Bucks guard Jrue Holiday on his secrets to being one of the NBA’s best defenders

Update: Jrue Holiday was traded to the Boston Celtics on Oct. 1, 2023. Details of that trade can be found here.

Brook Lopez did not believe it could be done.

Two years ago, the Bucks center discussed with The Athletic how he had become one of the league’s best defensive centers after years of being viewed as someone who might be a defensive liability in the pace-and-space NBA. For 20 minutes, Lopez explained each of the tricks he had picked up over the years and how Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer had perfectly married his defensive scheme with Lopez’s skill set to help build one of the most dominant defenses in recent NBA history.

When told of The Athletic’s plan to attempt the same project with his teammate – three-time NBA All-Defensive team honoree Jrue Holiday – at the start of the season, Lopez believed the project was doomed before it had even started.

Not because Holiday was unworthy of such a discussion, but rather because Lopez believed Holiday was just too talented defensively to even need tricks to execute defensively.

“There are just things that only he does,” Lopez explained in October. “You see the way he gets his hands on certain balls, there’s always a threat to do that. And the way he just frustrates guys naturally. He’s just capable of doing that. I don’t even know if it’s something you can explain through a technique or anything like that.”

For years now, Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard and other players around the league have called Holiday one of the league’s premier defensive players, so why would it be difficult for him to explain what he is doing out on the floor?

“It’s just intrinsically Jrue,” Lopez said. “It’s just Jrue being Jrue.”

With Lopez’s doubts in mind, The Athletic spent the entire 2021-22 season asking NBA players and coaches what makes Holiday such a talented defender, so that we could get a better idea of what to watch and where to look for the moments in which Holiday’s unique talents can be best seen. And the responses, like this one from Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, were overwhelming.

“He’s a one-man coverage unto himself,” Spoelstra said. “Whatever you’re trying to do, he can blow it up with his speed, his agility, his strength. Just his size and his competitiveness and then, obviously, he has a great IQ for the game. He sees plays happen before they do. He’s one, two or three steps ahead of it.”

With tips like that, we compiled clips of Holiday’s best defensive plays and asked him to break down the film to help us understand his special skills.

Here are the secrets of one of the NBA’s best defenders.

With three minutes remaining in the Bucks’ March 29 matchup against the 76ers, James Harden brought the ball up the floor with Philadelphia down two points and in position to tie or take the lead. As he so often does, Holiday was covering Harden, the other team’s most dangerous perimeter threat, and applying pressure.

Before Harden even crossed half court, Georges Niang set a screen. Holiday took a step over the top of the screen to his right and then recovered quickly back to his left as Harden made his way to another screen, this one from center Joel Embiid. Holiday trailed behind and sprinted back to Harden, but he was too much of a threat, so Lopez switched onto Harden, leaving Embiid for Holiday.

Holiday is officially listed at 6 foot 3 and 205 pounds. Embiid is a legitimate 7-footer and 280 pounds.

With the much smaller Holiday attempting to cover him, Embiid called for the ball in the middle of the floor and immediately tried to back down Holiday once he received it. As Embiid tried to turn his back to the Bucks guard, Holiday poked away his very first dribble and made Embiid start over.

Now out behind the 3-point line, Embiid turned his back to Holiday to protect the ball and started backing his way toward the basket in a straight line down the middle of the floor. Embiid made some progress but did not even make it to the free-throw line with three dribbles before kicking out an errant pass to Harden on the right wing and turning the ball over.

“I know everybody sees a size disadvantage, a size mismatch, but sometimes the smaller guy is up underneath you,” Budenholzer said following the 118-116 win. “He’s got a lower center of gravity, can poke. It’s hard to get a hit on him, or a chest-to-chest or a shoulder to a chest.”

While Budenholzer described it as something normal, that is not what normally happens to guards in those situations. That is not something “smaller guys” around the league do. Most guards in that situation get put under the basket, dunked on, pulverized. They fall over at the first sign of trouble because drawing a foul on a flop is their best prayer for a stop in that situation.

Not Holiday. As he describes in the video below, Holiday welcomes the situation that most guards fear.

