During his time playing in Sacramento, Doug Christie earned a reputation for being an elite and reliable competitor on the defensive end.
However, the former Kings guard was not always known as a great defensive player, as he primarily focused on offense from his high school days to the early part of his NBA career. However, a conversation with then New York Knicks head coach Pat Riley shifted Christie’s attention to tailoring his game to be more of a stopper than a scorer.
After working to change his identity as a player, the former first-round pick would eventually make his way to Sacramento and instantly became a crucial player for the team’s defensive efforts.
No. 13’s relentless approach to defense earned him three selections to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team and one selection to the NBA All-Defensive First Team – all of which happened in four consecutive seasons with the Kings from 2001-2004.
Becoming a great defender like Christie is no simple task, but Kings.com caught up with Doug, who laid out some key elements to becoming a strong contributor on the defensive end of the ball.
1. Have a short-term memory
- DC: “On the defensive end of the game, players are going to score, especially in today’s game. When someone gets a bucket on you, you can’t take that to the other end of the floor with you. You can’t get into that ‘mano a mano’ battle – it’s a team game. If Kobe [Bryant] has 40 on me, I can’t take each and every bucket and all the different things that go along with it to heart. So if you play great defense and he plays good offense and just knocks down an incredible shot, your memory has to quit and you have to shut it off at that particular moment so you can move on to the next play.”
2. Communication as a team
- “Communication is probably the biggest thing. Even in one-on-one situations, you depend on your teammates to communicate what’s going on behind you, because you can’t see everything. And you’ll see teams that communicate at the highest level are going to be the best defensive teams. That means not just verbal communications, but also physical signs because it can get so loud in there that you can’t hear. But the teams who communicate with physical language and things like that, they are the really elite teams on defense.”
3. Position in conjunction to man and ball
- “That’s an old fundamental principle – ‘pistols’ out, see man and ball. But a lot of times, you see that players don’t really do that. Also, at the same time, when I say position in conjunction to man and ball, you have to know where you’re supposed to be. Are you one pass away? Are you two passes away? Are you help-side defense? Are you in the key or outside of the key? Defense is a lot about peacocking – looking and showing things where [a play is] there, but you want to make it look like it’s not there. So where are you in conjunction to your man and the ball. Can you see it and are you in the right position?"
4. Having will to compete, heart, determination, and drive
- “Those all relate to the willingness to compete and are you willing to work on the defensive end, because that is where the game is won at. It is not glamorous; it’s not the part that people are going to focus on at the end. You can do a lot of work on defense, but if someone scores 25, 30, 40 points, the focus is not going to be [on the defense]. So you have to be willing to continue to [defend] when someone scores on you again and again and you’re tired from the offensive end and all these different things. Do you have the will determination and all of that to compete?”
5. Hands and arms make for great defensive weapons
- “When you’re taught basketball fundamentals as a kid, they show you the position where your hands are supposed to be. But today, how many people use the ‘dig’ hand to dig when their man is dribbling the ball up the court? The one that comes to mind, and usually one of the only guys I see do it today, is [San Antonio Spurs forward] Kawhi Leonard. As a two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, he is an absolute animal on the defensive end. So with your hands and arms, you can close passing lanes, you can seal pick and rolls, you can stop people before they get into your body, but a lot of guys don’t use them today.”
- “If a guy gets hot, you’ve got to knock him around. When he comes through the lane, he can’t just come through the lane. When he passes the ball and gives it up, he doesn’t do it just simply. He’ll pass it and I’ll touch him and when he goes through the lane, two, three, or four people will touch him, too. What that’s going to do is that’s going to send a message that makes him think ‘when I go through there, do I really have that willingness to go through there?’ It makes [offense] just more difficult to do and you want to make it as hard as you possibly can.”
6. Anticipation, vision, footwork, and balance
- “When you talk about anticipation for basketball, I don’t want this to get confused with cheating or over-playing. Elite defenders have anticipation. They can read things before they happen just like a point guard with the basketball. Because a lot of times, when you see something in front of you, it’s done and it’s too late. You have to anticipate that it’s going to happen. When you start to anticipate that a pick is going to come, that’s how you get over it. You anticipate that a pass is coming and that’s how you get a hand on it. That goes along with vision as well, because you see the man and the ball and you see where the picks are coming from and you have to keep your eyes on the man and the ball. Then when you talk about footwork and balance, all of these things go together. To anticipate, you have to be in the proper position with your feet ready and you have to be on balance with your body. If your body weight is outside of your feet, there’s no way that you’re going to recover. So footwork and balance, I can’t even stress it enough. When guys work on their moves like their Euro steps and their inside-outs, you have to do the same thing on the defensive end. There’s a dance to getting over the pick or spinning under the pick. There’s a dance to navigating cross-screens and different things. And there’s also footwork that goes into that and that footwork is tied together in a marriage with balance. If you have that, then you are going to be leaps and bounds ahead of people.”
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