[Freddy]

I forwarded my original question to, amongst others, a respected camp clinician and D1 official. I was edified by his answer. For what it may be worth to you, here his response:

I observed many high school games this past season and was consistently troubled with our movement at the Lead position. We talk about "mirroring the ball" and "getting to close down position" and "pinching the paint" in all our mechanics talks, however, this movement needs to happen when the ball is on the perimeter. Too often, I saw Lead officials in the "close down" position when the ball was in the post on the strong side of the court. This puts the Lead in a very disadvantage position to referee post play. When the ball is entered to the strong side post, the Lead needs to stay wide in order to referee between the offensive player and the primary defender. When the ball is entered to the weak side post, the Lead should have already been in close down position at least, more likely he would be rotating through to the other side of the court.

Drives to the basket are more difficult since they can happen when the ball is in a position on the perimeter that might put us in close down or pinch the paint positioning. If a drive develops when I am in these positions I simply move to maintain position to referee the defense at the point of contact. This can be different for each play depending on where the drive originates and where the defender is coming from to help.