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Can a Zone help?

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northeast

Well-Known Member
I know some people think playing zone is immoral... , or an admission of weakness.
but you use whatever works
and teams use the zone against us. The Spurs will, right?

So I ask the experts here....
could a zone help defend the pick and role against the Spurs?

It seems to me that the Jazz have some players who might be more effective on D in a zone, although I can see it might hurt covering the 3 point line.... but then again , the Jazz throw 3 guys at every penetration of the paint anyway. How could a zone be worse than that regarding getting out on the shooters?
 
northeast said:
I know some people think playing zone is immoral... , or an admission of weakness.
but you use whatever works
and teams use the zone against us. The Spurs will, right?

So I ask the experts here....
could a zone help defend the pick and role against the Spurs?

It seems to me that the Jazz have some players who might be more effective on D in a zone, although I can see it might hurt covering the 3 point line.... but then again , the Jazz throw 3 guys at every penetration of the paint anyway. How could a zone be worse than that regarding getting out on the shooters?
Click to expand...

Of course it would help at certain times against certain players on SA's roster. But in the end, you will start getting torched by Bonner, Green and Ginobili behind the 3 point line.
 
northeast said:
I know some people think playing zone is immoral... , or an admission of weakness.
but you use whatever works
and teams use the zone against us. The Spurs will, right?

So I ask the experts here....
could a zone help defend the pick and role against the Spurs?

It seems to me that the Jazz have some players who might be more effective on D in a zone, although I can see it might hurt covering the 3 point line.... but then again , the Jazz throw 3 guys at every penetration of the paint anyway. How could a zone be worse than that regarding getting out on the shooters?
Click to expand...

zone requeres 5 active players all working in unison.
i'm afraid a zone with big al is just gonna be a 2-2 zone defending 5 guys
 
So a zone would not enable one guy to stay near the basket and avoid having to defend pick and role or perimeter shots?
 
yea, you're the only one here. I'm not an expert on playbooks.
I assume that there are all sorts of variations on zones.
Nobody said Jeffs has to play center, he can be a F.
A zone can't be designed to effectively enable a big guy (or 2) to just stay near the basket, and let other guys go out on shooters?
 
I don't think you can hide Jefferson. Pop is just too smart. Pop is going to coach circles around Corbin. No matter what we try to cover Jefferson's mistakes the Spurs will counter and burn us. That's a large part of why they are #1 in the West, they play smart basketball, they exploit whatever the other team gives them.

The only answer as I see it is to put Jefferson on the bench and put Favors on the floor and try to grind out a low point output win.

At the very least Jefferson and Millsap shouldn't be on the floor together. Favors should be on the floor at any time Jefferson is out there IMHO.
 
We haven't used zone all season except for maybe 10-20 minutes. Now is not that time to start. Playing zone defense well takes a lot of practice and isn't good against 3pt shooting teams (the Spurs). Us trying to go zone in the playoffs might be the worst move possible.
 
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