Zone/Illegal Defense articles

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Don't mind me, just posting some old archived articles via the Wayback machine for future threads.

[QUOTE]Everybody Must Get Zoned
By Beckley Mason, on December 9th, 2010

Zone defense isn

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The Dream of the 90′s is Alive in Memphis
By Ethan Sherwood Strauss, on April 21st, 2011


“And finally, our teams have used the guidelines in a way that produces isolation basketball.” –Stu Jackson, NBA Vice President, explaining the need for zone defense

The Memphis Grizzlies are merely good in this era, but they would have been great in another–I’m convinced. It’s a belief that billowed when Beckley deemed Zach Randolph “the best one-on-one scorer,” in a manner casual to the point of dismissive. Z-Bo is large, nimble, blessed with long arms that greedily wrest the ball from rebounding frays. The lengthy wingspan ends in refined fingers, capable of gently nudging Spalding home with the sensitive calibration of a father, returning infant to crib.

Randolph is strafed by the enormous Marc Gasol, who boasts a similar touch at the coveted center position. Gasol lacks Z-Bo’s scoring genius, but All-Star potential lurks within his lumbering frame. This duo should grind all opponents down to bone flecks. So, as the smallish Spurs closed out last night’s game, a creeping incredulity garnished my viewing experience:

How are the Grizzlies not crushing the Spurs? Weren’t scoring, rebounding bigs the key to dominant basketball way back when?

Sebastian Pruiti predicted that San Antonio would respond to a Game 1 loss with four straight wins. Memphis can’t handle Popovich’s guard-driven offense, Sebastian posits. He could well be right, seeing as how the Spurs seem to race around that Memphis pick and roll defense en route to easy three point shots. But, Pruiti’s prediction leads me to believe that low block respect has never been lower.

My brain set about photoshopping Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol into a time when big men romped freely under the flattest of tops. I’m talking about the 90’s, an NBA era that–much like the decade’s web pornography advent–was an orgy of isolation play.

It was ironic that Michael Jordan dominated because frontcourt stars were so prominent back then. Look at the top 5 PER rankings for 94-95:



Those bigs averaged a higher mark (26.8) than Dwight Howard earned as this year’s leading lug (26.13) in time of roughly equivalent team offensive efficiency. The three centers averaged a higher rating (28.06) than any other “five” since Shaq in 2002-2003. While Dwight ranks second in overall PER, he’s bookended by wings Wade and James.

Modern superstar “fives” are hard to come by. The center-rich days of Robinson, O’Neal, Olajuwon, Ewing, and Mourning seem implausible, in retrospect. Also, so many currently efficient power forwards (KG, K-Love and Dirk) tend to face the basket like Narcissus staring into a lake. Years have bleached offensive importance from “big men,” driving them to extinction or evolution. I cite zone defense as the asteroid hit that swapped bulky dinos for dinky mammals.

Back Then

We can dredge memories from a point so early, so removed from who we became, that these thoughts evoke no nostalgia. When I recall mid-nineties basketball, I’m stealing visions from a boy who is not me. Somehow he evolved into my sense of self, but that was many, many steps ago.

In the smeared paintings of recollection, I see my dad’s beige couch, his flickering TV, the NBC peacock, Ewing trudging into a fingeroll. I can make some of this tangible, some of it specific. But illegal defense remains elusive. For all the hours I spent watching televised basketball, I can’t pin down one specific memory of this mysterious game-interrupter. This I know: It would just annoyingly interject, like a telemarketer’s call. Flow stopped, people were frustrated. And just like that, illegal defense would slide back into the recesses of life. I never properly grasped what it was or how it happened. It just…happened.


