🏀 10 Reasons Basketball Is the Best Sport for Defenders in Lacrosse

If you’re a parent or coach trying to develop a better lacrosse player, I want to make something clear: playing basketball is not a step back. It’s not neutral. It’s a massive step forward in skill development, particularly at a young age.

🏀 The Best Sport for Lacrosse Defenders? It’s Basketball.

I’ve coached a lot of players. I’ve broken down hundreds of reps on film and spent hours trying to teach the subtleties of defensive footwork, spacing, anticipation, and leverage. And I can tell you, it is nearly impossible to replicate the volume and quality of decision-making reps that basketball provides.

Of course players need to practice lacrosse. But we also need to be honest about what actually builds instinct and awareness that we see from great defenders. Defensive drilling and technique in lacrosse is important, but it won't do much without an adequate athletic base. Basketball can build this strong base in young athletes.

Basketball players are often exposed to certain offensive and defensive patterns earlier, because the skills required to participate — things like cutting, screening, rotating — are simpler. That early exposure matters. It gives players a processing speed that pure lacrosse players often struggle to match.

So if you’re debating whether playing basketball is “worth it” for a developing lacrosse player, here’s my take — not only is it worth it, it might be the single best thing they can do in the offseason... especially for those younger players prior to high school.

Full disclosure: I played basketball my whole life. So, I have some bias based on my own experiences, but I have seen it played out in others as well. Hockey is likely up there too, given the way both sports flow toward a goal or basket, with constant movement and spacing. Other sports certainly have benefits, but I struggle to find one that helps defenders in lacrosse more than basketball.

Now let's break it down in some more detail...

1. Everyone Plays Both Ways

Basketball forces you to defend the ball, pick, and cut. Then immediately turn around and become the one attacking. Possession after possession. It builds a two-way feel that lacrosse players rarely get, especially defenders.

If you’re a young defender, you need to understand how dodgers think. You need to see how they shift their weight, how they set up space, how they read your stance and recoveries. Basketball teaches that without needing a coach to break it down for you. You feel it. You learn how deception works because you’re doing it yourself.

You also develop anticipation. Not just reacting to a move, but seeing the setup. That shows up all over the field in lacrosse, from hedging and baiting to recovering under control. A major problem I see with young lacrosse defenders is they never develop an offensive mindset. This is extremely limiting in clearing, stick handling and transition. 

2. Angles Are the Game

If you don't understand angles, you can't play defense. It's that simple.

In basketball, much of the defensive structure is built around protecting the paint. In lacrosse, it's the same. If you give up the middle, you're cooked. If you overextend, you're chasing. Great defenders don't lunge or guess. They play angles and take away the highest-value space.

Basketball teaches this every possession. You learn how to recover in a straight line, not a curve. You learn how to drop step without giving up your balance. You understand how to flatten drives, control space, and dictate terms.

Those aren’t coaching clichés. They’re technical, repeatable skills. And basketball trains them on a daily basis.

3. The Court Forces Reps

Basketball is played in a tight space with constant movement and limited time to think. That’s a gift. It means more decisions per minute, more body control challenges, more live mistakes to learn from.

In lacrosse, it’s easy to disappear off-ball or coast through drills. Basketball doesn’t allow that. You’re always one cut, one screen, or one rotation away from being exposed. You either get sharper or get scored on.

This kind of density matters. If you want to build real instincts, you need volume. Real reps under pressure. Basketball delivers that better than almost any sport.

4. Live Drills Without the Setup

One of the biggest hidden values in basketball is how naturally it creates “game-like” reps. You don’t need cones, a coach with a stopwatch, or a 12-minute explanation. You just play.

1v1s. 2v2s. Closeouts. Help and recover. Defending the post. Every basketball drill is both offensive and defensive. You’re constantly building footwork, timing, spacing, anticipation. All of it applies directly to lacrosse, and you get those reps with pace.

It is much easier to regularly compete in a game-like environment through basketball drilling in practice.

For lacrosse defenders especially, this is gold. Instead of only drilling footwork in isolation, you’re practicing it in the context of reads. You’re making decisions while tired, off-balance, and reacting to movement. That’s how transfer happens.

5. Movement Literacy That Actually Transfers

Lacrosse defenders are asked to do things that most sports barely touch — shuffling laterally at full speed, kicking back while reading hips, opening and closing angles with control.

Basketball builds many of these mechanics. You learn how to develop lateral power, how to absorb contact and re-center, how to change direction without losing leverage. And you do it with constant feedback. If your footwork breaks down, you get beat. If your balance slips, you foul.

That’s how athletes learn to own their movement. Not through isolated cone drills, but through live situations that challenge control under pressure. Sure you can develop movement mechanics in other fashions, but bridging the gap to live play is whole different challenge.

