Just so I'm clear, you are saying they were using the zone to mask their own defensive deficiencies...so they had a weakness on the defensive end that was turned into a non-weakness by employing a zone. Well that kinda sounds like a good thing -- like the zone defense was bringing things to the table.
Two of the best defensive teams I saw firsthand were Kevin O'Neill's and John Chaney's. One had a ferocious man-to-man; the other, a match-up zone. They were both pretty good at what they did. I have nothing to add other than if you teach something well it can be effective and win you a lot of games.
The point about accountability is a good point, and is probably why most coaches go with the zone. Maybe I'm speaking from a perspective of my own nature which is coloring my perceptions here. But I'm a [dadgum] alley cat when I play basketball. People will start to get pissed off as if there is an unwritten rule that defense isn't allowed. I mean, I like to get after it on the defensive end and it doesn't matter what the scheme is. I'm Mookie Blaylock without the talent. That being said, I still feel like coaches can make sure that a zone defense is played with tenacity, even if all are not wired like Mookie. Finding ways to make players play hard is what coaches do.
Not really. It was personnel and depth deficiencies. Anytime Tark had more than 7 guys who could play dead, they played more man than anything. Pitino used the zone press to use conditioning as a weapon to offset a lack of talent. Cahney was always open that both his defensive and offensive systems were built to account for the fact that Temple could never recruit enough guys to play man or a less deliberate pace and beat the teams he wanted to compete with annually.
Yeah, I'm pretty slow. No way I could ever match wits with an intellectual heavyweight like yourself. Your brevity is surely a sign deep deep enlightenment and is in no way indicative of a tenuous grasp of the English language.
How do you know Mookie Blaylock wouldn't have been lazy in a zone? He never played in one. He's the icon he was because he had one job, strangle the opposing point guard.
True, but you'd have to point out that both play an incredibly slow pace offensively which helps to keep the scores low.
You can't be unable to run man to man and win at a high level for the reasons JZ has mentioned. If you get behind, a passive 2-3 won't bring you back. However, I don't agree that you can't primarily use zone and be successful. I think Rick Pitino's 2-3 is about as well-coached and aggressive 2-3 I've seen in a long, long time. It's also the reason he's taking a shit roster and winning most of his games.
That's generally true when you have a primarily man to man coach teaching zone defense that he doesn't fully understand. A well-coached 2-3 zone has well-defined responsibilities and blockout assignments. What's most impressive about Louisville's is there ability to rotate the zone to not be beaten with skip passes. For example, if the backside guard drops to boxout the backside post, they rotate the closest player to the ball up to take the wing on the skip pass making it damn hard to penetrate it or beat it with ball reversals.
Great another tool that likes to throw around a bunch of big words. Congrats. Please keep talking about your rec league playing days, we are all dying to hear more about it.
That's very true. There is more than one way to win, but 9.99 times out of 10, a strong program is build with tough m2m D.
Very true. That's the general rule. However, I do think I would play some zone because I think you can do so many more things out of it than man to man.
My favorite coach of all time, Bob Hurley, has a multiple defensive system. Off a miss they might play m2m, off a make 1-1-3 and maybe a 2-2-1 off a free throw... very tough to prepare for. Nothing wrong at all with throwing some zone in there. Hep Cronin said at a clinic that a zone D is how Mick got the HC job at Cinci while he was the HC at Murray despite being a m2m coach; have to be flexible.
I'm a big fan of the 3-2. I really like what you can do out of it. Skip passes from the corner to the top of the key are the weakness, but you can adjust the scheme to rotate to stop skip pass shots. It's really good; I've sat down and x and o'ed with one of my friend who coaches and I've talked the same to some good high school guys about rotating the 3-2; they seem to like it and have incorporated some into what they do. The general perception on zone seems to be it makes you a passive, finesse team. Definitely doesn't have to be that way.
Have to make sure your backside top guy drops to boxout the backside post. That's where the putbacks come. If you do that, you rebound pretty well out of it, because everyone else essentially just matches up to the guy they're on and boxes that player out.