Suns get whistled for shifting towards Hakeem
“Illegal defense,” began when the zone was outlawed in 1947 by the Basketball Association of America. As former coach Don Casey recounts in his book, Own the Zone:

“The St. Louis Bombers, one of the top teams in the BAA, used a zone defense so successfully that the owners called for a special meeting on January 11, 1947 and voted to prohibit the use of the zone defense. Their reason was that zones were “too effective” in holding the score down which would hurt fan interest and gate receipts”

It’s important to note that big time pro basketball was just two months old and the concept of zone defense was still spreading from the leaky West Virginia YMCA court where it was first conjured. Had the league been a little stronger, a little more entrenched, perhaps owners would have accepted evolution. Either way, the BAA’s hasty edict began a half century of byzantine NBA rules, devoted to eradicating a collaborative defense.

Efforts ceased in 2001 when the NBA finally reversed that 1947 ruling. This was done despite an intense “lobbying” campaign on behalf of illegal defense, headed by Rudy Tomjanovich and Pat Riley. Both coaches had expertly navigated the NBA of the 80’s and 90’s. It was a league that essentially died because their lobbying fell short. A defeated Riles went so far as to say:

”With these rules, you’re going to be back in the 70′s in scoring.”

Hop on Youtube, watch some old NBA on NBC playoff clips. The style difference is jarring. It’s not so much that today’s athletes jump higher or run faster: It’s that today’s five-man defensive organism moves in a completely different manner. Viewing these clips was discomfiting for me, it was like finding out that men used to walk on their hands back when I was growing up–only I’d never noticed.

These days, it’s commonly said that defenders should be connected “on a string,” their movements inextricably linked. A little over one decade ago, this wasn’t the case. Perimeter defenders were bound to whomever they guarded, and guard-defender units would orbit a dribbling post player like single electrons an atom’s periphery. If there was a “string,” then it connected man to marker.

Occasionally, the defender could could break off to double-team this dribbling post player, but, that defensive player could only return to his original mark. Picture Reggie Miller racing over to harmlessly flail at a posting Patrick Ewing, then sprinting back to the three point line so as to cover an open John Starks. The lack of team-defense rotation made it relatively easy for post players to spot an open man (Hint: He’s from whence the double team came).

Now place Zach Randolph in a world where defenses are predictable, and passing lanes are salient. The “best one-on-one” scorer might notch something a bit higher than 22 PER. Envision plodding Marc Gasol in an era where rules protect him from getting stripped or blanketed. This team would thrive offensively in the forced isolationism of those 90’s. In 2011, the Grizzlies are merely average on the offensive end.

We often forget how changing regulations shape the fabric of this game, apart from causing a supposed creeping “softness.” I used to believe that Zach Randolph was hindered by personal demons. I now believe that prosaic rule changes conspired with time to block his title path. Memphis is an anachronism, a casualty of legal defense.



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[QUOTE]Give The 'd'an A-Plus - 1985 Sports Illustrated
The notion that no defense is played in the NBA is wrong. The better teams clearly have the best D, and they're constantly improving it

The perception that little—no, no—defense is played in the NBA is a pervasive one, held in particular by pennant-waving boosters of the college game, those guys who think defense begins and ends with a 2-3 collapsing zone in the home snake pit.

Think again: The Milwaukee Bucks went from also-ran to in-the-running largely because of coach Don Nelson's defensive strategies. Nelson's approach includes a 110-page book of D, plus 10-buck-a-miss quizzes that are hardly trivial, even for the ego-driven millionaires of the NBA. Says Nelson, "It takes the average college player almost a year to get accustomed to what man-to-man concepts are all about."

For years the Denver Nuggets outshot every team on the planet, but only once did they make the NBA's Final Four. Last season, the Nuggets picked up Calvin Natt, Fat Lever and Wayne Cooper, fine defensive players at three different positions, for Kiki Vandeweghe, the league's 16th-leading scorer but a nondefender. Guess who made the Final Four? Cleveland became respectable last year, after "its defense picked up a notch," says the Lakers' Michael Cooper. It was only last season that Utah's Mark Eaton, a no-offense center, grew—well, he was already 7'4"—into as near as you can get to a superstar on the basis of shot-blocking.

