Score Better Against Zone Defense

Happy Friday to all of you positive energy individuals.

You may be one of the many coaches and players that see a zone defense and feel like you have to change everything you are doing. This is a MISTAKE and the exact reason your opponent is using a zone. They want to change the flow of the game and make you adjust to them. Don’t, here’s the most common mistakes teams and players make when facing a zone…

Eliminate these four limiting beliefs (+ a bonus) and you’ll be delighted with the results.

1. Don’t Forget to Drive

Basketball is a game of opposites. When a team goes Zone they are doing so to plug the paint and take away shots at the rim. It’s harder to drive, but that also means you should be more aggressive in doing so. Most ineffective Zone offense just trims the edges, passing the ball from side to side without causing the defense to collapse.

This will result in long possessions, limited advantages and play into the style the defense is attempting to impose on the game.

Drive the zone, engage two defenders before passing, this will create advantage catches for plus 1 passes, long closeouts and more open shots.

Drives will not result in shots, but will result in small advantages, and that’s why you should eagerly hunt drives.

2. Don’t Get Passive, Shoot Aggressively (and chase the rebound)

We were playing in the NCAA Tournament, and were down at half to a team that was zoning us. The players were arguing about why we were losing and how to attack the zone.

Our head coach walked in, and silenced the group.

“Do you want to know the secret to beating their zone?” he asked.

We all did, so he said, “Make more shots.” then he walked out. We did and we won. Teams tend to pass up open 3s they would enthusiastically take against a man, but second guess when playing vs. a zone. WHY?!

This is the game against a zone, they will give you OPEN 3s, that’s a great shot, shoot it aggressively with confidence, shoot it early, shoot through misses, don’t allow the different look, some misses or the fact you are more open than normal to impact your aggressiveness to shoot.

Coaches, you must model and trust this appraoch, your screaming to “get a better shot” when you miss a wide open three, hinders your shooters from having an aggressive mindset.

Bonus, zones tend to defensive rebound at a lower rate, adopt a shoot and chase mentality, consider sending more players to the offensive glass and more aggressively. O rebounds are a great way to get shots closer to the rim against a zone. It’s harder for a defensive player to hit a crasher on a rebound.

3. Don’t Flash, Flank & Burn

Stop sitting a player at the high post against a zone. It’s a common mistake, and limits your ability to drive. Also most players who catch the ball there are not threats, have their back to the basket and those entry passes are often turnovers.

Instead sit them on the porch (short corner) and flank the zone to get your cuts to the middle of the zone downhill and collapse the defense that way. Here’s a video I made on the topic. Step the porch out wide, even to the corner, and dive the ball side wing to the 2nd hash mark, they’re either open or collapse the zone. Then you have a blast cut down to the wing for an advantage catch. Drive or shoot as mentioned above. You have quick advantages against most zones with no forced passes.

Don’t Panic, Step Up Screen

Don’t change everything you do when you face a zone. This is inefficient and limits your practice time on each thing. I love using a Step Up screen against a man or zone. So you can train one action to create advantages for any defense.

On a zone, put your best shooter in the corner, as you swing the ball from attack spot to attack spot, you bring your porch up to screen the ball to the outside of the court on the catch. As the ball handler attacks from the outside, the corner defender makes a decision, stop ball or stay on the corner shooter. Either way the D is wrong. The higher you can set the screen, the faster you can set the screen and the more action you can run before the step up will create bigger advantages.

We go in depth on this action in our Race and Space Offense course, you can get that and more in our app here.  

None of these four things will be a silver bullet to score against a zone every time. They are merely better ways to create the advantage that leads to the layup or the advantage that leads to the advantage that leads to the high value shot.

5. Bonus: Don’t Panic, Welcome Traps

Many teams panic against a trapping 1-3-1 or a team that traps the first pass out of a zone. Remember, we welcome the traps. We would normally try all sorts of things to force a second defender to the ball and create an advantage catch. Traps should lead to great offense because it's going to get us into a four on three situation and that's hard to get against the zone. It's going to allow us to get the ball to the world, which is hard to get against a zone. We have to be able to be able to trust that we've taught advantage basketball and let them ATTACK that first pass out of the trap.

All the above mistakes come from a lack of attacking the zone, and a passive mindset. Trust the work you’ve done with your advantage offense. All these mistakes come from playing passive. That’s what a zone defense wants, to create a fearful and careful offense.

Basketball is a game of opposites! So get more aggressive against a zone, you’ll be glad you did.

If you want to deep dive your zone offense, I’d be glad to help you, just book a discovery call here and we can put together a plan to help you attack zone’s like never before.

I’m Tyler and I’m here to help.