## 4 Discussion  
This study aimed to investigate the physical loads, monitored by dual technologies, associated with defensive PnR actions during official basketball games, according to court location (i.e., middle vs. side), defensive option (i.e., switch, drop/ice, or trap), and effectiveness (i.e., successful vs. unsuccessful). The main results showed no effects of court location or defensive option on physical loads, while unsuccessful defensive PnR actions produced higher physical loads (i.e., duration, PL, and PL-min\({}^{-1}\)) compared to successful actions. These results can provide valuable information for basketball coaches in defining the performance profiles of commonly used defensive options during PnR actions, which represent some of the most widely utilized tactics in basketball. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to quantify the physical loads of defensive basketball actions using the combination of video-based TMA and IMUs. Comparing our results with those reported in a previous investigation using a similar approach [14], we found that the duration and PL of defensive PnR actions were generally greater (duration: \(\sim\)2.5 s; PL: \(\sim\)0.6 AU) compared to sprints (duration: 1.18 s; PL: 0.4 AU), high-intensity specific movements (duration: -1.32 s; PL: \(\sim\)0.4 AU), and jumps (duration: -0.72 s; PL: -0.2 AU) compared to official Lithuanian third division male basketball games. Accordingly, these results likely led to a lower PL-min\({}^{-1}\) for PnR actions (-14 AU\(\cdot\)min\({}^{-1}\)) compared to sprints (21.7 AU\(\cdot\)min\({}^{-1}\)), high-intensity specific movements (19.6 AU\(\cdot\)min\({}^{-1}\)), and jumps (18.7 AU\(\cdot\)min\({}^{-1}\)) found in the previous investigation [14]. Therefore, we can conclude that defending in various PnR scenarios can provide a higher load in terms of volume (i.e., duration and PL) but corresponds to a lower intensity (i.e., PL-min\({}^{-1}\)) compared to some of the key physical actions characterizing basketball game-play. This can be attributed to the longer duration of defensive PnR situations compared to the above-mentioned high-intensity neuromuscular actions and to the increased cognitive demands of such defensive scenarios, in which players need to undergo pattern-recognition and \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Court** & **Defensive** & & & & & \\
**Location** & **Option** & & & & & \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Middle} & Switch & 122 & 46.4 & 77.5 & 22.5 \\  & Drop & 119 & 45.2 & 67.5 & 32.5 \\  & Trap & 22 & 8.4 & 82.0 & 18.0 \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Side} & Switch & 49 & 48.5 & 75.5 & 24.5 \\  & Ice & 44 & 43.6 & 66.0 & 34.0 \\ \cline{1-1}  & Trap & 8 & 7.9 & 50.0 & 50.0 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Descriptive statistics for defensive pick-and-roll actions. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Dependent** & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Court Location**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Defensive Option**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Effectiveness**} & **P Court** & **P Defensive** & **P** \\
**Variable** & **Middle** & **Side** & **Switch** & **Drop/ice** & **Successful** & **Unsuccessful** & **Location** & **Option** & **Outcome** \\ \hline Duration (s) & 2.35 \(\pm\) 1.06 & 2.45 \(\pm\) 0.97 & 2.50 \(\pm\) 1.12 & 2.29 \(\pm\) 0.94 & 2.30 \(\pm\) 1.07 & 2.65 \(\pm\) 0.91 & 0.199 & 0.544 & \(<\)0.001 \\ PL (AU) & 0.54 \(\pm\) 0.49 & 0.61 \(\pm\) 0.52 & 0.58 \(\pm\) 0.53 & 0.54 \(\pm\) 0.48 & 0.51 \(\pm\) 0.50 & 0.68 \(\pm\) 0.49 & 0.075 & 0.238 & \(<\)0.001 \\ PL-min\({}^{-1}\) & 13\(\pm\) 6.987 & 14.1 \(\pm\) 9.86 & 13.3 \(\pm\) 9.27 & 14.2 \(\pm\) 10.4 & 13.00 \(\pm\) 9.76 & 15.8 \(\pm\) 9.86 & 0.310 & 0.095 & 0.047 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Inferential statistics of defensive pick-and-roll actions by court location, defensive option, and outcome. decision-making processes which are crucial for success.