Monkey in the Middle Piggy

🎒 Gear Needed: 1 x basketball, 3 players
⏱ Suggested Time: 5 - 10 minutes
👥 Participants: Small Team (2 Passers, 1 Middle Defender)
📍 Space: Backyard / Half-Court
📊 Difficulty: Beginner

📝 Instructions

1. Setup: Known across Australian junior courts as “Piggy in the Middle” or “Keep-Away Passing”, two offensive passers stand 4 to 5 metres apart facing each other. One defender (“Piggy”) starts in the middle between them.
2. Offensive Rules: Passers must remain in a designated 2-metre square area and are not permitted to dribble. They must keep a legal pivot foot and move the ball to their partner using crisp chest passes, bounce passes, or overhead passes.
3. Pass Fakes: Passers must use ball fakes to shift the middle defender: “Fake high to pass low” (using a shot/overhead fake to raise the defender’s hands, then stepping through with a bounce pass) and “Fake low to pass high” (faking a bounce pass to drop the defender’s hands, then stepping into an overhead pass).
4. Defensive Action: The defender in the middle plays with maximum energy, staying in an athletic stance with active, wide hands to contest passes, tip loose balls, and force bad decisions.
5. Switching Roles: If the middle defender deflects, touches, or intercepts the basketball, or if a passer throws an errant pass that lands outside the zone, the passer who threw the ball swaps roles and becomes the new defender in the middle.
6. Streak Challenge: The passers attempt to reach 10 consecutive clean passes without a deflection to earn a team point.

💡 Coaching Cues

• Fake a Pass to Make a Pass: Never stare down your receiver; use sharp ball fakes with your eyes, shoulders, and the ball to shift the defender’s hands and feet before delivering.
• Step Around the Defender: Step wide with your non-pivot foot to establish an open passing angle around the defender’s torso rather than passing straight through their reach.
• Fake Low, Pass High / Fake High, Pass Low: Read the defender’s hands: if their hands are up high, step through and bounce pass underneath; if their hands are down, rise up for an overhead pass.
• Maintain Your Pivot Foot: Keep your pivot foot firmly planted on the timber or concrete; dragging or lifting your pivot foot before releasing the pass is a traveling violation.

🔄 Variations & Progressions

• Make It Easier: Increase the passing distance to 6 metres or instruct the defender to play at 50% speed with one hand held behind their back while passers learn to read angles.
• Make It Harder: “3v1 Triangle Piggy”: arrange three passers in a 5-metre triangle with one defender in the centre, requiring quick one-touch passing and rapid directional scanning.

📺 Video Demonstration