Would the Pistons took it to seven or won playing Zone?

[sickdsm]

I hate zone defense. I think its a cop out and the only thing it does is mask poor defenders and let you catch your breath. That being said, do the pistons bring the same defensive preassure if they play zone? Here's a quote by Flip today.

"The Pistons might be playing more zone," Saunders said, "taking advantage of the length of Tayshaun Prince and the athletic abilities of Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace. "My teams are teams that play intelligently and play efficiently. A team takes the personality of the players. This team is bred to be a defensive team because of the personality of the players they have. I can assure you, and anybody else that has any questions about whether we will defend or not -- we will defend. That's something I will demand of the players, and that's something they will demand of themselves." Detroit News

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.spursteam.com/photos/spurs/050625/050625_6.jpg

Radoslav doesn't think so.


http://www.spursteam.com/photos/spurs/050625/050625_7.jpg

...or, as Eva succinctly puts it.


http://www.spursteam.com/photos/spurs/050625/050625_8.jpg

[Solid D]

Not necessarily. They wouldn't have gotten away with playing a lot of zone, because the Spurs have enough play-makers and good shooters to deal with a zone. Most of the time when they faced it during the season, the Spurs' zone offense worked pretty well.

The T-Wolves played zone quite a bit and Denver pre-George Karl played it quite a bit on the Spurs. Didn't help them that much.

[Mr. Body]

Zone works in the league as a gimmick. That's why the Spurs throw it on after timeouts sometimes, to catch the other team off guard.

If a team is utterly incapable of handling it, it's effective. But like the full-court trap, once it's countered, it's countered every single time.