Want to know how to run zone defense in basketball?
A few years ago, I joined a rec league team with my friends.
They had played the previous season, but it was my first time playing with them.
As we were warming up, one of my friends told me that we were going to run a 2-3 zone defense.
I had an idea of what zone defense was. I heard that term before, but I’ve never actually run it.
I was used to playing man-to-man defense, where each player guarded a specific opponent.
So, the first few times on defense, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know who my assignments were.
I was just kinda guarding the nearest open player.
My teammates kept screaming, “that’s your guy! Get to him!” Or “you gotta communicate better.”
And not gonna lie -that kinda hurt my feelings. I didn’t know what I was doing and no one explained to me how it worked.
Anywhoo, I was frustrated about it so I did some research when I got home. I went onto YouTube and did a quick search.
Here’s what I learned:
2-3 Zone Defense
2-3 zone defense is when you have two players defending the top of the perimeter (top of the key and wings) and three players defending the bottom of the perimeter (low block to corner) and the paint.
This type of zone defense is best used against teams that like to attack the basket and aren’t the best at shooting threes.
3-2 Zone Defense
3-2 zone defense is when there are three players defending the top of the perimeter and two players defending the bottom of the perimeter and the paint.
This type of zone defense is best used against teams that don’t have a strong paint presence but can shoot 3-pointers well.
After doing this “extensive” research, I was curious about the benefits of zone defense.
So, again, I did a quick search and here’s what I found.
According to Masterclass, the advantages of zone defense are that it requires less energy to implement and it’s harder for offenses to exploit weak defenders because there’s always help defense around.
However, they also listed some flaws in this defensive scheme.
They say that because of how it is set up, there’s no on-ball pressure, which lets opponents determine the pace of the game. Additionally, it often causes mismatches as shorter players have to regularly box out taller players.
Final Thoughts
Zone defense is a good scheme for teams that don’t have a lot of skilled players. It’s also good for when you want to confuse and disrupt the offense.
Hopefully, this article helped you learn what zone defense is and how to use it so that your feelings won’t get hurt like mine did.
