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All posts for the day May 9th, 2012
POOP means Pivot Out Of Pressure. Often a player with the ball, especially one who has used his dribble, gets a defender moving into his face, pressuring. And the reaction of the player with the ball is to lean backward, off-balance, and force himself to throw a weak pass to the side. (Once you lean backward, you hardly have any other option.) This tendency to lean backward is a bad habit and not something you must do. Even if the ball is over your head when the defender moves into position with his arms up in your face, there is a move that can quickly put you back on the attack. The move takes no talent, just the thought to do it. To pivot out of pressure, or POOP, you need to twist your upper body a quarter turn to the side and then bring the ball down to your waist alongside your body (on your side, not straight down the front). By giving that small quarter twist, you put your body between the defender and the ball, and you put your elbow in his face as you lower yourself into a crouch where you have strength and mobility with the ball. The elbow in his face is not meant to hurt him, but its presence certainly keeps him from sticking his nose too close in case he is getting any ideas about going for a steal.
Crouched over the ball, no one can take it from you, and that elbow allows you some room to move a bit to find on open teammate.
The habit of pivoting out of pressure takes about a minute to learn. (You don’t even need a ball to practice it.) It will be very helpful the first time a player steps into your face, and you instinctively make a quarter turn away from him, crouch and stick an elbow near his nose. It is not that you wish to hurt anyone, but you do want to be on balance and you want to be the aggressor, not the guy leaning awkwardly backward.
From Dick’s book Stuff