Double team

The double team is a defensive tactic in many sports, for example American football and basketball. A player on offense is being double-teamed when s/he is covered by two defensive players.

Usually star players are double-teamed in basketball, however this leaves one offensive player uncovered, or open. If the covered player has the ball at the time, then the hope is to force a turnover or error. On the other hand, in college, high school, and international leagues, one can double team an offensive player without the ball, providing extra coverage. For a long time this was not allowed in the NBA since teams had to play a man to man defense, with the only exception being the double teaming of the ball handler. (See this node for an interesting story.) As hashbrownie reminded me, however, zone defense will be allowed back in the NBA for the 2002 season.

In football wide receivers are often double-teamed by a cornerback and a safety. The defense can usually afford to use two players to cover one, since they may not have as many people rushing as are on the offensive line. A double-teamed wide receiver is often said to be in double coverage.

A strange, unnecessary 1997 action movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and NBA player Dennis Rodman. Directed by Tsui Hark in his American debut.

JCVD plays a goverment agent who fails to kill a hostile target and thus gets banished to an island of similar-fated people. Rodman plays an arms dealer in Europe. Together they team up to defeat a very evil person — why he's evil I either don't remember or am not certain — who is played by Mickey Roarke.

It's a pretty bad movie, only notable for Rodman's presence. Rodman's articulation is poor as always, but he seems to be the only one having fun in this B movie. Van Damme thinks he's still a Stallone-like action hero, and Roarke ... God knows what he's thinking.

Much of the dialogue involves not-so-witty basketball wordplay. For example:

JCVD: "Offense gets the glory!"
Rodman: "But defense wins the game!"

Rodman, of course, was an awesome defensive player in the NBA, but his offensive skills were underwhelming.

The only other memorable moment — memorable only because it proved how much of a sellout this movie was — came in the climax, when Van Damme and Rodman were saved by Coca-Cola vending machines. Really, I'm not kidding.

A potent defensive move in Pokemon. In short, Double Team increases the evade of the creature using it. Multiple mirror images of the creature are created, decreasing the opponent's chance to successfully strike the real defending creature.

After the maximum six uses of the move, the opponent will have extreme difficulty picking the correct creature from the multitude of illusory ones, giving it a horrendously low chance to hit.

Combined with the attack power increasing move Swords Dance and the HP-regenerating status-clearing Rest, this move is seriously, seriously beardy. Since the creature has a minute percentage chance of actually being struck by most moves, they are able to repeatedly attack, regenerate or apply huge numbers of powerups in relative safety. Most Pokemon tourneys impose strict limits on the number of creatures in a team who can be afforded this ability, usually only one or two.

The ability, however, is not without its weaknesses. The medium-powered Swift attack can still hit the Double Teaming creature, assuming it's not a Ghost type who are immune to Normal type attacks. Additionally, many creatures are unable to last the requisite six rounds of charging up that are needed to give this ability its maximum effect.