A problem I see in every level of Counter Strike is teams on defense that let the offense get an excellent momentum by simply not being able to stop a rush. When a team on offense is able to run a couple different variations of a fast paced tactic on a map, all they need is a couple rounds to turn it into a snowball effect.

A great and more recent example is JmC versus NiP on de_dust2 at this passed Winter CPL 2005. JmC had an excellent first half on defense, and was even able to pick up the pistol round on offense, but NiP slowly began to come back in the gun rounds. JmC realized that their slow tactics would not work against NiP's experience, so they began to try different tactics. JmC rushed four players down the middle of dust2 with smokes and flashes and took over B non-stop via the backdoor. This seems like a second grader thought it up, but it was so random that NiP was not prepared.

I will first get into the different tools you can use to stop or slow down rushes, and then I will name a few examples.

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Flashbangs

The defense has the spawn placement advantage 99% of the time. They are supposed to be defending a site, so it is only right to let them have a little more time to get set up before the offense can penetrate. Flashes will be your best friend. I can not think of more than a couple positions on any map where the position should not be started off with a flashbang, especially in the B bombsite where the timing is a little bit better for the offense than to the A bombsite.

You really won't really know the situation until mid-half though. Depending on how often the offense actually rushes and with how many people, affects how many flashes you should be throwing. There are certain situations where there should be no less than three flashes thrown into an offensive area before getting set up in the bombsite.

HE Grenades

This is more of a scare tactic. Even if a team isn't rushing to an area extremely fast, there are certain spots where the offense will like to get to very quickly to get a pick on a defensive player just to give them the four on five situation early in the round. When a team is doing this, an HE is just as good as a flashbang. If an offensive team is good at getting these quick picks, they won't care once you are knocking half of their health off before the first attack happens.

Spam Spots

I really don't suggest using these without a flashbang first. Sometimes with a lot of gun fire going on around you, an offensive player may be able to slip by you while you have your face buried in a wall or box spamming. This works much like an HE grenade, but if you are good enough, you just may even be able to get a frag early on, especially if there was an HE tossed in at the right time.

I will go into a few examples now, just so you can see how all of these can help.