my team needs help on offense beating a 2-3 zone...i am the only scorer on the team basically so the offense goes through me. I am on the wing...and basically we have one play in the playbook; either i shoot the 3 or i drive to the basket and try to get the bucket or the foul. If someone is moving, i can find them by kicking out for an open jumper but thats all we got. Our big men inside are frustrated because there are 3 guys inside covering them. We have been getting by games by my scoring and our defense. I am scoring around 35 a game and we average around 45 pts a game (only 8 min quarters). I NEED help, i dont want to be the one scoring everything and i want to know how we beat that zone, because our guards cant shoot. Can we get the big men open? someone PLEASE help me!
Do your big men move around? One way to help things out is by using picks away from the ball. Setting a pick on a zone defensive player is easy, since that player is confined to his spot. Set a pick on one of the "zoners" downlow, throw a lob to your big guy and he shouldn't have trouble getting the ball.
You don't provide a lot of details, but I would suggest setting up in a 1-3-1 offensive set (1- Point, 3- High Wing, High Post, Off Wing, and 1- Low Post) When your point splits the 2 defensive guards: 1. He may have a shot, 2. He may have a bounce pass to the baseline offensive player, or 3. He may be able to kick to the off-wing for an open jumper. The Low Post can set baseline- and wing-screens for the wing players. Having the Low Post player be a somewhat effective scorer will open up the middle a lot. Lots of ball reversals!!! Keep the defense looking over their shoulders.
Try an overload to the ball side. This however, does mean that your big man is shooting a 15-18 ft jumper from the baseline. When both the wing and PG are on the ball side, slide a post player over to ball side. He should get a short jumper on the baseline. Or screen over on the weak side. This calls for a cross court pass, but you can get a open shot, by skipping the ball over, and having a post player back screen the defender.
Similar to what RichRocket says, a 1-3-1 baseline set is very effective against a 2-3 zone. What our team does is have three guys set up on the perimeter, one guy on the high post, and the other big guy run along the baseline, and on the ball side. This baseline player doens't necessarily have be a 4 or 5 man, just preferably fast and a good passer no doubt. So when you or the other wing man gets the ball, you can either; a) pass the ball to the high-post player b) pass it down to the baseline player who will look to pass it to the high-post player first, then look to either score or reverse it back to you. c) you reverse it back to the point d) or you can of course shoot/drive/pop up yourself This offense works best once you pass it around and have a lot of reversals, making the defense adjust and move around. After a while they usually trail off and one of you will have the open shot or dish. Azim da Dream
there are several ways to beat it. You can beat it off the dribble or by passing. I will tell you both you choose wich one fits your team the most. Dribbling- you can do this by matching the zone with your guys, put four guys on the perimiter and one who floats to the ball side down low. the guy down low should go to the spot in between the middle and outside guy on the bottom of the 2 3. the four guys on the outside drive and dish or after it has been passed down into the far corner, he can look for the big guy flashing to his side. when the ball goes to the wing in the corner it forces the bottom guy of the 2 3 to come out that allows your big guy to have a quick 1 on 1 with the middle bottom defender. when he gets it have another player flash middle. if your big guy does not have an open shot the flasher should be pretty open. Also work it around a bit make the D work when you get a defender out of position drive. when you hoist up a 3 or try to drive in the zone you are playing into the D's hands. Now to beat it with 2 big guys I place one on elbow of the key and the other on the low side opposite of him. swing it to a wing and drive this should open up the big man on the elbow. kick it to him and have whoever passed it cut right along the baseline. . . this guy should get some easy layups. those two bigmen down low are the key, they have to move alot. also send a lot of cutters through the middle, we call it cutting up a zone and it usually confuses the D after awhile. If I had a chalk board I could really break this down for you Its pretty hard to try and talk b ball over the net. you probably have no clue what I just said.
I coached a couple of years of <b>high school</b> ball-- very small private school. We ran this offense all the time. Get this, our sixth man was a <b>4th</b> grader. The kid could shoot and dribble too. Very nice kid, too. Took care of his kindergartener brother. What a human being!
