I have to admit, I was surprised when the Suns came out and played zone for the majority of Game 4.  I was thinking that it was going to be a one game thing where the Suns used the zone to grab the momentum and get themselves back in the series.  However, it didn’t work that way.  Coming out of halftime, the Lakers made a really nice adjustment on offense to counter the Suns’ zone.  It was up to the Suns to counter that in the fourth, and coach Alvin Gentry stepped up and did.

Third Quarter

In the third quarter, the Lakers would bring the ball up and enter it to the wing opposite of where Kobe Bryant is set up.  The purpose of this was to get the Suns’ basic zone to shift towards the ball and away from Kobe Bryant.

As they swung the ball back to the middle (and towards Kobe Bryant), the Lakers were posting up a big on the block on the same side of Kobe.  This forces the bottom man responsible for closing out on Kobe on the zone to play defense on the block (to defend the post up) before coming out and closing on Kobe.

This gives Kobe just enough time to get off a good three point look.  Let’s look at a similar play from a different angle.

Again, the Suns are in a basic zone, so the Lakers swing it to the side opposite of Kobe.

Pau Gasol is sealing on Kobe’s side, so Amar’e does what he is taught and fronts the post.

As the ball swings back to Kobe, Pau slides in front and sets a screen.  Look at all the space Kobe has as the ball gets to him.  On this specific play, Amar’e runs over Pau and the Lakers draw a foul.

The Lakers used this play to get Kobe really going.  He scored 16 points while going 3-4 behind the three point line.

Fourth Quarter

The Suns needed to do something to counter this play, and they did.  While the Suns stayed in their zone, they handled Kobe Bryant differently.  Whenever Kobe entered a zone of a Suns player, they matched up with him man to man until they were able to pass him off to a teammate.  To me, it looked like a match-up zone/box and one hybrid that the Suns were running:

In the above video, Jared Dudley starts matched up with Kobe and when Kobe flashes, he passes him off to Channing Frye.  Frye sticks with him as he makes the catch, and the Suns end up doubling him as Goran Dragić comes down to help defend Kobe.  This forces Kobe to dribble back out, and when that happens, Frye returns to his zone as Goran Dragić picks him up.  Dragić stays with him as he penetrates forcing him to kick it out with 2 seconds on the shot clock, the result is a Shannon Brown three pointer long two with his foot on the line.

So what happens if the Suns were unable to pass Kobe off to anyone.  Would they leave him?  No.  Here, Frye is occupied by Andrew Bynum as Jared Dudley stays with Kobe.  After a failed attempt at running the play that got Kobe going in the third, a frustrated Bryant cuts along the baseline following the basketball.  Because Frye was occupied with Bynum, Dudley had nobody to pass Kobe off to.  Instead of leaving him, Dudley followed Kobe to the opposite baseline, keeping the basketball out of his hands.

This was a terrific defensive adjustment by the Suns coaching staff.  Kobe Bryant was really going from the three point line last night (6-9 for the game), but the Suns were able to keep him from even attempting a three in the fourth quarter.  In fact, Kobe only had 7 (he scored 38 for the game) points in the 4th on 3-4 shooting.  This wasn’t because it was “passive Kobe” either.  This was a defense keeping the basketball out of his hands (as shown in video 2) and forcing him to pass it late in the clock so he couldn’t get it back (as shown in video 1).