One of the basketball defense drills I love and my team loves is continuity. It teaches defense, patience, hard work, and intensity!
You have 3 teams of 5 or 4, one team on defense, offense and on the other end.
You have 2 guys ready to play defense.
The team with the ball tries to score using picks.
The most people trying to score is 3.
If you score or not it does not matter; the other team inbounds the ball quickly while the team who was trying to score tries to not let them across mid court.
As the team gets across the mid court, there are 2 players on the 3rd team waiting for them. Once the team with the ball passes midcourt one guy from the 3rd team runs to the circle in the middle of the court and smacks yelling defense runs to help his team get out of 3 vs 2 to now make it an even 3 vs 3.
You go on and on. The kids love it!
Want some more defensive ideas to use in practice? Then go read this new article I just posted: Drills For Basketball Defense