zone defense

July 23, 2018

How coaches should defend their opponents

Some teams have exclusively used man-to-man defense for several years. Other squads may employ a 2-3 zone year-in and year-out. Why? Have you ever analyzed why coaches use the defenses that they do? For example, most coaches early in their careers u...


March 12, 2018

Creating a pressure mentality

Our program’s philosophy is to run on offense and pressure the ball on defense. We do that through a combination of zone presses — including the 1-2-1-1 and 2-2-1 — but our bread and butter is our man defense in the half court, which we work on...


March 5, 2018

Defeating 1-3-1 and 1-2-2 zone defenses

If offenses are patient, no defenses are easier to attack than the 1-3-1 and 1-2-2 zones. The old rule for zone offenses is to put your players where there are no defenders, and that rule is as true today as it ever was. In this offense, the players ...


April 26, 2017

10 tips for breaking zone defense

This article looks at offensive concepts against the zone defense. Rather than provide specific plays or actions to run, I want to look at certain concepts that enable you to tailor your offenses to fit your personnel, your style and the variations o...