You Got The Zone "Blues"?

Love'em or hate'em you have to deal with'em!

Whether you are a man-to-man (person to person) coach or a zone coach, you will need to be prepared to face a variety of zone type defenses in a typical season. I had a check list for zone attack that I unfortunately, did not

review often enough. Because of this, we sometimes exhibited what I would call "slippage". Below I have listed ten concepts/principles I feel are important in attacking zones.

Some nights you may experience some "cold" shooting!

1) Beware of perimeter lapses. Get the ball inside. The best perimeter shots

are often from passing inside to the post then passing back out.

2) Use the dribble to attack the gaps of the zone. Your goal is to make two

zone defenders guard the ball thus leaving someone open on offense.

3) Emphasis a third side attack ....... top to side back to top reverse to other

side back to top then to the third side. Make the zone shift and recover.

4) Anytime direct passing lane is challenged look to make the skip pass.

5) Use shot fakes, especially when you have forced the zone defender to

close out. Shot fakes often cause the man closing out to raise up out of

their defensive stance making them more vulnerable to being driven by.

Drive closeouts! Most zone defenders, it seems to me, are not good at

closeout.

6) Use pass fakes. Zone moves on the movement of the ball. Pass fakes

can force the zone defenders to have to recover farther than

normal closeout situations. For example, fake ball reversal and pass the

ball back to where it came from. The zone defenders can often be

influenced by a ball fake and take a step in the wrong direction.

7) Whenever possible try to rebound 2 vs 1 on the opposite side of the floor

that the shot is taken. Most zone defenders do not block out well.

8) Look to shoot over the best defensive rebounder and rebound over the

smallest or poorest zone rebounder. An advantage of zone offense is

you can dictate match ups. You can put your best shooter in the same

area as their poorest defender.

9) Screen the zone perimeter and the inside zone defenders. We had a rule

when a "big" set a screen in the zone we wanted them to slip after the

screen and post up the next defender. This action is very difficult to

defend against. I am not so sure that screening in a zone is not MORE

successful than screening vs man defense.

10) Don't settle. Get the shot you want not the shot the defense wants you to

take. The best scenario for the defense is when the offense takes a quick

perimeter shot. Unless the ball is going inside, I did not believe in making

1 pass vs the zone then taking a shot. Regardless of the type of defense

you play, the more passes you make against that defense, the greater

the chances are you will break it down.

You also will need to decide how you will attack less commonly used zone

related defenses such as match up zones, box/diamond and 1 defense and

the triangle and 2 defense. If you have an outstanding offensive player, expect to see what I called junk defenses (Box & 1, Triangle & 2 etc.). They can be very effective in disrupting your offensive attacks.

My suggestion is you attack all zones with as little adjustments as possible.

Different attacks for each type of zone will only cause confusion and disruption to your own team. For example, some coaches will attack all

defenses out of the same set but make small adjustments depending on

the type of zone.

We had a number of set plays we ran against zones. I liked this because it

allowed me to determine who I wanted to get the shot also because some

perimeter players have never seen a shot they didn't like we tried to have

several sets to get the ball inside vs the zone.

The biggest mistakes I see made at the high school level vs zones are:

1. Failure to reverse the ball. Ball goes to one side of the floor so the defense

only has to defend half the floor.

2. Settling for the quick shot ..... boy I hate the one pass burp it up action!

If you come down the floor and make one pass and take a perimeter shot,

you have allowed the defense to rest after 3-4 seconds. Now this is not

a problem if the first pass is inside but if you "settle" the whole game or

large parts of the game on perimeter shots .... you are in for a frustrating

night.

3. Perimeter lapses. Few if any post touches.