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I think another reason for people to dislike 2-3 zone is the guards on the opposing side. Usually teams that prefer LI (should) use guards with moderately high IS and very high DR. This leads to more mid range opportunities being taken against the weakened outside defense. Having players with above average OD should help in this too, but against teams with guards with lower shooting the regular high ID inside players should suffice in the zone.

Last edited by Iso_Massimo at 6/26/2012 5:17:18 PM

there are six primary skills for guards

I dont know why so many people cant see at least HA and PA as a skill that even big men should have. Now i dont look at basketball or anything like that and im only here because i really like the game. But i dont thnk there are many post players in the NBA that cant pass or somewhat dribble with the ball.
It seems like so much from real life has gone lost when training players here in BB.

Tomofey Mozgov
Greg Oden
John Edwards (former Hawk and Pacer, allegedly is a person who plays here)
McColluagh

there have been several throughout NBA history.

Just because JaVale McGee botches plays like this and ends up on youtube, doesn't mean all centers are capable of it.

Whom was the last Center to average more than 5+ assists?

Dwight Howard averaged over 3 turnovers a game last season and less than 2 assists per game. just thought id mention that.

There are some players in the past, where, they basically just didnt want to give them the ball at all in offense. Tends to not happen now in the NBA, but back in the day you had big uncoordianted C's who were just there to rebound, block and do nothing on offense. set a screen or two.

guys like Mark eaton, or Will Perdue, or Manute Bol, or Greg Ostertag! You just dont get gumbies like that in the NBA anymore.

your original advice for 2-3 sounds good, but in summary all you really said is:

guards: be great defensively. high OD & some SB
forwards: be great defensively. good ID + good OD & SB
center: high ID & SB

so in essence: be great at defense. better than you already are. but if you become great at defense, why would you need to play 2-3 zone on a regular basis? And any tactic will be successful if you have great players...

a zone is mainly used when you're not good enough to defend man to man. Trying to take away one thing at the expense of something else. if you can already shut everything down M2M, it would be idiotic to create an unnecessary hole defensively, wouldn't it?

Well, you are very right. However the point is to stop a LI. And not only stop it, but shut it down. So really a great players playing M2M will always play good defense, but playing them in the 2-3 will shut the currently unstoppable LI down.

But Im going to add that its not just having a good defense that will do it. Any team can have a good defense, but its the SB(especially at the C position) that makes the 2-3 successful. As I mentioned before, the C position will defend the majority of the driving layups and dunks in a 2-3 defense, which there are tons, so you have to have the SB to make it most successful.

Some mentioned that you dont need the SB to run a successful 2-3, however I think it depends on if you are facing a team with low driving and high IS, or high driving but lower IS. Which the high driving lower IS will need the SB while the low driving and high IS will just need the good ID.

I was going to say something along the lines of Terfu. Also in the same vein, I was also going to reply to this before he posted. (my post lagged out i guess)

Any team can have a good defense, but its the SB(especially at the C position) that makes the 2-3 successful. As I mentioned before, the C position will defend the majority of the driving layups and dunks in a 2-3 defense, which there are tons, so you have to have the SB to make it most successful.

you are saying that the 2-3 is even worse than M2M versus a LI, and that is the exact reason SB is important.

i think 2-3 zone is so bad in part because it lowers OD so much. i've faced a number of teams with really high shot blocking & 2-3 zone... they were terrible though. 100 times worse than the teams without high SB. sure, there's other factors, but still... as much as you're touting SB they should have been much better? (unless, of course, those other factors are really the key & SB only plays a minor role)

Which the high driving lower IS will need the SB while the low driving and high IS will just need the good ID.

When I faced a lot of those high SB teams, I had ridiculously low IS. Of course I'm aware that in and of itself proves nothing.

well, the bad OD can be helped with good OD on your forwards which wouldnt show as much in the team ratings. That goes back to my original post saying OD+ID on the forwards is big. Which like I have said many times PFs on many teams dont have the appropriate OD.

I think SB is one of those things where you either believe in it or you dont, which everyone will have their opinions. But Wozzvt did research on the 2-3 and he found that SB at the C position makes a huge difference for the defense.

And the teams without high SB you were talking about probably had better OD play which made it harder for teams to get it inside, but once the team gets it inside the SB will help defend those layups.

oh &...

Also, you talk about a 1-3-1 being useless against a good LI attack, but once again it is because teams aren't built properly to run it. Everyone thinks so one dimensionally on here so no teams are built properly for these others defenses. If you were to take your time and build for something other than M2M or 3-2 you would fine that the other defenses are not "broke" and can be run just as effectively.

First off, I never said 1-3-1 or any other defenses were "broke". (Nor did I even use that word once). And 1-3-1 isn't supposed to that great vs. look inside. It's obviously meant to slow down outside offense. Which it does. At the expense of inside defense & rebounding. Were 1-3-1 super effective vs. look inside as well... well there would be no point using anything else, would there? (Also, 1-3-1 & every other defense works without needing to build a team around it, except 2-3 zone)

A 2-3 defense can be very effective in real life, just like it could be on here.

However the point is to stop a LI. And not only stop it, but shut it down.

how many NBA teams run mainly zone? They only use it as a change of pace or out of complete desperation for portions of a game. (any longer & the opposition *will* start to pick it apart). It's lower levels of basketball that run more zone as they're less talented & need to. But here, it seems it needs to be the opposite. It's like you need exceptional players to run zone effectively. And the players that need the 2-3 zone boost the most actually get worse with it.

anyway, i didn't mean to imply that i think SB is bad in general... just that it's not the main reason for 2-3 zone not working so often IMO.

a question though: when they created it... do you think 2-3 zone was *intended* to be worse vs. LI/LP for most teams?
it just seems crazy if that's the case. the game manual certainly doesn't give that impression.

it would only be logical that:
opponent plays outside offense --> play outside zone
opponent plays neutral (balanced opponent) --> play M2M
opponent plays inside offense --> play 2-3 zone