeatable. You can do it without fouling, without overcommitting, and without breaking your shell.

And when it works, the opponent doesn’t just lose time. They lose comfort.

Why Full-Court Pressure Used to Be “Dumb” in the NBA

If this is so powerful, why didn’t teams do it earlier?

Because for most of NBA history, full-court pressure had brutal trade-offs:

1) The spacing problem

As spacing improved, the cost of one mistake grew. If you press and lose the advantage, you often give up a layup or a corner three—high-value outcomes.

2) Ball handlers got too good

Modern guards are stronger, quicker, and more skilled. You can’t press the way you did in the 90s without getting split, screened, or dragged into fouls.

3) Officiating punished contact

Full-court defense invites hand checks, bumps, reach-ins. Cheap fouls early can ruin your best defenders.

4) Stars played huge minutes

If your best players are logging 38–42 minutes, asking them to pressure full court repeatedly is unrealistic. It drains legs, which drains shooting, which drains offense—the very thing stars are paid to provide.

All of those constraints still exist. The difference now is that teams have found ways to press without treating it like a 48-minute sprint.

They press in bursts. They press with personnel groups. They press with rules. They press to target specific handlers and deny specific initiators.

It’s become modular—like a football press that triggers in certain moments rather than a constant chase.

The “Proof of Concept” Moment: Full-Court Pressure on the Biggest Stage

The trend stopped feeling theoretical when it appeared in the NBA Finals.

Indiana, for example, has been one of the teams most associated with this style—using pressure throughout the regular season and then dialing it up even further when the games mattered most. The key point isn’t that the Finals “invented” the tactic. It’s that the Finals validated it:

you can commit to this approach against elite shot creation and elite half-court execution, and it can still influence games.

One Finals possession illustrates the modern purpose of the press:

the defense denies the inbound to the primary star creator
a secondary player is forced to bring the ball up
by the time the star gets it back, the clock is down to 14–15 seconds
now the offense is operating late, with fewer options and less rhythm

That’s not a steal. It’s not a highlight. But it’s a structural win.

It’s also exactly the kind of “phase blending” football coaches talk about: defense isn’t waiting to defend the set. Defense is shaping what the set will even be.

The Extreme Case: Portland and the Press as Identity

If Indiana represents “proof of concept,” Portland represents something else: escalation.

Some teams are pushing press frequency into territory that would have sounded absurd a few seasons ago—pressing on roughly one out of every four possessions in certain stretches. That’s not “mixing it in.” That’s building a defensive identity around it.

What does that look like on court?

It looks like this:

guards get picked up at 94 feet
inbounds become contested events
the ball gets forced into secondary hands
wings and bigs become emergency ball handlers
and half-court offense starts as improvisation, not design

When Portland has used it against teams like the Lakers, the possession doesn’t break down because of a single mistake. It breaks down because everything becomes uncomfortable:

the entry pass is hard
the first dribble is pressured
the first reversal is late
the spacing is off by half a second
and suddenly you’re running your offense in panic mode

When that happens over and over, it becomes a war of fatigue. That’s the hidden genius of pressing: even if the opponent doesn’t turn it over, they start making lower-quality decisions because they’re being forced to solve problems earlier than they want to.

Why Coaches Are Doing This Now: The Three Main Motivations

Different teams press for different reasons, and that’s part of why it’s spreading. It’s flexible enough to serve multiple roster types.

1) Covering half-court weaknesses

Some teams aren’t great at defending in the half court. They don’t have the individual stoppers or the rim protection to survive long possessions. Pressing allows them to disrupt the possession before it becomes a clean half-court attack.

2) Wearing down elite creators

Even the best stars hate being worked early. If you force a creator to fight for the inbound, then fight to get the ball back, then fight to cross half court, you’re taxing their legs before the play even starts.

That matters in a league where many games are decided by late-clock shot creation. If you can shave 5% off a star’s juice by the fourth quarter, that’s value.