The Lakers beat the Sixers for the championship in 1982 with major help from a cute "fake trap" that turned the Sixers to stone at half-court. The next year, the Sixers came back and beat the Lakers with their own gimmick defense, running two men at Magic Johnson while, at their own end, showcasing the defensive talents of Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones and an immovable object in the paint named Moses Malone. The Celtics had trouble stopping big guards from scoring that season, so they traded for Dennis Johnson, a tough defender, and won the title in '84. And last season the talent-rich and strategy-wise Lakers utilized that mobile windmill, Cooper, as part of a defense that repeatedly broke games open in explosive bursts en route to the title.

"Anyone who watches our game and says there is no defense, just doesn't understand it," says commissioner David Stern. "That's all there is to it."

Unfortunately for the NBA, that's not all there is to it. There is still a body of dedicated fans that considers the NBA the NDA, the No-D Association. Why?

•Man-to-man defenses: Since its inception in 1946, the NBA has allowed only man-to-man—even four decades ago it did not want defensive teams to sag back on the big men underneath and force offensive teams to take mostly outside shots. It wanted the drive for the basket and the creative offensive move to be a major part of the game. Many observers view this defensive prerequisite as a weakness, never mind the fact that many, maybe most, college teams play zone on a regular basis to hide their weaker defenders. And, indeed, during much of its history, the NBA's man-to-man mandate made for some colossally boring, all-offense basketball. Worst case: Wilt Chamberlain used to go out every night and bury some stiff at center because defenses weren't creative enough to give Wilt's victim any help.

•The media: Basketball fans have been treated like dim bulbs who understand nothing more complex than a point spread. Millions of TV viewers sit rapt as John Madden chalks out a rotating zone in the defensive backfield during an NFL game, but we rarely see on replay, say, Paul Pressey and Sidney Moncrief cooperating to force an opposing guard into a turnover. The NBA itself promotes its "ballet above the basket" at the expense of the defensive battleground below.

•Filling the seats: With certain exceptions, like Patrick Ewing, NBA teams are reluctant to pay for defensive stars. There are no true defensive stats besides blocks, steals ("Even they're misleading," says former Celtic, Buck and Net assistant John Killilea, "because they don't count attempts") and defensive rebounds, and a tough man-to-man defender's worth is hard to quantify come contract time. Every coach wants a guy like Denver's T.R. Dunn (a 6.3 points-per-game career scorer but a defensive demon), but general managers look at low score/low ticket sales stats and snap the purse shut.

•Racism: Some people really buy the clich

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[QUOTE]Complaints about zones became frequent, and in 1981 a committee (Nelson, Motta and Fitzsimmons, with input from Garretson and Killilea) was formed to establish guidelines, which it did during an eight-hour session in Chicago.

Fans need not know every nuance of the guidelines (as we have already seen, no one does) but should be aware of their purpose, which is to maintain a pick-and-roll game and to discourage an outside jump-shooting league.

Like Gaul, the court is now divided into three parts (see diagrams). Unless he is double-teaming the man with the ball, a defender must stay within one defensive area of his man. So if an offensive player

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:lol :lol :lol

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SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
The 50 Reasons Why College Basketball Is Better Than Pro Basketball Got the NBA lockout blues? Relax, and let us count the ways that the college game is superior - BY STEVE RUSHIN; JACK MCCALLUM; TIM CROTHERS
Originally Posted: November 23, 1998

45 ZONE DEFENSE

"It was definitely settled in 1897," wrote James Naismith in his
1941 book Basketball: Its Origin and Development, "that a
basketball team should consist of five men." Oh yeah? So a
hundred years later why were three members of the Chicago Bulls
standing off to the side watching Steve Kerr throw the ball in
to a posting-up Michael Jordan? Worse, why were three members of
the Sacramento Kings standing around watching Tariq Abdul-Wahad
throw the ball in to Lawrence Funderburke? Welcome to the NBA,
Dr. Naismith, and don't karate-chop your spectacles to bits in
frustration. With their rule stipulating that only man-to-man
defense can be used, the pros have created a predictable and
aesthetically displeasing offensive atmosphere in which two
basic plays--the isolation and the pick-and-roll, both of which
involve only two of the five offensive players on the court--are
used a sickening percentage of the time. Worse, offense-impaired
centers, such as Manute Bol (left), are deliberately stationed
25 feet from the basket solely to pull the opposing center away
from the action.

