The Zone Will Work Against The Heat, But Only In Stretches
With three of the top ten players in the NBA, the Miami Heat might end up seeing a lot of zone defense this year. This seems logical because teams have trouble defending guys like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh when they were the lone All-Stars on their team, and now they are playing together. Few teams (if any) have three high quality individual defenders good enough to stop these guys one on one, so the zone is the next best option. So how will the 2-3 zone work against a team like the Heat next year?
Since the Heat haven’t played any games yet, I figured we could look at Team USA’s performance in the 2008 Olympics. Now I know that the two players that are going to be playing with James, Wade, and Bosh on the Heat won’t be Olympic quality, I know that the teams playing against them are better than Australia, Greece, and Argentina, and I know that the Heat’s coaching staff won’t have two Hall of Fame college coaches to help break down the zone for NBA guys. However, this is the closest we can get to seeing how a high-quality team operates against a zone defense, and what I took away from watching Team USA’s Olympic performance is that the zone will work against the Heat, but only in stretches.
Why It Will Work
When the zone worked against Team USA in the Olympics, it was because it got them to stand around and just pass the ball around the perimeter. Here, Team USA is just going through the motions on offense, making pass after pass after pass, just allowing for the Spanish zone to rotate and stay in front of their man. There are no penetrating or attacking dribbles, and that is exactly what Spain wants. They want to see the ball being passed around like this rather than having a LeBron James or a Dwyane Wade taking their man to the basket and either finishing or kicking it out to an open teammate.
