How To Make Better Slide Decisions

Happy Sunday, Coach.

Welcome back to FCL’s Coaches Corner. Our quote of the day is from Dan Hurley, the Head Coach of UConn Men’s Basketball. He is a two time NCAA Champion as a head coach.

Let’s rock,

Matt Dunn & Deemer Class

(Missed the last Coaches Corner? Catch up here.)

Today’s Quick Links for Coaches:

In both men’s and women’s lacrosse, sliding effectively is a key component of any defense. Sliding can be a challenging thing for coaches to teach and players to execute.

There’s nuance to it. We don’t break down every possible scenario today, but we focus on some of the core components of sliding and slide decisions. You will leave with a framework for players to help them make better decisions on the field.

Sliding starts with your positioning and readiness to slide.

What starts poorly typically ends poorly. To be an effective sliding team, you need to be great at establishing optimal position and stance.

A term I like for this is your sliding “launch point”. The launch point is where you will make your read steps from to determine the need to slide.

Slide decisions don’t matter if you can’t get there. Many people also underestimate how establishing great positioning and stance actually makes your slide decisions easier.

When you establish your launch point early, you have the ability to read and affect the dodge. If you are scrambling to get position late, you will be chasing and reacting. It’s hard to make a good decision in a frantic state. Establish position early.

Keys to Stance

Stance can be defined as your readiness to make a play. In order to have a great stance, you must have:

Keys to Launch Point

Your launch point is where the slide begins. This is the position you are in before committing your hips to the dodge. Some keys here are:

The biggest key to slide decisions is this: The information is available before most people use it.

As a coach, the ability to communicate clearly to players helps them to demystify good vs bad slides. You want to focus most of your energy on telling players why to slide rather than “slide earlier” or “we didn’t need to go there.”

Our goal with this framework is to give players tangible cues/reasons to slide or not. These cues need to be resilient and adaptable to survive the variance of lacrosse scenarios.

We want players to see the field better. In order to do that, they need to know what information to be reading and calculating.

1/ Matchup

This one is straight forward, yet most players miss it. It is the most important of all the reads. Who has the ball, and who is guarding them?

Is the opponents best scorer carrying the ball, or is it more of a passive ball mover? Is there a known speed or strength mismatch with the ball carrier and whoever is guarding them?

Is there a short stick or a long pole guarding the ball?

To put it simply, is this a matchup we like or not?

These are all things to quickly take into account the as the dodger is receiving the ball. They can immediately give insight into the likelihood of the defense needing to slide.

2/ Location

Sliding is less about where the defender is on the ball, and more about where the ball is on the field.

The Heart (or the paint) is a dangerous area of the field. It is the area all defenses are trying to protect, and the area all offenses are trying to access.

We define it to be 12 yards above GLE, about 12 yards wide (or the distance between the hashes), and 2 yards below GLE.

When it comes to sliding, the question is: Will the dodgers path take them to this location?

If the answer is yes, than you will need to slide. The goal is to meet the dodger at the boundary of the Heart, or just outside of it.

When dodges begin tight to the Heart, you should be ready to go ASAP. The margin for error on ball is slim to none, so it is better to anticipate going than to hope for great on ball defense.

When ball carriers show the back of their head, this is a great chance to slide. Again, we probably want to go no matter what just because of proximity to a dangerous location.

Where the ball is on the field can simplify decisions. Even if a player did not get beat on the split, as a defense we must make it difficult to access the Heart.

3/ Body Language (ie, Dodger Intent)

What is the dodger telling you?

A term we really like is running back vs quarterback posture.

Running back posture is head down, hands down, and actively trying to attack.

Quarterback posture is head up, hands up, and their eyes are scanning the field.

If you have a scout on players, this posture becomes much easier to recognize. But, even if you do not have a scout, as the game goes on this becomes much easier to spot and recognize.

What the dodger’s posture is saying speaks volumes about what they are thinking. When you see an opportunity to slide to a player with Running Back posture, go.

You may read the slide perfectly, but if you execute it out of control, you still will struggle to neutralize the dodger.

A great slide is just an approach with urgency. Great sliders move fast and under control. They are explosive when they fire. They do not hesitate, they commit to it.

An optimal slide should start and end with a shuffle. It begins with a shuffle so that you are able to see both your man and the ball before committing, these are the read steps. It ends in a shuffle because you must break down when you arrive to the dodger.

Most great slides are not going to end with a hit stick. They should not going to end with a giant slap check.

As the slider, you job is simply to neutralize the threat. Slide with your stick out front, and follow with your body.

Your goal is again to meet the dodger. You must slide to where they are going, not where they are.

Players need concrete feedback that is digestible and applicable. They need context for why the should have slid earlier or later.

They need to understand where they made the wrong read, so that next time they can make a better read.

Sliding can be broken down into tangible pieces and it is a skill to make the right reads.

It is both being able to break the information down quicker, and more accurately use it at the same time.

Great slides can become opportunities, not obligations.

Bonus Content:

Thanks for reading this weeks Coaches Corner. Here are some other pieces of content we have relating to sliding:

Thanks for stopping by the office. If you are looking for a deeper dive, we have posted numerous videos on our Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube channels.

Stay tuned for more content and email us at [email protected] with any questions and let us know your thoughts.

This week’s freebie is from our webinar with Coach Ajax Zappitello. Coach Zappitello delivered a webinar centered around sliding and off-ball technique.

It is an extremely insightful webinar where Coach Zappitello dives into hot technique, slide technique, and off-ball technique as well as discussing multiple drills for each area.

We wanted to highlight a segment where Coach Zappitello showcases two great drills for practicing slide technique!

🎙️ FCL PODCAST & COACH COMMUNITY

🎧 Podcast

Check out our free podcast on Spotify, YouTube and Apple podcast.

🚀 Online Community

For coaches who want to level up, the FCL Coach Community is the best resource on the market for men’s and women’s coaching staffs looking to continue developing.

It includes over 40 college coach webinars, 150+ drills for offense, defense, and full-team compete, as well as sessions focused on schemes and strategies.