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There are stories about individual players who make disruptive noise, literal noise trash talk and other forms of disruptive "noise" (elbows, pushes, etc.). Generally this is a player add on. But are there stories where it is a coaching directive? It might have been with the Detroit bad boys. How effective is extra curricular disruption? It could hurt the defense as well disrupting the offense. I wonder if it could be effectively taken to a higher level. I am not saying it would be "good" but could it be effective? In large or small ways.

3 seconds of weird on ball prancing, wiggling and rapping to slow a team getting into the half court set. Whole team choreographed goofiness. Random freakiness to disrupt the attention of an iso play or a passer at specific micro-second decision times. "Don't pass to x" "Ha, ha you passed it to x" "what are you doing?" Imitating opponent teammates.

How quick would officials and league personnel jump on it as unsportsmanlike conduct to stop it? You might not want to do a lot in regular season but could you pull it out in surprise playoff moments and gain a point or two edge from an opponent offensive possession disrupted? It is a possibility I have not heard discussed. Some might say easy to tune out: if you played pickup or even organized you learned to get over this junk. Maybe but may be not accustomed to it any more?

Disruptive activity gets used in boxing and other martial arts. You sometimes hear of it in football. Even running with weird speed ups / slow downs. Tennis grunts and other mannerisms, golf pairing behavior in subtle ways, race car driver feints, etc. Certainly players try some things before, during and after shots but is there more & more effective (could science or analytics make more effective- words, tones, patterns, timing, psychological strategy / targeting)? I dunno. Early morning, out of the box thinking fwiw.

Hi Crow, I can give you a perspective from a FIBA coaching point of view. When I played professionally in Australia I applied my own "disruptive noise" techniques as well as having directives from the coaches. I have never heard of it referred to as "disruptive noise" but the application is still the same.

I also run advanced defensive sessions for elite youth teams and teach these types of techniques as they are rarely taught.

From a personal perspective and 1 i use when running the defensive classes, is an out of the box technique i used was when guarding a player on the perimeter. I would switch my defensive stance from forcing baseline to forcing middle, and i would chop and change it a number of times in a row on the same play in a really quick instance. What this does is 1) confuses the offensive player, "what the hell is he doing" 2) It takes you defensively from a position of reacting to the offensive players moves to you being proactive and making them do what you want.

The result most of the time was the offensive player would swing the ball away.

A commonly taught disruptive technique, which would be taught by coaches all over the world is "bumping the cutter". This is done predominately in 2 ways, the "big" manning the paint would use their body and give a little hit check to any cutters coming through the key. The 2nd is when defending a player coming over a screen, it is commonly taught to that you should again give a little hip check to the player coming off the screen, again predominately done by the big man on defense who's player is usually setting the screen.

Another technique i have used and again i teach it in very late game situations when you are on defense. Mostly when you are behind by more than a 1 shot margin and you need to get the ball back to have any chance of winning, most teams will foul in this situation. What i like to do in situations where it seems like the game is lost, is playing defense from behind players, even in the half court. A player catches the ball on the perimeter they are either trying to run down the clock or they are waiting for you to foul. I position myself behind them and give them the whole lane to drive to the basket, it makes them do something they don't want to do, they know they should be holding the ball up but they now see an open lane, so they drive to the basket.

It's hear where you force them to take a shot that they don't want to and you get a chance to get the ball back. What I like to do is target a player on offense that i want to drive to the basket......it just makes them make a play that they don't want to do and maybe they aren't skilled at driving to the basket. When i'm playing behind them, i give little back tips, trying to poke the ball out and this actually makes them move away from you and start to drive.

If you do this on the point guard as they dribble the ball up the court, it really speeds up their offense and again they start doing things they are not used to. They are also weary of you taking swipes from behind, so you put them off a little when they take a shot.

One other that I like to do from the sidelines is yelling out the shot clock number and counting it down. So let's say my team is on defense......typically when the shot clock gets down to 10 someone on the offensive team will yell out "10!"....to indicate to the team they have 10 seconds before it expires. Once i hear that, i then make a number up....it might be 8 seconds on the clock in reality.....but i yell out 4! and count it down....4!..3!...2!...1!......many times the offense is listening and they will take a rushed shot even though there is still a few seconds left in the shot clock.

Thanks for sharing your playing and coaching examples.

It is part of the game. Not surprising it isn't talked about much outside player groups. Just came to mind for a brief mention. Maybe it is a surprise though that snark lovin' millenials haven't done more with this? I know we have the ear blow and shoe untying episodes recently but it has not been a flood... since Garnett. So many ways to be a little different and maybe distract or confuse a bit. Best payoff may be in long term investment, though probably need to keep it fresh.