College clubs, unencumbered by the illegal-defense rules that
perplex NBA fans, players and sometimes even refs, can double-
and triple-team a dominant scorer and prevent him from getting
the ball, thus forcing the scorer's teammates into the action.
Does that sort of defense make a back-to-the-basket scoring
center like Hakeem Olajuwon appreciate the freedom of the NBA,
where he can't be double-teamed until he catches the ball? Sure.
But it also means that if you enjoy team offense--a forgotten
concept in the pros--you should stick to the college game.

College defenses can employ all sorts of alignments that force
an opponent to find creative ways to score (witness Utah's use
of a box-and-one defense while upsetting Arizona in last year's
NCAAs). College defenses can change minute to minute--for
instance, going into a zone after made shots and man-to-man
after misses--thus forcing teams to make adjustments on the fly.
Isn't that what Dr. Naismith had in mind? --J.M.

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SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
A New Ball Game?
BY TIM KURKJIAN
Originally Posted: January 9, 1995

AT THE beginning of this season the NBA implemented four major new
rules in hopes of reducing excessively physical play and producing
more points. Each rule has already had an impact, for better or
worse. Here's how they stack up.
-- The hands-off policy. Better. This rule against hand checking
-- which prohibits a defender from placing his hands on the man he's
guarding whenever the offensive player is above the foul line
extended across the width of the % court -- is accomplishing its
aims. It has curtailed some of the rougher play, it has stopped
defenders from steering offensive players with their hands, and it
has required that players play defense by moving their feet, which is
how it's supposed to be played. As hoped, the hand-check rule has
helped reverse a trend toward less scoring in recent years (through
Dec. 30, team scoring average was 101.8 points per game, compared
with 100.4 at the same point in 1993-94). As predicted, it has also
led to more fouls, an average of almost four more per game than last
season. And despite preseason fears that an increase in fouls would
make games significantly longer, the average time of a regulation
game so far is 2:11, a mere two minutes longer than the average last
season.
Players are growing more comfortable with the rule, and the
referees aren't calling it as strictly as they did in the preseason.
''It does a great justice to the league,'' says Houston Rocket Scott
Brooks, the type of speedy guard who has benefited. ''If you let hand
checking go, you have rugby, not basketball.''
But some still feel that the rule and its enforcement are too
stringent. Among the detractors is Denver Nugget forward Brian
Williams. ''If you're a motorist traveling down the freeway and
you're going 56 miles an hour, and a cop pulls you over and gives you
a speeding ticket, would you like that?'' he says. ''No, of course
not. Well, that's exactly what it's like now. You would want to smack
the ---- out of the officer, out of the legislator, the police chief,
and you'd want a refund for your tickets to the policemen's ball.''
-- The shorter trey. Worse. These are the world's best shooters.
For them the former three-point distance (23 ft. 9 in. at its
longest) was a test. But the new distance, a uniform 22 feet, is
''too close, I don't like it,'' says Hornet guard Dell Curry, whose
shooting range is topped perhaps only by that of the Pacers' Reggie
Miller. ''Too many guys who aren't three-point shooters are making
them. I take regular jump shots, look down and realize that I'm
behind the line.''
More shooters, bad and good, are hoisting the trey. Through Dec.
30, 3,923 more three-pointers had been attempted and 1,555 more had
been made than at virtually the same point last season. Among the
league's worst three-point shooters last year were the Suns' Cedric
Ceballos (0 for 9) and the Bullets' Calbert Cheaney (1 for 23).
Already this season Ceballos, now a Laker, is 19 for 51 and Cheaney
is 21 for 76.
^ The record for three-point shots made in a season is 192, set
last season by Phoenix's Dan Majerle. Through Dec. 30, six players
were on a pace to top 200: Majerle, Miller, Orlando's Nick Anderson,
Houston's Vernon Maxwell, San Antonio's Chuck Person and Miami's Glen
Rice.
-- No more 2.9. Worse. This rule has eliminated the 2.9 seconds of
decision making formerly allotted to a defender before he had to
either follow his assigned man above the free throw line or help
double-team another offensive player. Now a defensive player must
immediately decide whom to guard, and once he decides, he can't
change his mind. This has drawn shot blockers such as Denver's
Dikembe Mutombo away from the basket, led to more one-on-one play and
made it harder to help out on defense. It has also led to more than
twice as many illegal-defense calls as last season. ''I don't like
it, and I think it has had the biggest impact of all the rule
changes,'' says Spur guard Doc Rivers. ''I think it's boring for the
fans. It's become an isolation game, four guys standing around
watching someone go one-on-one.''
Chicago Bull coach Phil Jackson agrees. After his team was called
for five illegal defenses against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 19,
Jackson said, ''People who saw this saw the wave of the NBA's future.
Walk it up, smack the defense in, draw illegal defenses. It's hurting
the rhythm of the game.''
-- No taunt. Much better. ''The taunting thing is the change I
like the most,'' says Detroit Piston guard Joe Dumars. ''The
finger-shaking and yelling had no place in the NBA. All it was doing
was leading to the next step, which was violence. Now we're just
playing basketball.''

