zone defense on Kobe Bryant : Video Compilation

[Slava]

Video analysis

This is a pretty good compilation of the way teams stack up their zone against Kobe Bryant and how noticeably hard it is for him to get dribble penetration. Found it on LG. Credit to the uploader.

[Patterns]

Hi, Patterns here. I was the guy whom people called me (Please Use More Appropriate Word) when I made that thread "Not this year for the Lakers".

In that thread, I said one of our weaknesses, besides Pau's softness was Lamar Odom's shooting. I said those 2 things were going to prevent us from winning the championship.

Anyways, the point is, Kobe faces the zone is because of Lamar Odom. When people pack the lane and double, triple, Kobe, he will pass the ball to Lamar who will ALWAYS be wide open like what we did to Rondo. I said against a smart Celtic defense, the Lakers are doomed because of Lamar. You see how effective Kobe was when he had 4 other 3pt shooters in the game? The problem is, we can't play d when we have 4 3 point shooters.

[Slava]

Thats a good point there. Lamar doesn't necessarily have to shoot the 3 to counter the zone defense. A smart cut here and there will most likely get him a dunk or a lay up to keep defenses honest but yeah a good defender capable of shooting the 3 could be really wonderful for this team.

[Italianhanger]

nice find

[SashAlex]

The zone defense also killed us in 2004 Finals when it was being used against Shaq !

[SashAlex]

Man, Battier is so annoying putting his hand right in Kobe's face !!
I hate defense ! Its boring, but at the same time it brings success.

Footbal ( soccer ! Why do the americans call our footbal soccer ? It's from foot and ball, round ball... ), basketball, hockey, even Nadal with his great defense ! A lot more teams nowadays use a pragmatic way of playing a game ! It's not just about basketball, it's about every other sports !

Physicall toughness is dominating ! Look how athletic are footbal( soccer ) players in comparison with those from 15 - 30 years ago.

[milesfides]

Re: Jordan's era: I think people exaggerate the defense of the late 80s and early 90s like crazy. The way some people make it out to be, back in the 80s, perimeter players were molested, physically assaulted, gangbanged. Yeah, right.

1. There always was a hand-checking rule. There's been several adjustments in how it's interpreted, but at the same time, the referees haven't shown any particular consistency imo. The NBA during the mid 90s started to interpret it so that it would speed up the game (disallowing hand checking from the backcourt to opposite free throw line). But fouls were still fouls. Reaching in was always reaching in. A push was always a push. Baskeball is a contact sport, there will always be contact between players, and that creates room for interpretation by the refs. That's why players and coaches talk about "how the referees were calling it tonight" and plead for consistency: "call it both ways."

Anyways, how the hell can Bruce Bowen, who Phil called Edward Scissorhands, build a reputation as one of the league's best defenders with his hands and physicality if the rules really eliminated hand-checking? Or Artest? Or any other perimeter defender in this league?

At the same time, Dwayne Wade wins a championship for the Heat because the refs decide upon a strict interpretation of the hand-checking and perimeter contact rules.

There's just a lot of inconsistency, game-to-game.

2. Moreover, it goes both ways - the NBA penalizes offensive players for 'unnatural motions'. Also, if an offensive player uses his hand to impede or brush off the defender, that's a quick offensive foul.

3. The gimmicky defenses the NBA now allows is far more tough on perimeter players than a tightened hand-check rule. Penetration is much more easily stopped, and post entry passes are much more easily discouraged. In Jordan's era, let's say hand-checking was to a certain extent allowed more than it is now. Ok. But like that would stop great offensive players? Heck no. Bruce Bowen and his scissor hands can't stop Kobe. Nor can Artest. But defenses are now allowed to get away with soft zones, which are far more difficult for perimeter players.

Re: Lakers and Kobe

That's why a guy like Posey or another good-shooting small forward won't change the Lakers' offense at all. They won't change how defenses load up on Kobe. The biggest change the Lakers can make is adding a legit ballhandling/passing guard. Kobe wouldn't have to get through five players. The other guard would quickly exploit any overplay on Kobe by passing to the open man and generating ball movement. Or taking advantage himself and going to the hole or taking the open shot.

Kobe driving and kicking is nice, but then we'll ultimately live or die by our perimeter shooters. That's what defenses want.

We need to generate quality shots from offensive execution, and so far, there is nothing about this team that tells me the Lakers can execute without Kobe as the primary facilitator. We saw the limits of that against Boston in the Finals.

Get another capable guard in the backcourt, and our offense has a much higher rate of success, especially under duress, and we'll find Kobe in the kill zone more often, instead of playing point guard.

[magicbesteva]

this video just proves Kobe's greatness. we're all lucky to be able to watch him play and have him on the lakers. After it's all said and done he'll go down as one of the greatest to ever play

[DEEP3CL]

OK that was a good find by the OP, but here are 3 reasons zones will be non-effective against Kobe in the future.

1. The Development of Andrew
The more power he develops in his low post game will open up the driving lanes for Kobe thus rendering doubling Kobe useless. Teams will now have to worry about rotations instead of pre-zoning Kobe. The ball in Drew's hands to start the offense will determine how the defense reacts. Note that most of that footage was pre Pau, even though Boston zoned Kobe because of Pau's inability to be a primary post option that operated with power. Also once Drew develops into a deft passer out of the double this is what I saying about defenses having to worry about rotations.

