The Zone Defense

[Blackjack]

The Zone was borne of necessity, not of any great stroke of genius. As I alluded to and Harlem expounded upon, the Spurs' perimeter D is very much a question mark and tonight was really the first time we really saw them get exposed.

They've managed to do just enough with Hill, Ginobili, Neal and Anderson (early on in the season), but they still lack the needed size and quickness on the perimeter to combat the elite 2/3s.

That's why as much as I've enjoyed this start and how much I've been encouraged by the team's collective grit, I'm still concerned with this team's championship potential if Splitter and Anderson aren't both capable of fulfilling the team's needs or the team's incapable of trading to fulfill those two needs.

But again, you gotta give credit where credit is due.

Down 9, team playing on their heels and looking like they're going to give away a key game with a tough road game tomorrow in Orlando, and you throw out a lineup of Quinn, Neal, Ginobili, Bonner and Splitter, and you go zone; when they've been killing you with the 3?

Big Nuts . . .

[timvp]

Spurs' defense is really starting to concern me, even more than usual..

- The perimeter D is worse than the interior D at this point..

Parker's D was promising for the first 2-3 weeks of the season, but he has regressed IMO..he's still good at playing the passing lanes and picking up steals, but his 1 on 1 D and team D has been poor since his hot start..

Ginobili's D, outside of the passing lanes and picking up steals, has been atrocious all year..he constantly gets beat, and he's usually late on his rotations, just like last year..I don't know if it's because he has so much responsibility on offense, or because he isn't giving effort on D, but he needs to start playing defense..

None of the other perimeter defenders are consistent..Anderson better be good, defensively, he's the only potentially good defender on the perimeter..

- Spurs make horrible decisions defensively..

They overplay too many players IMO..stupid double teams, playing too close on the perimeter, a lot of gambling..

- Blair..he's arguably the worst defensive big man in the NBA, he is going to be exploited by any good coach..his 1 on 1 post D has improved, but his rotations are still disgusting, and his defensive IQ is extremely low..

Good points but I disagree with your assessment of Parker's defense. He has been pretty damn good defensively this season. I was just looking at 82games earlier in the day to see if the stats back up the fact that TP is having a very good defensive season and the numbers do back it up.

He's holding opposing point guards to an eFG% of around 40%, which is sick. He's also holding opposing PGs to a PER of around 12, which is also very damn good ... especially considering he's going up against starters most of the time.

Just to compare how good Parker's defense has been, look at the stats against Hill. Opposing PGs have a eFG% of 51% against him and a PER of 17.4. And that's even worse than it looks on paper because he's defending backup point guards most of the time.

Parker suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked defensively tonight against the Nuggets but his D this year has been borderline All-NBA level.

[Hemotivo]

I think you all need to chill out. I did my damn job. It may not be pretty, but I got it done.

Oh yea, I'm not ugly. I am beautiful to watch. Even if I had a bad hair day.... UGLY!

[Yorae]

Without hill i guess the perimeter defense suffers so much....Pop had to gamble. Thank god it's the nuggets. I guess we have to employ a lot of zone drills to improve it..

[timvp]

In fairness, Tony's D always sucks in the middle of the year. He's always been a MUCH better playoff defender than regular season.

True. Parker's defense during the regular season usually is pretty damn bad. And he usually picks it up in the postseason. But as of yet, I've only seen Parker's defense lower to "typical regular season" level a few games so far this season.

Although I'm sure we will see a streak of bored defense out of TP at some poitn . . .

Without hill i guess the perimeter defense suffers so much....Pop had to gamble. Thank god it's the nuggets. I guess we have to employ a lot of zone drills to improve it..

The Spurs missed Hill's athleticism. Without Hill, the Spurs suddenly become a below average team in terms of athleticism. Without Hill, there was really no one to put on JR Smith when he was going off.

[DieHardSpursFan1537]

At least they won.

[DMC]

I can see it now, every team we face is undergoing a transition and their stars are out for some reason, so we get another ring with an asterisk. sucks..