3) Maximizing certain player types

Pressing is a cheat code for specific archetypes:

high-motor guards who aren’t elite half-court defenders
long wings who can deny and recover
deep benches that can rotate bodies
teams with multiple “event” defenders who can force chaotic possessions

It lets players make defensive impact without needing to be perfect one-on-one stoppers. You’re defending with structure and numbers, not only with individual excellence.

The Counter-Move: Offenses Are Changing How They Bring the Ball Up

Once defenses commit to full-court pressure, offenses have to adapt—and they are.

The first adaptation is the simplest:

stop insisting the point guard must bring it up every time.

You’re seeing more possessions where:

wings initiate
bigs advance the ball
guards give it up early and relocate
teams use quick “get it back” actions to break contact

This isn’t random. It’s the same logic football teams use when they build press-resistant structures: you don’t beat pressure with hero dribbling. You beat it with shape, outlets, and timing.

In basketball terms, you beat it with:

early release passes
immediate return passes
relocation
and screens that create separation without needing 10 dribbles

The Most Interesting Offensive Answer: Ultra-High Pick-and-Roll (“Step-Up” Screens)

The most telling tactical response has been the rise of extremely high ball screens, sometimes set near the half-court line or even above it.

These “crack” or “step-up” screens do something critical:

If a defender is attached to you full court, you need help earlier.
If the screen comes early, you can break the pressure without waiting to reach your normal setup spot.
If the screen comes high, you create advantage higher on the floor—where there’s more space behind the defense and more room to accelerate.

This has turned into a weapon. Stars like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Brunson, and other elite advantage creators don’t need a screen at the top of the arc anymore to get downhill. If you press them, you might actually invite the very thing you fear: their first step with a head of steam.

So now there’s a fascinating arms race:

Defenses press to steal time and rhythm
Offenses screen earlier to punish attachment and create early advantage
Defenses adjust their press rules to avoid getting burned by step-up actions
Offenses bring more ball handlers and press-break principles into the lineup

That’s how you know a trend is real: both sides of the ball are evolving around it.

The European Connection: This Didn’t Start in a Vacuum

While the NBA is the most visible stage, similar pressure-based identities have been growing in Europe as well—especially among teams that build around pace, substitutions, and aggressive, physical wings.

European coaches have long treated tempo and disruption as controllable levers, not just byproducts of talent. The more NBA teams adopt those ideas, the more the two ecosystems begin to mirror each other tactically—different rules, different spacing, similar logic.

The shared principle is simple:

Use the whole floor.

If you only defend from half court, you’re voluntarily giving the offense 8 seconds of peace. If you pressure earlier, you force the offense to spend mental energy before they can even start running actions.

That’s not just defense. That’s tempo control.

What This Means for the Future NBA

If full-court pressure continues to rise, the game’s architecture will change in ways fans will notice.

1) Rotations and minutes will shift

You can’t press at high volume and expect stars to play 40 minutes the same way. Coaches will have to manage intensity like a resource. That may lead to:

deeper benches mattering more
quicker substitution patterns
more “two-way role players” getting real minutes because they can sustain pressure

2) More off-ball structure on offense

To break pressure consistently, teams will need:

better spacing habits
cleaner inbound formations
more movement to create outlets
more “get it back” actions to free the primary handler

Teams that stand and wait for the point guard to beat pressure alone will bleed time and efficiency.

3) Faster decision-making becomes a premium skill

In a press-heavy world, how long you hold the ball becomes a weakness. The best teams will emphasize:

quick advantage recognition
early pass-and-move habits
fewer dead dribbles
and cleaner “phase transitions” from press break into half-court actions

In short, full-court pressure isn’t just changing defense. It’s changing what NBA offenses look like at the start of possessions.

The One-Sentence Summary

Basketball is evolving to use the full 94 feet of the court instead of treating the first half of it as a jog into position.

And just like football’s pressing revolution, the most important shift isn’t the tactic itself—it’s the philosophy behind it:

offense and defense are no longer separate phases. They’re one continuous system.

If you want, I can also rewrite this as:

a tighter game-film style piece with 5–7 “press principles” and NBA examples, or
a coaching clinic version explaining how offenses should build press-break packages (inbounds, outlets, step-up screen counters).