“If you f— with the ball, bro”

(Note: If you skipped past that video, go back and watch it. It features Holiday breaking down the play and explaining how he does what he does against bigger players in the post. Throughout this story, the videos will be important to the overall analysis; they contain exclusive content with Holiday, so enjoy the access.)

Ask around the league and Holiday’s willingness to go toe to toe, or more accurately chest to chest, with the league’s biggest players is among the very first things brought up about his defensive excellence.

“What you love about Jrue Holiday is it is not just against guys his size,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “From everything I’ve heard about him, he is a guy that wants to guard LeBron (James). He wants to guard Kevin Durant.

“Like he doesn’t see himself as smaller than those guys, and that’s what you love about him. That competitive fire, that competitive edge and just the fight. Those guys are always the best defenders because that’s their mentality.”

As Holiday explains though, it isn’t just his desire, or his 6-foot-7 wingspan, that allows him to regularly stonewall larger players. Real thought and technique go into how he gets the job done as he does here against the Kings’ Domantas Sabonis.

“A lot of it for me is being handsy”

While discussing exactly how he gets lower than bigger players and the work he does before the big man touches the ball, Holiday made a shocking revelation.

“I train this,” Holiday said.

Wait, what? You train getting backed down by bigger players in the offseason? How?

“There’s exercises that can strengthen, kind of like when they’re trying to back you down,” Holiday explained. “I mean, we used to do drills, like me and my older brother, with our trainer, where we’d be like this.”

At this point, Holiday stands up in the media room of the Bucks’ practice facility and sinks into the position he has while defending in the post — squatting low, back straight, chest puffed out — to fully demonstrate what he is describing.

“And I’d have a harness on me,” Holiday said while pantomiming a harness around his chest. “Like on that Keiser, that’s pulling me back that way and he’s trying to back me down, like literally trying to back me down. So, like, I’m working on taking that backdown as something is trying to pull me back.”

And that’s just a normal offseason workout?

“I have a crazy trainer, who does crazy shit,” Holiday replied with a smile.

Houston Rockets head coach Stephen Silas couldn’t believe it. He had purposefully called a play away from Holiday and yet, there was Holiday in the middle of the action.

When told of Silas’ frustration, Holiday could not figure out what possibly could have upset the Rockets coach.

“He was mad at that? Why?” Holiday asked incredulously. “Did he think it was a foul?”

Nope. That would have been far less noteworthy.

Silas was frustrated because he could not believe Holiday had processed the action in real-time and made a clean play on the ball.

But it wasn’t just that he had managed to disrupt the play as a help defender, but also that he did all of that because he managed to diagnose an action that teams simply don’t run anymore.

“Teams don’t run pin downs anymore,” Holiday said. “When I came into the league, pin downs, like floppy actions, were huge. And as the point guard always on the ball, when they made the floppy action, they wouldn’t curl to three, it would be more to the two. So they’d always tell me like once they pass it, you would drop to help. Especially because like we would always trail, I mean, we had Rip Hamilton.”

The most basic pin-down action occurs when a player on the baseline receives a screen from a teammate above them on the floor. Floppy is an action where a coach puts a player, most likely a shooter, underneath the basket and that player can choose which direction he wants to go and run off of a pin-down screen. Holiday mentioned Richard “Rip” Hamilton because it used to be the primary way he would get himself shots.

Hamilton, though, hasn’t played in an NBA game since May 15, 2013. And yet, Holiday remembered exactly what he should do as a point guard when a team ran a double pin-down action, and diagnosed it in real time against the Rockets in December.

“He just knew! He knew it was coming!” Silas exclaimed when reminded of the play two weeks after it happened. “He is one who has been in the league long enough to even know what stunting off the ball is on pin downs because a lot of teams don’t run pin-down stuff. That was just a great play he made.”

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr echoed the importance of Holiday’s computer-like ability to quickly recall information from past games and immediately implement the best way to stop it as the play unfolds in real time.

“His brain, he’s so smart,” Kerr told The Athletic. “He sees plays before they happen, he recognizes patterns. Being in the NBA for a while, you sort of see the same patterns over and over again. … But he’s a step ahead. Just one step ahead in the chess game.”

