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Certainly. I could give you everything down to the very very nitty gritty of what we run... but I'm pretty sure you're looking for the abridged version.
In general, offense and defense in lacrosse is extremely similar to basketball. Basketball is 5v5... lacrosse is 6v6.... and the way help defense works in basketball is extremely similar to how defense is played in lacrosse. Also similar to basketball, zone defenses are used in some cases these situations are particularly in man-down situations... but we've also seen a rash of zone defenses used over the past year or so as both a base defense and a situational defense at the end of quarters. The main problem with zone defense is that you aren't pressuring the ball so you won't get it back if the other team isn't trying to score... so you can't really use it if you're losing.
On offense, it's again very comparable to basketball. You have motion offenses that rely heavily on passing and cutters to break a defense down. You have offenses that rely heavily on 1v1 dodging. You have offenses that rely heavily on outside shooting... and others that rely on jamming the ball inside. But in general, most offenses rely on some combination of all of the above. I'll now get into the basics of what ND tries to do, but first here is a glossary of terms.
Dodging - This is when a ball carrier tries to run by their individual defender using a myriad of different moves. Just like taking your guy off the dribble in basketball.
Slide - The slide is the defender who "slides" to double to ball or otherwise cover an offensive player. So if the on-ball defender gets "dodged" another defender has to "slide" to pick up the ball carrier and stop him from scoring.
2 - When a player "slides" as mentioned above, he leaves the man that he was covering open. When this happens, the player who is "2" goes to cover the guy that was left open. The player who is "2" is always the player who is covering the offensive player who is the smallest threat to score. Therefor, he can leave him open until the players can recover.
Recover/backside - If you think about it, the player who's the smallest threat to score is usually the guy furthest away from the ball OR behind the cage where he can't catch and shoot immediately. This is usually referred to as the backside of the play. So after you slide to an offensive player, thereby leaving players open as you have 2 defenders on 1 guy, you eventually have to "recover" and get everyone matched up 1v1 again. This is usually accomplished by having the man who was beaten recover (run) to the crease or backside of the play to cover the man who was left open before the offense can get the ball to him.
Defense
At Notre Dame, we run a pretty unique defensive system (although over the past 3 years a lot of teams out there have tried to copy it with less success) that functions by making our defensive personnel as homogeneous as possible. The reason is that we switch every slide and every pick. So while a lot of teams freak out about having a midfielder (guy with a short stick) instead of a defender (guy with a long stick) covering an attackman... we don't. When teams run 2 man games (basically a pick-and-roll) we always switch. We'd rather we defend a bad matchup than risk getting beat running through a pick.
So, step 1 to our defense is that we switch everything. The next is that we defend the interior (called "the hole" or "the paint" as another basketball reference, and closer to the goal the area right outside of the goalie crease is called "the crease") as well as humanly possible. We do not let midfielders dodge to the middle from up top to the field unless they are too far away to shoot. We typically do not slide early to attackmen dodging from behind the goal to avoid leaving players open inside or in a shooting position. When we do slide, we almost shift into a quasi-zone around the middle of the field (basically, we put a stick on every player in a shooting position if possible and try to keep our heads on a swivel to stop any pass inside) and the player who slid stays on the man he slid to. The guy who was originally marking the man who was slid to recovers to the middle of the field and finds the uncovered man to mark.
So step 1 is every single person on our defense is trained to be able to cover every single offensive player on the opposition. Step 2 is that we try to force other teams into low angle or far away shots that have the lowest percentage chance of going in. Now step 3 is that every single year for the past 7 years or so we've had an all-american goalie. This is crucial because our defense is designed to let people take outside shots under the assumption that our goalie will save them. We also allow teams to take shots from in close if the shooter has a poor angle. If we so much as had an "average" goalie the whole scheme falls apart as too many shots find the back of the net over a long period of time.
So to recap, we basically have the defense function as a singular organism with constant communication, switching, etc. It's very complex... almost manic. If a player gets a shot from less than ~10 yards away and a greater than 45 degree shooting angle then we had a breakdown. Any other shot is one we're willing to give up and expect to save.
Offense
During my time at ND, we were originally a team that looked to feed the crease with Ryan Hoff (3x All-American) as our crease attackman. He was electric and could finish any ball that he caught. Today, you see many teams in the NCAA play with Canadian finishers on the crease who are similar to style in Ryan (albeit more creative with their shot making). But we don't play that style any more as we don't really have any attackmen with that skill set. Only Ryan Mix really plays that style of game... and frankly, he doesn't play it at a high enough level right now. He just doesn't finish enough of his opportunities.
So what we run now was an offense largely installed in my latter years at ND. It's a dodge-first style attack designed to create both assisted and unassisted scoring chances. The reason we run this kind of offense is that we have tremendous talent and depth in our midfield. Most teams only run 2 true lines of midfielders. We run 3 lines and do it very evenly. We out work other teams. Unlike a lot of teams that rely on star players, we rely on balance. In today's game against Georgetown we had 9 goals from 8 different players. That is VERY rare. It's effective... but not as effective as we would like. And that's largely a problem with the attack.
What you'll see is most of our offense initiated from up top through our midfield. The goal is for the offensive player to beat their man and force the defense to slide to defend or the midfielder takes the shot himself if they don't come to double. If they do send a slide, it causes the defense to start rotating. So we swing the ball to the next man (or do a skip pass) and then immediately look to throw it to the backside to an open player for a shot if it's there. If it's not there, then the offense basically restarts from the wing or behind the goal or up top... either though an attackman or midfielder who tries to beat their man to create a shot or cause a slide. Rinse and repeat.
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So I'm sure that's all clear as mud, but that's our offensive and defensive philosophies in a nut shell. I'll try to find some video clips to help illustrate.
