prevent defense

prevent defense (plural prevent defenses)

1. (team sports) Any defense intended to prevent rapid scoring by the offense, at the expense of allowing relatively easy, slower scoring.
   • 1960, “The 5-3 Prevent Defense”, in Athletic Journal, volume 41, page 32:

     In order to cope with this situation, we developed a simple prevent defense which was designed primarily to negate the long touchdown play. Originally, the 5-3 prevent defense was used in the latter moments of the second and fourth quarters ...

   • 2001, Robert Hirschfeld, Matt Christopher, Football Nightmare, football, most common (& earliest?) use [not this quote], page 118:

     There were still forty seconds remaining, so the Bucks went into a prevent defense, with eight men back to guard against long passes. The Mustang halfback was able to pick up some ground, but not enough to score

   • 2019 September 30, Carson Gourdie, The Daily Illini, hockey:

     Much of the third period was a stalemate, with the Illini successfully clearing out the puck and playing prevent defense. With 6:37 left in the third period, Barnhart was able to make back-to-back stops while on the ground, preventing the Redbirds from tying the game momentarily.

   • 2019 November 19, Michael Shattuck, “Hometeam: Grace Martin, defense power Millbury [girls' soccer team] past Lenox to gain state final”, in Worcester Telegram and Gazette, soccer:

     “Our defense shut them down,” Issa said. “I told them, ‘It was gonna take one or two goals.’ We had plenty of chances to score. I told them, ‘If we score one goal, we’re gonna go prevent defense and we’re going to shut them down, because people have done that to us before.’ ”

   • 2019 December 7, Geoff Grammer, “Lobos dominate inside, move to 2-0 in MWC with win at Wyoming”, in Albuquerque Journal, basketball:

     “I thought it was an unusual game because of the leads that we had,” said Weir, who noted his team’s 3-point defense allowed Wyoming to hit 10 from beyond the arc at a 35.7% clip. “… It was almost prevent defense, but we were just trying to kind of keep the game at bay, and I think we were trying to prevent quick scores and have them really use clock. …”

• “prevent defense”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• prevent defense on Wikipedia.Wikipedia