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For those of you too young to remember the NBA of the 1940s and
'50s, when two-handed set-shooters roamed the court in canvas
hightops, consider this season an extended history lesson. This
is what it was like when scoreboards rarely needed space for a
third digit, when teams were only slightly more likely to reach
100 than Ben Hogan was. The nightly highlights this season
should be shown on grainy black-and-white film, because in the
league's 50th-anniversary season we've not only seen teams wear
throwback uniforms, we've also seen them produce throwback scores.

The paltry point totals have become so common now that we no
longer double-check to see if they are third-quarter numbers.
It's as if someone brought the Rochester Royals and Syracuse
Nationals back to life. The scores have been so low that,
through Sunday, eight times this season a team scored less than
80 points and won. Offensive production hasn't been this anemic
since Eisenhower was president: The last time the NBA's team
scoring average was lower than the 94.5 points at which it stood
Sunday night was 1954-55, when the 24-second shot clock was
introduced. This season's average is five points lower than last
season's. Here are some of the more glaring clunkers.

Nov. 4: Houston Rockets 75, Utah Jazz 72. The lowest output ever
for the Jazz franchise.

Nov. 5: San Antonio Spurs 74, Cleveland Cavaliers 68. San
Antonio ties a team record for fewest points in the first half
(31).

Nov. 10: Los Angeles Clippers 81, Minnesota Timberwolves 70.
Minnesota sets its franchise record for fewest points, and the
teams combine for the fewest third-quarter points (22) in league
history.

Nov. 15: Atlanta Hawks 85, Miami Heat 77. Miami establishes the
NBA record for fewest points in the second half (21).

Nov. 21: Hawks 73, Milwaukee Bucks 65. Milwaukee breaks its
record for fewest points, and Atlanta scores more than 70 for
the first time in three games.

Nov. 23: Orlando Magic 76, Indiana Pacers 73. Indiana doesn't
score a field goal in the final nine minutes of the game.

Dec. 4: Cavaliers 84, Magic 57. Orlando scores only one field
goal in the fourth quarter and ties the shot-clock-era record
for fewest points in a game.

Dec. 7: New York Knicks 89, Clippers 80. L.A. scores eight
points in the first quarter--the second time it's gotten eight
in a quarter this season--and nearly wins.