“He’s the best defender in the league, one of the best defenders I’ve ever seen, and the best defender of his time,” Warriors forward Andre Iguodala said when asked about Holiday’s defense as he tried to leave Fiserv Forum following practice in January.

The inherent bias in Iguodala’s opinion is obvious. Iguodala was one of the veteran leaders in Philadelphia for Holiday’s first three NBA seasons, before the 76ers moved Iguodala and moved Holiday one season later as part of “The Process” to acquire top draft picks.

“He used to yell at me so much,” Holiday said of his time with Iguodala. “Oh my gosh. ‘Just be solid! What are you doing?’ All the time. He always said, ‘You reaching too much! You hopping too much! You’re trying to react; you’re trying to beat them to the spot or whatever too much! Just be solid!’ He told me that all the time.”

But while Iguodala may be biased, there is no denying his expert-level opinion on NBA defense. His ability to defend multiple positions made him indispensable with the Warriors, who won three NBA championships with him leading their effort on the defensive end. Those championships include the 2015 NBA Finals, where Iguodala was named NBA Finals MVP almost entirely for his defense against league MVP LeBron James.

“From above the core to below the glutes, he’s got the strongest set that I’ve ever seen,” Iguodala said while pointing to the general area on his body. “It’s so strong. And his base is so solid that you literally can’t screen the guy.”

And while post players’ inability to post Holiday up might draw the eye, Holiday’s ability to avoid screens and apply ball pressure to the league’s best on a nightly basis is what sets him apart from the rest of the league defensively.

Let Holiday explain … on a play he was whistled for a foul he didn’t believe he deserved.

“I can stay more connected to the guard if I get into him”

“You saw what he did in the NBA Finals last year,” Iguodala said. “He guarded Chris Paul. He guarded Devin Booker. They’d just go the complete opposite way of him and that’s a generational talent. It’s kind of like a Kyrie (Irving) or a Steph (Curry) or Kevin Durant on offense, he’s that guy on defense.”

Holiday’s skill in this area is undeniable. It was on full display in last year’s NBA Finals. And then, it was once again on display for the world to see in the Tokyo Olympics, where he was “obviously our template defensively,” according to Team USA coach Gregg Popovich, and ended up completely taking over games defensively by pressuring ballhandlers from other countries up and down the floor.

“His strength, his speed, his length, he just puts you in a box, the guy handling the ball is just in a phone booth,” Kerr said. “You can’t get away from him. He’s so quick and strong and smart and long. On Team USA, we just put him on the ballhandler and it’s like Deion Sanders taking out the best wideout. There’s just no room for them to go.”

And while Holiday is spectacular at the fundamental techniques and skills needed to excel at getting over screens and also physically quick, strong and agile, talk to enough people around the league and they’ll all tell you the same thing: it’s all about his hands.

“If you try to get into a gap, not only will he strip you, he’ll just take two hands and take the ball,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.

“His hands,” Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “He does a great job getting you out of position. As you’re driving to the basket, he does a nice job of knowing when to push you off your spot just so you’re not as comfortable with a clean rhythm layup.”

Added Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr.: “If you bring the ball down, it’s gone.”

The stories of Holiday’s hands have reached almost mythic proportions in league circles. Holiday knows that and uses it to his advantage.

“He knows that I’m here”

As Holiday reveled in revealing the secret behind his “now you see me, now you don’t” trick against Donovan Mitchell in the final minute against the Jazz, he recalled another story about tormenting another young guard with his handsy tricks.

“De’Aaron Fox,” Holiday recalled with a smile. “De’Aaron Fox was hot at me because when he’d come off those screens or whatever, I’d like, tap him and play with him and do whatever. And he was like, “He’s fouling me!” But I’m like, ‘It’s not really a foul.’ I’m really just touching you. I’m not hitting you. I’m not throwing you off your line or anything.”

Holiday recalled the happenings of Fox’s night (8-of-23 shooting for 21 points, seven assists and nine rebounds) like a big brother who had baited a little brother into a tantrum that ultimately got the little brother punished and the big brother an ice cream cone for his good behavior.

“He feels that, so he thinks and then he goes into his floater and he tries to throw it up and get the foul and it doesn’t look like a foul, bro,” Holiday explained. “It’s not blatant at all. It’s subtle.”

