It may be a little early - but assuming we get a defensive minded center who can rebound and hold the paint - I think we should take a serious look at playing a significant amount of Zone defense. Our starting lineup (as it is constructed right now) has a few below average defenders and the zone may help cover their weaknesses.
Is the idea of a zone defense in Houston still a joke to you? I mean, Dallas just used it to slow down the three superstars of Miami and win a NBA Title- not really a big feat...
Have you really been stewing over this for 11 days? Anyways...yeah I guess we can take a look at it. But in the NBA it can't be the main defense we use.
Zone works when a team has no true, consistent shooters...like the Miami Heat. To have it in your repertoire is great in today's NBA, but to use it as your base defense all the time will get you run out of the league.
I'd think about it if we had a serious shotblocker to funnel penetration towards in a 1-3-1 or something like that. Otherwise, pass. This isn't college, you can't have a base zone D, the spacing is too good, the ball reversals too quick. An occasional gimmick zone look just to mix things up would be okay I guess, but straight-up man-to-man is always your best bet, as long as you have the right combination of effort and communication.
If Thabeet pans out to resemble even an old Mutombo, we won't have to worry. Right now though with a 6'6" starting center we need to be thinking outside the box.
we should play a 2-2 zone at all times, have our 5th player on our end all the time ready to cherry pick when the other team misses.
I'm not sure we should play zone a significant amount of time, but I'm definitely down for throwing it out there to confuse opposing offenses if they're starting to heat up or something like that. Always good to have a large amount of options to choose from.
The problem is that well, the Heat and Thunder are not great shooting teams. So while a zone may be more effective at times in the postseason against certain teams, you can't expect to depend on it over the long term regular season. That means you need better interior defense. That's the important thing above all.
Wade and James have no skill set to handle even the half pseudo zone that is allowed in the NBA. In international basketball, they have never been able to score against any teams that used zone. The zone can be very effective, even with the half zone that the NBA allows, but using the Heat as the template is a poor example. Because their top 2 offensive options lack the skills to really break a zone down.
This aint college ball or youth ball where you can shut a less talented team down with the zone. This is the NBA, a mans game. Man to Man defense is the bread and butter. Theses guys get paid millions, they better be guarding someone and not just a space.
You do realize that zone defense was invented to "shut a more talented team down." Not "less" as you said. A less talented team you just outscore and go home. I think Dallas is maybe one of the first teams that showed any success with zone in the playoffs. Carlisle is awesome...and that assistant we want. But I wonder how much that was getting player buy-in as a consistent 4th q way to believe in themselves. They seriously got more energized in the 4th q. Fockass
