Sam Cassell said. "The zone has helped stop Steve Francis. Take the zone rule out, and Steve is unstoppable." Zone defense is here to stay due to the internationalization of the NBA. International basketball has full zone. NCAA basketball has full zone. There's no way zone defense is going away. What does that mean? Steve Francis needs to go to a team that plays a very fast uptempo game that allows him to penetrate to the basket before the zone defenses are set in place. Mavericks have Don Nelson who is a very smart coach. The other NBA coaches who haven't used the zone defenses against the Rockets will eventually incorporate zones into their defenses in order to grind the Rocket offense to a halt. Anyone remember when the Sonics with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp were zoning the hell out of the Rockets? Read this analysis of the Sonics-Rockets matchup in the 1996-1997 playoffs. http://www.sonicscentral.com/9697.html "Game one looked like a game between teams with dramatically different levels of fatigue. The Sonics came out flat, and were on their way to getting trampled in the third quarter because of Houston's amazingly hot three-point shooting -- 15 of 28 as a team, including five out of five for Elie, four out of eight for Maloney, and three out of six for Drexler. Seattle did manage to make the final outcome respectable at 112-102 thanks to a strong fourth quarter catalyzed by little-used Snow. He came off the bench to play 17 minutes, his longest outing in months, and had seven assists. It was still not nearly enough as the Sonics' strategy of doubling Olajuwon (held to 15 points) and making the Rockets' shooters beat them failed. Game two would be different; instead of allowing the Rockets to set up in the half-court, where they were clearly better, the Sonics got out and ran, forcing the tempo, and also attacked Maloney. Hawkins, who had been a non-factor in game one, scored 21 points and made three threes, with Kemp chipping in 22 and 15 boards. The game was still in doubt in the closing minutes, but a Perkins three extended the lead to five and finished the Rockets, with the Sonics heading home with home-court advantage now theirs."
Heh, as I recall, the one team that had our number was Seattle, and they played zone even when zone was illegal. George Karl had it right -- against Houston, play zone, accept the 2-3 free shots the other team was going to get from the illegal defense call, and recognize that there's a good chance that your zone screwing up the offense was more than going to make up for it. And it worked -- you'll notice (iirc) that the two years we won the championship, we did not go through Seattle... and (iirc) the years before and after the championships, it was Seattle that knocked us out of the playoffs. Don't kid yourself, even then the Rockets couldn't handle a zone.
Totally disagree. The inside-out offense is not predicated on getting post isolation; often the reverse. But you have to start it there. JVG saying we won't get iso and your saying we shouldn;t go there are two seperate issues.
Dallas zone didn't beat the Rockets, the refs did. Hence I say boo the refs till they make a good call at Toyota center.
or pass and drive.... look at this play and decide for yourslef if this (or variations thereof) can be used to help make the zone pay.. Yao to SF
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=240220018 The Jazz employed a zone defense for long stretches and dared the Knicks to beat them from outside, and New York couldn't do it as Allan Houston (sore knee) missed his ninth consecutive game. "We always play teams that way. If we keep teams from getting layups and we get layups, that's to our advantage," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "We know if we can't handle them in certain situations, we've got to try and make them shoot over the top."
That IS how you beat a zone. Notice that they overloaded one side, and kept Yao out top to draw some big guys away. But, the key is to be QUICK AND DECISIVE, and not to let the defense react. The obvious weakness of the zone is that it relies on the entire defense playing together, thus there are more opportunities for those defenders to make individual mistakes, which are much more COSTLY in a zone, rather than a man-to-man (which is probably why the Rockets could never play zone... too many individual mistakes). But, as JVG said, you must react fast to the zone, and make quick decisions... when you do that against a zone, good things can happen. We have a quick PG, who is athletic... but its his decisiveness that's holding him back.
Dirk and Najera can easily stop that play, I guess they are just too lazy to move since it was a blow-out. You just don't dribble the ball all over the court against a zone.
Huh? he didnt drible all over the cort....duh.. he inbounded to Yao...and then took off for the other side of the court without the ball.....as he got to where Yao passed it back to him outside the 3pt line...he immediatley drove to the basket...
I saw the video. That play was with 30 seconds left in the game. Mavericks played almost zero defense at that point.
I'm talk about the plays in general. Yes, that particular play was well executed, but it was only because of the defensive slack they had during the last few minutes, and those kind of error won't occur too often.
If Steve was that decisive earlier in the game... when the game was still in doubt... he'd at least draw a few foul calls from the big men coming over to help. Sure it was garbage time... so they let him dunk. BUT, had it been earlier in the game, the speed at which this play was run would have made it effective, as the Mavs have no great/quick shotblocker who'd come over and swat it. Plus, had Najera and Dirk left their men, Steve had Yao and JJ under the basket. The key is the quickness prevented Finley and Howard (the other guys) from collapsing down in the paint as well.
exactly Nick... irregardless of whether or not they were lazy coming over to guard that play....it is just one example of plays that can be effective in defeating the zone when run correctly. the spacing of the rest of the team...along with Yao being set high to pass...opened up a huge lane for the drive...and if they had come over to defend it....they would have ended up fouling the driver...or opening up someone else for a secondary drive or shot. they should have done alot more driving and slashing to put the defense back onits heels... it isnt like we have noone that is capable of doing it...cat and SF are both good drivers....and Boki and JJ are also good at slashing. I know one thing for sure...they better be working on nothing but zone busting in what little time they have to practice for the next week.
er, uh, high percentage shooting? A player that can "consistently" light it up from the outside can, single-handedly, destroy a zone. If the Rockets could just hit their "open" jumpers they could significantly alter their opponent's defense, but they can't.
Hopefully... but knowing the mental capacity of these guys, they might forget all the plays they ran against the traditional defense if they have to learn the zone as well. I think, at least for the rest of the regular season, we'll have to put up with the sporadic/mediocre play against the zone. They'll still beat teams that use it because those teams will be horrible enough... but they won't beat Memphis and Dallas any time soon, provided they keep up the high energy on the zone. If we face one of these teams in the playoffs, however... it will be a different story. Preparation is underrated, and that is what I have the most confidence in JVG, Rudy, or any other coach who's had playoff success... their abilities to gameplan, especially when you're only playing one opponent for possibly seven games.
Were you watching the Rockets when they got swept by the Sonics in the 1996 playoffs? Sonics used zone to turn that series into a 3 point contest. Sonics shot 20 of 27 from 3 point land in Game 2. Rockets better have the gunners to take advantage of the open jumpers to beat the zones. Look at what the Jazz did to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden when they employed a zone defense with an emphasis on stopping dribble drives into the paint.
You are right. That's why the effectiveness of point guards like Baron Davis, Stephon Marbury, Allen Iverson, Gilbert Arenas, and Steve Francis have been reduced greatly. Guys like Bibby and Nash have had their careers explode with the incorporation of zone principles establishing a necessity to have the point guard with a jumpshot. Mark Jackson sucks from outside. I'm no longer in favor of him going in the game.
Davis and possibly Marbury are having career years. Is Iverson playing the point? I thought that was just while SNow was out. There are several ways to beat the zone, and many have been discussed here; However, as I said, we only have the personel to consistently utilize one of them; forcing the post. The others depend upon decision making, passing,vision, and the ability to hit outside shooting consistently. We have none of thse...so we can keep trying to run what we can't do, or we can whine about what we don't have....or we can go with what we do have. Seems pretty clear to me.