Holiday is so talented as a defender that he has his own trademark move.

Well, not yet.

There isn’t a name for it, but after looking at me incredulously when I told him about it, Holiday was forced to sheepishly admit he might be the only person in the league that can pull it off with any level of regularity.

“You don’t see many people, or, I guess, anybody else do that,” Holiday admitted after watching a series of clips of his move.

Furthermore, he had a story for it, so let’s take a closer look at “The Jrue” … or whatever Holiday wants his move to be called.

With a minute left in the first half of the Pelicans’ Feb. 12, 2018, matchup against the Pistons, Holiday pressured Stanley Johnson. With Holiday on his side, Johnson dribbled the ball up the right sideline and then put it behind his back to his left hand. Holiday pounced, took the ball and started going the other direction with it, but there was one problem.

“They called me for a foul,” Holiday remembered. “I beat him to the spot. And I did it. And I stole it. And I threw it out. And then dude called a foul.”

“And I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ So I’m like, ‘Please look at it at halftime.’ And usually, they don’t look at it, but he went back and was like, ‘I looked at it and it was clean. It was a clean steal. You beat him to the spot. He exposed the ball and you got the ball.’ And I’m like, “Wow. Thank you.’ You know what I’m saying? So, from there, I honestly just kept trying to do it.”

Holiday has refined the move since receiving the official’s blessing four years ago, but that initial moment of inspiration still serves as the basis for his trademark defensive move.

While he reached across his body the first time he did it, Holiday now uses his other hand to avoid making contact with the defender. Rather than trying it in the open floor, Holiday now slows the opposing player down behind the 3-point line by using his body and then strips the ball cleanly as the players make contact.

“The Jrue”

“I don’t know how he does it,” Lopez said of “The Jrue.” “He does it so fast, it’s like he’s not even reacting. He just times it just right. It’s nuts. It’s phenomenal.”

Holiday’s mastery of “The Jrue” has made trying a stepback against him a nearly impossible task, even for players who rely on stepbacks to create separation regularly while initiating offense or creating a shot.

“The physical strength allows for a lot of that because in order to guide his guy to where he wants him to go, he doesn’t have to foul him,” Kerr said. “All he has to do is just angle him and use his speed to get in front, but then his body is strong that the guy can’t get past him, but he doesn’t foul. He’s not reaching in order to prevent him from that. He’s among the best I’ve ever seen.”

So, what are opponents left to do against Holiday?

“A lot of times, we try to go away from him,” Snyder said. “Sometimes, that’s not possible. He’s just such an elite defender, even when he’s a help defender.

“You don’t want to obsess about a matchup or say we’re going to avoid him at all costs, but in some ways, it’s kind of like the NFL. You have a cornerback that’s pretty good, you throw the ball to the other side of the field.”

Snyder’s refrain was common among coaches around the league. Rather than deal with Holiday blowing up their action, teams will conjure up ways to move Holiday off the ball. They’ll try to get him to switch onto a player and then run an action on the other side of the ball.

And Holiday can feel that, but ultimately, it doesn’t bother him because that just tells him that his opponent knows what he can do defensively.

“I like being on the ball a lot, but it is like a sign of respect, though,” Holiday said. “Why go at him when you can go at somebody else?”

Despite getting this type of respect from players and coaches for years, Holiday has been named to just three NBA All-Defensive teams in his first 12 NBA seasons. Like anyone, Holiday would enjoy the public accolades that go along with being one of the best in the world at their specific craft, but he knows the game is already telling him everything he needs to know.

“I like to feel like people are — not afraid of me — but like, ‘OK, get him off the ball.’ To me, that’s respect,” Holiday said. “And again, that’s another reason why I don’t need other people telling me how good I am. You can tell by somebody’s actions (laughs). You know what I’m saying? The way the action goes on the floor. Literally.

“So if it goes away from me, I’m like, ‘All right, well I’m usually in every action because I’m usually on the ball, but then when they start going away from me, I’m like, ‘All right, maybe it’s for a reason.’ ”

With help from players and coaches around the league, as well as Holiday himself, those reasons should be clear for all to see.

(Photo of Jrue Holiday and Kyrie Irving: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)