while i am 100% against the zone from a personal perspective and league wide perspective, i AM a believer that the rockets will benefit greatly from it. the zone - defensively speaking - is a gimmick. it's a gimmick that allows for weaknesses in individual abilities (defensively). so your motay and cato weaknesses and even, to an extent, olajuwon weaknesses can be covered up for by nearby *cheating* help defenders. heyp, we have the long people you refer to. in fact, i'd even move motay to small forward at this point. can you imagine cato, hak, and motay in a 2-3? scary. and you're right btw, taller players generally do better against zones - interiorly, that is. now, what does good against a zone exteriorly? quick guards who can shoot the 3, penetrate and kick, and hit the mid-range jumper (a fleeting art in basketball). we'll be fine. we'll be more than fine. sorry it took so long to jump in. server was down....
HeyP, I like your thinking on going big and will be interested to see how it would work. Also i agree on your comment of zones reducing a teams althletism, this won't be a team of Matt Bullards versus a team of McGradys, every team has plenty of athletes. And again i agree the highest priority is learn and set a zone defense in place. I don't disagree Kobe can't learn a zone, but i do think it will take some time for teams to execute good zone defenses. The quickest and best option is to go the matchup zone route. I am actually really interested to see how the major athletes Stev, Vince, Tmac etc play against zones, cause they will still have their ability to jump over the defender to get a shot off. As for breaking zones down, i am not sure about line-ups, but for me i would keep it simple, lots of player movement without the ball, lots of ball movement, lots of pentration and remember to crash the boards real hard. Hey and if teams want to play match-ups zone there will still be plenty of opportunities to take your player 1on1. Smeg ------------------ "Repression never did me any harm (I finally ceased to include "stop masturbating" as one of my guilt ridden New Year's resolutions, but that's a different topic)." Achebe - programmer by day, Mrs Palmers Husband by night
At our school, we actually play man-to-man instead of the zone. But this might have to do with people not being able to understand the concept of guarding the area and not the player. But, I think that Man-to-Man is the better defense. Its also much more natural and lets the most talented players step up and play. ------------------ Never Underestimate the Heart of a Champion