6. Basketball Teaches You to Play Feet First

One of the biggest issues I see in young lacrosse defenders is their reliance on their stick and hands. They reach for contact. They lunge with their hands. And the second they miss, they’re off balance, chasing from behind.

Basketball doesn’t allow for that. You can’t use your hands to stop someone. You can’t lean, grab, or push. If you do, it’s a foul.

So players have to move their feet. They learn how to shade, recover, absorb contact with their chest, and reposition without getting extended. They play defense the right way because the rules demand it.

That discipline builds better habits. When those same players step onto the lacrosse field, they’re already conditioned to play square and balanced. Their instinct is to slide, shuffle, and absorb... not swipe.

Playing defense with your feet isn’t just cleaner. It’s faster, stronger, and harder to beat. Basketball teaches it early and often.

7. Early Exposure to Game Patterns

This might be one of the most underrated points.

Basketball introduces players to the patterns of offense and defense much earlier than lacrosse. Cutting, spacing, pick play, off-ball movement. All of it is part of the game from a young age because the barrier to entry is low. You don’t need elite stick skills to set a good screen or cut with timing. So kids learn how to read these situations much earlier.

That early exposure pays off later. When you start seeing similar patterns in lacrosse — two-man games, mirror actions, off-ball slips — they aren’t foreign. You’ve felt the spacing. You’ve chased cutters. You’ve fought through picks. That familiarity gives players a huge edge when they eventually start learning lacrosse systems and reads.

It’s not just IQ. It’s pattern recognition built over years. Watch this offensive clip below... pick and roll, into a defensive rotation, breaking down and then re-establishing roles. This requires anticipation, vision, communication, discipline and the ability to act quickly in a chaotic environment. 

8. Learning to Use Your Body

Basketball teaches players how to use their frame to shield, to box out, to absorb contact without giving up space. Offensive players use their body to protect the ball and create angles. Defenders use leverage to push, seal, and fight for position.

This has massive carryover to lacrosse, especially for defenders. The best defenders don’t need to rely on recovery checks because they’re in the right spot, with the right posture, using their body to close space and control the matchup. Not that all checking is bad, but overly relying on it is not a great long-term solution. Checking should serve as a complement to great positioning, not a workaround.

Basketball builds that naturally. It teaches you how to play physical without fouling, how to fight for angles, and how to win space with your body, not just your hands.

9. Post Defense Is Like Locking Up on the Island

Defending the post in basketball is the closest thing to guarding a dodger on the island in lacrosse.

You’re isolated. There’s space to attack. Every move matters. If you overplay topside in basketball, they drop-step and finish at the rim. If you sit too low, you give up a hook or open the middle. It’s the same on the lacrosse field. Overextend, and you’ll get spun. Play too soft, and you give up the middle or let them dictate.

Great defenders understand leverage and tendencies. They know how to feel pressure, stay patient, and adjust without chasing. They also know how to read tendencies — whether that’s a player who always spins back to their left or someone who uses a power move to go middle.

Basketball trains this through reps. Every possession teaches you to balance anticipation with control. That feel is what separates a good approach from a disciplined one that actually wins the matchup.

10. Transition Builds Decision Speed

Basketball is played in constant transition. One rebound or turnover and you’re flipping ends, making reads, and trying to either stop or create a scoring opportunity in the next three seconds.

That rapid decision-making transfers directly to lacrosse, especially in unsettled situations. Should I hedge or hold? Jump the pass or recover inside? Push in transition or slow it down?

These aren’t pre-scripted. They’re feel-based decisions that come from playing in dynamic environments. Basketball develops that feel. It forces players to scan the floor, anticipate movement, and process options on the fly all while managing space, speed, and communication.

Lacrosse players who’ve grown up in that environment tend to process faster. They see the game one step ahead.

Final Thought

Basketball doesn’t just build athleticism. It builds vision. It builds footwork. It builds decision-making under pressure. Most importantly, it builds a feel for the game on both sides of the ball.

If you’re serious about developing into a high-level lacrosse player, you need more than just wall ball reps and team practices. You need to see more. You need to feel more. And you need to play in environments that demand live, reactive movement — with contact, spacing, deception, and flow.

Basketball gives you all of that. And it makes you better at lacrosse without even holding a stick.

Now, I get it... not every player is going to make their varsity or travel team. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth playing. Competitive rec basketball, especially at an early age, can still develop the exact traits we’re talking about here. The reps don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be real.

So don’t overthink it. Get in the gym. Guard someone. Cut hard. Fight for space. And trust that every possession is making you a smarter, sharper, more complete lacrosse player.

- Coach Dunn

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