The point guard is the offensive leader on the court who calls the plays and initiates the offense. It is the position on the basketball team which leads the offense and are the strategist on the court. Running plays and creating opportunities to score as a playmaker, the point guard controls the pace of a basketball game, distributing the ball to fellow teammates. To lead the offense, point guards must have exponentially strong passing, ball-handling, dribbling, communication, and decision-making skills.
Key Responsibilities
The point guard’s main responsibility is to dribble the ball up the court to execute a play. If the opposing team is playing a full-court defence, the point guard has the responsibility to get the ball past the half court line, whether that be dribbling it themselves, or passing to an open player.
The point guard starts the offense by creating the appropriate space on the court, and passing the ball to other players, or working off of pick-and-rolls. Point guards often guard the opposing team’s ball handler, and are often (but not always) the shortest player on the court.
Role on Offense
As the playmaker of an offense, a point guard leads a team’s strategy. Usually, the plays are drawn up in a way that the ball starts in the point guard’s hands.
Point guards must make on-the-fly decisions on who to pass to when drawn-up plays don’t go according to plan. It is their job to either score themselves or set up a potential scoring opportunity. These players are the genius behind a basketball team’s attack, leading fellow teammates by example. Point guards can score but act unselfishly to create opportunities for the wider offense.
Role on Defense
The point guards speed transfers to the defensive end of the court, and they are often tasked with guarding the opposing team’s point guard and ball-handler. On a 2-3 or 1-3-1 zone, they usually take one of the top positions, and thus need to move to cover the post amount of space in a zone defense. Because they are faster and more agile, they have a slight advantage in steals and can catch opponents off guard by coming off of the weak side on a defense and stealing the ball from an unsuspecting post or power forward.