2.No More Doubts About The PF
Seeing that this problem is solved with the Pau trade, Lamar no slides to the SF spot. In Pau the Lakers have a legit 7 footer who can pull the other PF away from the strong side. Rendering him useless in help situations. Pau can hit the 15 to 17 foot elbow shot when he's on his game. This will also help Drew in more ways then one, first being his ability to cut off of Drew which could lead to a kick out if Pau sees one open. In basketball the second and some times third pass is more difficult to defend once the defense has to rotate.

3.A Consistent Out Side Threat
The last component to diffuse a zone. Either Jordan, Sasha ( if he's still with us ), Vlad or anybody must fill this role to a T. If none of them can do it then Mitch know what his next trade will be...............a SHOOTER. Mike Miller would've been nice until he landed in the hands of the most hate GM we know in Kevin McHale. Kobe must have a option 1 to go to if teams continue to deploy a zone. In reality with all that I stated above it's going to be very hard for teams to defend the Lakers like that next season. Bottom line is either we continue to draft well or clear cap space and unload dead weight players to find a pure shooter. Sounds crazy but Barbosa could be an option if the rumors are true about him.

[DubaLakers]

What rumors Deep?

[milesfides]

DEEP3CL, good points, but it's still not a given that Bynum will possess that power game in the post. As far as I remember, Bynum was mostly getting his high percentage baskets off alley-oops, broken plays, over the head passes, essentially defensive mistakes from the opponent.

Certain opponents know how to put a body on him and make him work. Kendrick Perkins and the Celtics did that, and Bynum struggled. Bynum has yet to develop a consistent back-to-the-basket move, which is why most of his points are still generated by other players, usually plays created by Kobe. Until Bynum develops a reliable post game, he won't be able to punish Perkins, nor would he command a double-team.

That's a lot to be taken for granted, however. Bynum's been hurt, and I'm not sure how much his post game will have progressed when next season starts.

Pau needs to hit the midrange. I don't know why he didn't against the Celtics. He did take a few, and he generally didn't make them. If Gasol were able to hit that midrange jumper, he would extend defenses. But he didn't. Perhaps getting Bynum back would allow Gasol to be more comfortable in taking that shot.

I think we have plenty of capable three-point shooters. They can miss though. Our 3-pointers missed a lot of shots against the Celtics, but I won't take it for granted that they'll make em next time. I'm not sure the answer is more or better 3-point shooters. Ours were pretty darn good and we have a lot of them.

I think it's a flaw in the system though, to continue to rely on them. Good outside shooting is a key to busting a zone, but not the only one.

Ball-movement, cuts, mirco-managing plays, many factors can break a zone. Over-emphasis on 3-point shooting can lead to living and dying by the jumper, which is exactly what happened to our team. Our offense was probing the defense and moving the ball until we got a three-point shot attempt. Again and again. We're playing right into their hands. Instead of looking for other shooters, I think we need to see why our shooters shot so poorly. Because there was too much pressure on them to hit shots. That was almost our primary offense.

We need to instead focus on getting Kobe the ball behind the line of defense, where he can be a much more efficient scorer. That requires another capable ballhandler/passer. We also need somebody who can punish defenses when they're overplaying Kobe, denying him the ball, doubling him, etc.. That ballhandler/passer must be able to read the defense and react, make decisions.

Because our 3-point shots didn't come within the flow of the offense. They were bail-outs.

[DEEP3CL]

What rumors Deep?

Word is Phoenix is looking to move him or I should say D'Antoni wants him in New York. But seeing that the Knicks are strapped by their cap in ways much worse then us I doubt it will happen. In reality it's wishful thinking because Phoenix wont dare pull a trade with us now that we've surpass them for the status of elite.

[DEEP3CL]

Good points miles, and your right about it being more ways to bust a zone besides out side shooting. I've always been a believer that the post is the most difficult to defend when you have a strong post player.

Guys who demand a double at all times. People alway compare the defenses of the 80's-90's to the defenses of today and say MJ would have torched todays defenses. Remember they didn't remove the hand checking rule until mid way thru MJ's career. Then the league modified the Illegal Defense rules after the Lakers won the title in 2001. This illegal 3 second rule sucks because they don't enforce it.

Now that the Finals are over I'll say it and defend it, the Celtics played and illegal zone all series. Until the league better trains it's officials to recognize the defenses that teams are deploying and realize whats legal and whats illegal teams will continue to get away with it.

Todays defenses are way more intricate then in the 80's and 90's. When you see guys getting doubled without the ball then something is wrong. Thats the type of stuff you see in rec-leagues with kids being told to double the other teams best player so he wont hurt them.

You have new zones like the Triangle & 2 that just throws teams out of order. It wont be long before you see NBA teams use it. It's a double edge sword so to speak, owners like scoring to keep the crowds entertained but coaches now coach defense more then offense to keep their jobs.

I can name a bunch of coaches who were once great offensive coaches but transformed into defensive guys because they lost jobs by not winning with their offense. So the second time around they switch emphasis to defense. This is why believe it or not, Phil is going to have to adapt to the "new ways " of the NBA and either hire a defensive minded ex-player to orchestrate the defense.

A retread assistant isn't the answer, an ex player who recently finished is. Remember when Scottie Pippen was in camp a few years back ? One day Scottie, Gary Payton and guys like Bruce Bowen will make great up and coming coaches because they understand the present NBA. Defense ain't going nowhere people deal with it.