When comparing real basketball zone defense and BB zone defense, a strange result emerges. In basketball, the 3pt line is in the form of an arc. The biggest weakness of the 3-2 zone defense is that corner shooters can easily penalize. (or if the big mans rushed to the corner shooter, the passed pass can create easy scoring chances) If you don't want a 3-point penalty from your opponent and you decide to zone defense, it's actually smarter to do 2-3 zone defense. because the chance of the 3 men defending the back area to block the corner shots is not very low and the chance of the 2 guards in the front to defend the top and wing 3pts is not that low compared to the weakness given in the corner shots.
But according to the BB zone defense design, the three point line is not in the form of an arc, it is straight. This creates a design based on the defense of 3 man three-pointers in the front and 2-man duals in the back. When defensive ratings are examined, it causes 3-2 zone OD to increase and ID to decrease. In 2-3 zones, the opposite happens. So 3 men=OD in the front area, 3 men=ID in the back area. This supports the idea of straight lines. However, there is a 3pt threat in the back area. So yes, logic is flawed, 3-2 zones are overpowered and 2-3 zones are dead. But I'm not comparing it to man2man. I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that the logic of the zone defense was designed incorrectly according to the realities of basketball.
These are my observations of the zone defense logic in BB. Am I wrong or right is debatable. I'm not talking about other types of zone defenses like 2-1-2 or 1-2-1. For the box and one defense, a separate slot (for "one") must be added for the man who will defend the man-to-man, and we must be able to determine the matchup ourselves. I have seen many times that this tactic has very bad results with this form and I have decided not to use it in league matches. I used it in my private league game today. I'll have a look at play-by-play sometime and I'm sure I'll see lots of unrelated switches.
The zone defense is never stuck and static. The players move as a whole by sliding towards the part where the ball and positions are. It expands, contracts, but never remains static. Just as the man is followed in man2man, 5 players follow the ball synchronously in the field defense. I was never sure how much this requirement is given in the zone defense that BB presented to us.
Also, keeping zone defense all game is just too unrealistic. With zone defense, you can surprise the opponent, force them to change their offensive balance, but you always have to allow for some weaknesses. Against a zone defense that spans the entire match, the opponent will immediately figure out how to attack. Of course, this will work against you. I will not delve into this issue now, as we cannot change the fact that BB does not allow tactical changes in-game. If there were in-game changes, the "Patient" threat would also be obsolete, and the OD of the big guys would lose its importance. This triggered unidirectionality in the players. We can imagine multiskill players as having a hidden "mobility" skill. Secondary skills are considered to be of low importance for Zone Defense. There is perhaps a percentage decrease compared to man2man, but not entirely unimportant. Especially when trying to create perfection.
Last edited by kiku at 01/01/2022 05:42:35