Zone Offense Options

"Good artists borrow; great artists steal." - Picasso 

It seems unthinkable that developmental basketball coaches play almost exclusively zone defense to maximize their chances of winning. Devoting much time to combat zone defenses seems counter-intuitive. I would estimate that we probably faced 80 percent zone defense last season, mostly 2-3 zone. 

In addition to the usual principles (dribble into gaps, ball reversal, flash into gaps, post-up, and screens), we can steal working actions from other programs. 


This video highlights some approaches. 

In this "horns" approach, the 1 gets a middle attack into passing options. In the video they use a post give-and-go. 

In this diagram of Tom Izzo's MSU 'X', 1 moves the zone and then 4 and 5 set diagonal screens to give the wing an attack on the middle of a zone. This creates a great midrange shot, inside pick-and-roll, or pass across.