[Cant_Be_Faded]

I think we are witnessing a cause-and-effect of No Hill and Spurs perimeter defense.

The stats don't seem to back it up but as far as the product on the court goes....it's a definite correlation...

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Also this is yet another point of contrast between the Spurs and the Mavs.

Rick Carlisle has gone on record saying he wants to make the Mavs the best team at Zone Defense when they need to use it.

And they are doing it.

[jag]

Also this is yet another point of contrast between the Spurs and the Mavs.

Rick Carlisle has gone on record saying he wants to make the Mavs the best team at Zone Defense when they need to use it.

And they are doing it.

The difference is that the Mavs know how to run the zone. And Tyson Chandler allows the zone to be a little more flexible contesting 3-point shooters.

[TD 21]

Spurs' defense is really starting to concern me, even more than usual..

It's annoying and frustrating, but I'd be more concerned if they were playing their best defensive personnel and still struggling. Given the rotation they're currently going with, it's a minor miracle they're a top ten defensive team, in terms of efficiency.

We're not going to see shut down, vintage Spurs style defense out of this roster, but if they can be top ten without playing their best defensive personnel and with certain guys probably holding back some, then they can probably play close to top five defense if/when they start playing their best defensive personnel and everyone is going all out.

The Spurs missed Hill's athleticism. Without Hill, the Spurs suddenly become a below average team in terms of athleticism. Without Hill, there was really no one to put on JR Smith when he was going off.

Hill AND Anderson. Also, Ginobili in particular knows he's going to play more minutes and shoulder more of an offensive burden with Hill out, so naturally he's probably not going as hard defensively.

[duncan228]

“I feel bad because I couldn’t help my team as much as I should against the zone situation,” Nuggets coach George Karl said. “I think if we had made some shots early they would have gone away from it. We didn’t have a lot of cohesiveness against their zone attack.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap?gid=2010122224

[urunobili]

timvp how do you fare Splitter + Duncan combination?

[Yorae]

Hill is the new bowen. No not defensive skill wise but our dependence on him to be decent on perimeter d.

[TDMVPDPOY]

timvp how do you fare Splitter + Duncan combination?

any of these combinations on the court is a win win situation for us, cause the veteran is able to cover the young bigs weakness whether its man2man or help defense.

duncan/blair, duncan/splitter, duncan/bonner
mcdyness/blair, mcd/splitter, mcd/bonner....

i dont want to see a duo of bonner/blair/splitter on the court at the same time, thats just asking for a thrashing...


as for perimeter defense im not concern cause ghill3 was out again, quin and neal has been playing good defense but slow on switches, at leasts they dont gamble on steals like gino and parker....

[roycrikside]

People need to calm down. Hill's one of our best defensive players and he didn't play at all. Dice is probably our second best defensive big and he played three minutes, saving him for Orlando. Timmy only played 27 mins, as he too was saving something for Howard.

If this was a must-win game, we would've played Denver differently. , in a playoff game, Hill probably would've gutted it out on his bad foot.

I thought Denver actually had a lot better ball movement because Anthony was out. He's usually a ball stopper.

[duncan228]

Seldom-seen zone saves Spurs
Mike Monroe

...“Yes, that’s the most zone we’ve played since I’ve been here,” said Manu Ginobili, a member of the team since 2002. “Probably not the full fourth quarter, but most. And it worked.

“Sometimes against a zone, it’s hard to get them to stop making 3s. We contested well, they missed a couple, and we got the rebounds. Huge fourth quarter. I’m still kind of in shock.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursna...e-saves-spurs/

[TDMVPDPOY]

I thought Denver actually had a lot better ball movement because Anthony was out. He's usually a ball stopper.

keep lawson, nene and birdman

they should be findin a way to trade billups, kmart and smith to rebuild around the 3....

[crc21209]

Spurs' defense is really starting to concern me, even more than usual..

- The perimeter D is worse than the interior D at this point..

Parker's D was promising for the first 2-3 weeks of the season, but he has regressed IMO..he's still good at playing the passing lanes and picking up steals, but his 1 on 1 D and team D has been poor since his hot start..