Through Sunday, in more than half (53.1%) of the NBA games this
season, at least one team had failed to score 90 points. And
teams had scored less than 80 points 17.7% of the time, more
than twice as often as in any season since 1954-55. Not, as
Jerry Seinfeld might say, that there's anything wrong with that.
A well-played game that ends with an 89-86 score can be just as
entertaining as a 119-116 shoot-out. The problem for the NBA is
not that the scores are low, it's why they are low. The pathetic
point totals are largely the result of offenses that have slowed
to a crawl, of offenses in which one or two players do the bulk
of the work on a given possession while the other three, as
Miami president and coach Pat Riley puts it, "might as well be
out in the parking lot." Remember the days when the best teams
had fluid offenses, with players constantly moving without the
ball? Now the only team that consistently fits that description
is the Chicago Bulls, and even the usually potent NBA champions
were bitten by the low-scoring bug last Saturday, in an 83-80
loss to the Heat, and again on Sunday, when they were defeated
97-89 by the Toronto Raptors.

Shooting accuracy has been declining steadily for years. At
week's end the league's field goal percentage this season was
44.4%; last season it was 46.2%, the lowest it had been since
1975-76, when teams shot 45.8%. Similarly, free throw percentage
had declined to 72.6%, more than a point lower than last
season's. Some of the NBA's old hands blame the drop-off on
youth--players who leave college after only one or two seasons
and enter pro ball with marginal or, at best, unpolished
offensive skills. Many are especially deficient in outside
shooting. "The young kids in the league didn't grow up shooting
hundreds of jumpers the way kids used to do," says Nuggets
president and general manager (and, until recently, coach)
Bernie Bickerstaff. "They grew up trying to copy the moves they
saw Dr. J and Michael Jordan make, so they never developed the
consistent jumper you used to see 10, 12 years ago." Lakers
coach Del Harris says the blame isn't limited to the Generation
X-ers. "Many NBA players tend not to shoot the ball in the
off-season like they used to," says Harris. "They're
weight-training and doing other things, like golf."

Like Bickerstaff and Harris, a growing number of NBA coaches and
general managers believe the low scores are an indication that
something is out of kilter and in need of a bit of tinkering. In
hopes of boosting offensive production, here are a few of the
proposals the league ought to consider.

SIMPLIFY THE ILLEGAL-DEFENSE RULE

The illegal-defense violation is the equivalent of the balk in
baseball: When it's called, hardly anyone understands why.
Suffice it to say that any set of rules that divides the court
into Upper, Middle and Lower defensive areas, refers to "areas
of intersection" and calls for compliance with articles k
through t might be a tad too complicated. "I'd say half the
players understand it, at most," says Rockets coach Rudy
Tomjanovich. "Don't even ask me how many referees understand it."

Simply put, the rule prevents teams from blatantly playing a
zone defense. Thus, in our view, it is necessary, but it is also
chiefly responsible for bringing offenses to a virtual
standstill. The rule requires defenses to make at least a token
effort to guard players who are positioned far away from the
ball. If two offensive players are standing near the half-court
line, for example, two defenders must stand above the free throw
line or be called for an illegal defense. That's why you often
see a player with the ball in the low post, simply holding the
ball while defenders away from the ball check their feet to make
sure they are in legal position. In other words, nothing is
happening. "When players have to keep looking down at their
feet," says New Jersey Nets assistant coach Don Casey, "that's
not basketball."

But it is smart offense. Why not try to draw a team into an
illegal-defense violation? On the second violation and on every
one thereafter, the offensive team gets a free throw and
maintains possession.

