The umbrella term for how a defence answers a pick and roll: drop, switch, hedge, ICE or blitz. Whichever gets called decides where the gap opens up.
When your coach shouts \"drop!\" or \"switch!\", he is not telling you whether to defend but what you are deliberately giving away. In a drop, the screener's defender sinks deep into the paint and protects the rim — the price is a free mid-range look for the ball handler. In a switch, both defenders swap assignments: every route is cut off instantly, but you create a mismatch, with a small guard suddenly stuck on a centre. In a hedge, the big steps out briefly and then has to sprint back to his own man — the recover, and that is where most of these break down. ICE forces the ball handler away from the screen towards the sideline; a blitz traps him outright. The costliest mistake is not the wrong call but the silent one: if nobody shouts the screen, the on-ball defender runs into it blind and no coverage saves that.