Ginobili's D, outside of the passing lanes and picking up steals, has been atrocious all year..he constantly gets beat, and he's usually late on his rotations, just like last year..I don't know if it's because he has so much responsibility on offense, or because he isn't giving effort on D, but he needs to start playing defense..

None of the other perimeter defenders are consistent..Anderson better be good, defensively, he's the only potentially good defender on the perimeter..

- Spurs make horrible decisions defensively..

They overplay too many players IMO..stupid double teams, playing too close on the perimeter, a lot of gambling..

- Blair..he's arguably the worst defensive big man in the NBA, he is going to be exploited by any good coach..his 1 on 1 post D has improved, but his rotations are still disgusting, and his defensive IQ is extremely low..

Watching the game live was even worse. The Nuggets took it to the rack it seemed every single time...which resulted in either a layup/dunk, a kickout for a wide open 3, or a foul call. It was absolutely horrendous to watch. Playing TD and Splitter together seemed to help some, but not completely. And I agree with you 100%, I HATE double-teaming guys who are not double-team worthy. I mean really, TD on Nene...and you bring a double team? Why? All it did was result in a wide open 3-pointer every single time...Not good. Hopefully this is fixed sooner rather than later...

[HarlemHeat37]

I don't mind double teams when they're smart and strategically sound..

The double on Nene wasn't to help Duncan, it was because Nene is poor at handling the double team..one of the double teams was successful, because somebody came over from Nene's blind side(I don't remember which Spur, maybe Parker?), and forced a bad play from him..

The other double team on Nene(that I remember) was poor and predictable, it came from Jefferson, and it led to a wide open 3 from Denver, because Jefferson's help D didn't affect Nene at all, and he was waiting for it..

I absolutely hated when they double teamed Billups, even in the post, despite the fact that Billups has a tough time scoring at all this year..one of the doubles I remember was Manu overplaying Billups on the help, leaving JR Smith(I think it was him) completely wide open for 3, which Billups was waiting for..

The Spurs have had this problem for the past 2 years..low IQ on D and strange strategies..this team doesn't have enough athletes to close out on rotations if they mess up a gamble, so it needs to be done properly and intelligently..

[crc21209]

I don't mind double teams when they're smart and strategically sound..

The double on Nene wasn't to help Duncan, it was because Nene is poor at handling the double team..one of the double teams was successful, because somebody came over from Nene's blind side(I don't remember which Spur, maybe Parker?), and forced a bad play from him..

The other double team on Nene(that I remember) was poor and predictable, it came from Jefferson, and it led to a wide open 3 from Denver, because Jefferson's help D didn't affect Nene at all, and he was waiting for it..

I absolutely hated when they double teamed Billups, even in the post, despite the fact that Billups has a tough time scoring at all this year..one of the doubles I remember was Manu overplaying Billups on the help, leaving JR Smith(I think it was him) completely wide open for 3, which Billups was waiting for..

The Spurs have had this problem for the past 2 years..low IQ on D and strange strategies..this team doesn't have enough athletes to close out on rotations if they mess up a gamble, so it needs to be done properly and intelligently..

Yeah it was Parker's help D that led to Nene's bad play. Gotta agree with you there, I looked at my brother and said..."Wow really, double-teaming Billups?" I know he's got a size and strength advantage over TP or Neal (who was on him some), but I'll live with him working hard in the post to score rather than doubling him and it leading to a wide open 3...

[EricB]

So they didn't have athleticism on the defensive end, which could be helped by two of their better players being hurt coming back.


Now I missed the game cause in europe it was played at 3 in the morning, but, again, when did we go from winning is good to now all of a sudden winning is bad?

[DMC]

Is blairs offencive IQ high?

At least as high as your spelling IQ.

[DPG21920]

Does no one remember how poor the zone defense tactic was in pre-season. It was literally the worst display of zone defense I have ever seen at any level.

This team should not play zone.

[AlleyOopNazi]

eh pop always does something to one-up the other coach in attempt to throw off the other team. Works a lot, helps with such a deep team.