There is some sentiment around the league to get rid of the
illegal-defense rule and allow teams to play any defense they
choose, with some of the proponents arguing that teams would run
more in an effort to get off a shot before the defense could set
up in a zone. In a meeting last September the NBA competition
and rules committee briefly discussed eliminating the rule but
tabled the matter. It's safe to say it will come up again.
"Fifteen years ago there were only one or two coaches or general
managers in favor of letting teams play zones, but now about
half would at least consider trying it in the CBA as an
experiment," says Atlanta vice president and general manager
Pete Babcock, a member of the rules committee. Babcock is not in
favor of getting rid of the rule, but Chicago coach Phil Jackson
and Indiana coach Larry Brown are among those who are. "The
rules are absurd," Brown says. "If you're going to play a guy
who's a stiff offensively, why should I have to guard him?"

But if zones were allowed in the NBA, defenses would sag inside,
goliath shot-blocking centers like the Nets' Shawn Bradley, the
Hawks' Dikembe Mutombo and the Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal would
never leave the area under the basket, and spectacular slashes
to the goal by players like Jordan, the Magic's Penny Hardaway
and the Detroit Pistons' Grant Hill would become a thing of the
past. "It would close down the lane," says Jordan. "That would
close off all penetration. I wouldn't like it." That's good
enough for us. Also, allowing zones would almost have to be
accompanied by a longer shot clock to give offenses time to
operate, which would slow the game down even more.

Nevertheless, the existing rules could certainly be modified to
make offenses less inclined to turn the game into a succession
of one-on-one and two-on-two battles. First, make an offensive
player get into realistic position to score--say, inside the
three-point arc--before a defense has to commit a man to him.
That would make it more difficult to draw a violation, and
offenses wouldn't slow the game down so much trying to do so.



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REDUCE THE SHOT CLOCK TO 20 SECONDS

It's hard to score when you don't shoot, and teams have been
shooting less and less in the past few seasons. Through Sunday
the average number of shots per team was 78.7 this season, about
25 less than 30 seasons ago and 10 less than a decade ago. It's
possible for a team to make 50% or more of its field goal
attempts and still score under 100 points, which was almost
unheard of in the 1980s.

The main reason for the decline in shots is that the fast break
is going the way of the dinosaur. More teams are using almost
all of the 24-second clock before they shoot. "There's more of
an emphasis on transition defense," says Knicks coach Jeff Van
Gundy. "Teams naturally wind up walking [the ball] up out of
habit, because you're not going to be rewarded by running it."

The prevailing philosophy in the NBA once was that the team that
took the most shots was most likely to win because its opponent
would have to sink a higher percentage to beat it. The success
of methodical teams like the Cavaliers (12-6 at week's end while
scoring an average of 87.9 points and surrendering 80.1) has
helped change that. "Cleveland wishes it had a 45-second clock,"
says Orlando general manager John Gabriel. Now many coaches
think that if you limit the number of possessions by milking the
clock, you will give yourself a better chance to win.

Fine. Just give teams less of the clock to milk. A 20-second
clock would give both teams more possessions and more shots, and
it would encourage teams to push the ball down the floor in a
hurry, either for fast-break points or to get into their offense
sooner.

MOVE THE THREE-POINT LINE BACK

In 1995 the three-point arc was moved in from a maximum distance
of 23'9" from the basket (where it had been established in '79)
to a uniform 22 feet. There is growing sentiment, especially
among coaches, for moving it back out. "The first thing moving
the line in did was send a message to every guy in the league
who isn't a three-point shooter that he can be one," says
Atlanta coach Lenny Wilkens, mindful that the league-wide
three-point percentage was 35.7% through Sunday. "It looks so
close, they all want to shoot it. Sometimes it makes me want to
cry, and I'm not just talking about my own team. The second
thing it did was make it much easier to double-team because
you're defending a much smaller arc."

With the current three-point line, defenses can have the best of
both worlds. A particularly agile defender like Pistons swingman
Stacey Augmon can sag in to double-team Knicks center Patrick
Ewing in the low post and still get out fast enough to get a
hand in guard Allan Houston's face when Ewing passes the ball
back to Houston on the perimeter. "The old line stretched the
defense," says Cavaliers coach Mike Fratello. "The new line does
not. The old line, you had to think, Do we commit a guy out
there? Do we play off him, dare him to shoot?"

It's time to force defenses to take those calculated risks
again. The elite marksmen--Houston, the Pacers' Reggie Miller,
the Golden State Warriors' Mark Price et al.--would still be
dangerous from beyond the arc. Some of the players who are
marginal three-point shooters at the current distance, including
such high scorers as the Rockets' Charles Barkley (32.4% from
beyond the arc through Sunday) and the Dallas Mavericks' Jim
Jackson (34.4%), would be less tempted to shoot from beyond the
line and would concentrate more on midrange jumpers, which would
probably make their shooting percentages rise.

ENCOURAGE OFFENSIVE INNOVATION

"Ninety percent of the [plays] that are being run in the NBA
right now, everybody runs them," says Riley. "There aren't any
more innovators. We're all basically doing the same thing." Says
Sacramento Kings vice president Geoff Petrie, "There are so many
teams running the same plays every night, the defense knows them
all. They're not guarding the guy, they're guarding the play."
In fact, in an informal survey, NBA coaches were asked to pick
the most creative offensive coach in the league, and the name
most often mentioned by the 14 respondents was Bulls assistant
Tex Winter, 74, who in the 1940s first began running the same
triple-post, or triangle, offense the Bulls use now. (The head
coaches most often cited by their peers were Indiana's Brown and
the Seattle SuperSonics' George Karl.)

It's obvious that there is more of a premium put on defensive
expertise than on offensive creativity by those who hire
coaches. Most of the highly regarded NBA coaches (such as
Fratello, Karl, Riley and Wilkens) are known for their ability
to teach defense, while many of the coaches known for producing
high-scoring teams (Doug Moe, Don Nelson, Paul Westphal, Paul
Westhead) are out of the league. "Part of it is that the
perception of a coach is, if you lose 88-85, you're a better
coach than if you lose 118-115," says NBA senior vice president
for basketball operations Rod Thorn. "The media puts that out
there by saying, 'He's teaching defense, he's organized, he's
working hard.' The coaches who do that get the accolades and the
jobs."

Innovation is needed to counteract one of the other forces that
keeps scoring down: sophisticated, often high-tech scouting
techniques. "When I was playing, our scouting reports said
things like 'Force this guy right,' or 'Make him shoot the
outside jumper,'" says Walter Davis, an All-Star scorer
(18.9-point career average) for Denver, the Phoenix Suns and the
Portland Trail Blazers from 1977-78 through '91-92 and now the
Nuggets' TV analyst. "It was pretty basic stuff, and it hardly
helped you against the better scorers. Today every player gets a
typed report that gives the opponents' offensive tendencies,
diagrams of the opponents' favorite plays, a paragraph on each
opponent that details his strengths and weaknesses and his
favorite moves, and a videotape that highlights the tendencies
of the opponent he'll be guarding. Shoot, if I'd gotten scouting
reports like that when I was playing, maybe I could have stopped
my man, too."

By itself, tinkering with the rules can't end the offensive
drought. "I wouldn't change the rules, I'd improve the players,"
says Raptors executive vice president Isiah Thomas. He has a
point, of course, which isn't surprising. It's far easier to
make a point in the NBA these days than it is to score one.
..

[Lebron23]

That's why nba players today are better, and attempted more 3 pointers because if you want to beat the zone you need better ball movement, and better outside shooting. Less Isolation Offense.

[And1AllDay]

https://media.giphy.com/media/1adgeLjuuDddoy1Wnu/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/QmDbQzibQZ3zoiw5zy/giphy.gif


https://i.postimg.cc/FK68tTsh/illegal2.png (https://postimages.org/)

https://i.postimg.cc/d1TXJGLr/illegal3.png (https://postimages.org/)

[Basketball IQ]

I think there's no doubt that Lebron and Kobe faced much better teams than Jordan ever did.