HALF COURT ZONES: CORE VS. TACTICAL USE
"Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man."
--George Patton
George Patton was a general that spent most of his combat life invading places, not defending places. He had overwhelmed many fixed defenses. Thus it is not surprising that he would use his bold eloquence to say something pithy and pregnant with insight about attacking and scoff at fixed defenses.
But even the pithiest and most insightful epigrams cannot capture the full truth of things. They are by definition reductions, most often from a particular POV with a particular prison of experience.
While I can recall no fixed fortifications that have withstood full scale, persistent assault by superior numbers over a prolonged period, if only because sooner or later some new offensive technology was discovered for attack, at the same time, I do not recall an instance in which fixed fortifications used, not to hold on no matter what, but rather to shape a battle field and an opponents path of attack and distribution of forces has not in fact accomplished it's end.
Put another way, fixed fortifications used as strategic ends in themselves are, as Patton's epigram indicates, monuments to the "strategic" stupidity of man, but fixed fortifications used as the "tactical and logistical" means to shape battle theaters and fields for eventual mobile combat in favorable locations at favorable moments are monuments to the "tactical" genius of man.
For example, Corrigidor fortress and Subic Bay naval base were never intended to be invincible. In peace time, they were places from which a relatively small investment in boots and weaponry could enable gun boat diplomacy to project sufficient force to enforce business contracts of USA's early transnational oligopoly producers (e.g., Standard Oil and its kerosene illuminant sales throughout East Asia, ALCOA's early aluminum monopoly, and more generally USA's maritime trade in a variety of industrial goods and raw materials).
But in war time planning, Corrigedor/Subic Bay were intended to force an enemy, be it the Japanese, or the British, to have to divide its forces at least between Hawaii and the Philippines, when planning any surprise attack. It never occurred to anyone that they could have withstood full scale, concentrated assault. Corrigedor/Subic Bay were largely beyond the "logistical" capability of the USA to sustain in the early stages of any surprise offensive that included an attack on Hawaii, plus a naval challenge of the the supply lines between Corrigedor/Subic Bay and Australia/New Zealand/Hawaii. Thus, despite the early fall of Corrigidor/Subic Bay to the Japanese, these fixed fortifications had already by definition accomplished their purpose of dividing Japanese force application. The Japanese had had to divide their impressive offensive forces to expand their regions of control in the Pacific, rather than concentrate all forces on Wake, Hawaii and so instantly be in position to begin locking down the west coast ports of CONUS in naval blockade, later in probable Japanese planning to be combined with an eventual naval blockade of east coast ports of CONUS by either a victorious German Navy, or an opportunistic British Navy that might have made pragmatic alliance with Germany and Japan in pursuit of joint subordination of USA. Never forget, USA pre war battle plans included the option of having to fight the British, instead of being allied with them. Such are the harsh realities of fundamentally anarchic, strategic international relationships. The enemy of my enemy can become my friend, and more importantly, my friend can become my strategic enemy with the right set of incentives when push comes to shove. (note: this is why all friendly nations spy on their allies as much as their enemies.)
So, jaybate, you say, what the hell has all this digression into fixed fortifications to do with half court zone defense in a flipping basketball game?
Answer: Zones to some extent (emphasize "some")) should be thought of as a basketball equivalent of the fixed fortification in military strategy.
To wit: a zone distributes five defenders on the floor in fixed zones on the floor; this means that the offensive team knows exactly where opposing teams toughest and easiest elements to attack are from the moment the offense recognizes the zone it is actually up against. Think about that for a moment. You know for an entire possession where the guy is that can eat your lunch everytime you take the ball near him and you know for an entire possession where the guy is that you can beat like a stick. Knowledge is power. It is advantage, if it is used, but not if it is not.
A zone is a fixed fortification of connected elements that is built on an invisible track that allows it to track as a five man battery with the ball moving around an arc, kind of like the guns in a five gun shore battery can move on an arced track (or a cluster of articulated turrets) that has a certain range of sweep of targeting, ships off shore move. Move your offensive forces over here, and the gun battery that is the zone moves there. Move back and the zone moves back. But the individual guns remain largely in their same fixed positions in the array.
Next, realize that somewhat like a fixed fortification in war, a zone has the quality of compressing concentration of force projection when its outer boundary is breeched. Get inside the first wall of a fort, and one encounters a designed "kill zone" where machine guns and rifles aimed out of gun slits confront the enemy with withering gun fire in a confined space. Big forts are designed to have several layers of these kill zones, too. Basketball zones simply compress when the ball enters the kill zones. Two men are suddenly guarding one. But if attack can be quickly redirected to another side, then fixed fortification that is a basketball zone can have difficulty redirecting the interior to stop and move to attack elsewhere.
Next, realize that as a fixed fortification, or a basketball zone, compresses to fight defensively within its perimeter, then beyond its shrunken perimeter its opponent is virtually free to position for further attack. Suddenly the offensive team can combine internal attack with now suddenly feasible mortar attack at the three point line, rather than 25-27 feet out...assuming it is capable of rapidly kicking the ball outward.
Teams that learn to play great zone defense (like Syrexcuse) try to be long everywhere but one position. And at that one position that short player is most often an incredibly athletic and tough human being. As five gun defensive battery, such teams become incredibly adroit at collapsing and expanding so as to hamstring even the best of offensive attacks.
But there is one defensive vulnerability that even the best zone defensive coaches have never been able to over come, just as generals have never been able to over come the same kind of vulnerablity in fixed fortification. The individual elements (i.e., guns) have to remain in a fixed array in relation to each other. And there in lies the Achilles heel of all defenses and of all fixed fortification. The offense, if it has the resources and time to persist in a varying series of attacks can eventually move its individual elements of attack (its offensive weapons) into positions where it hold match-up advantage over the fixed elements of the zone/fixed fortification, even with the ability of the zone/fixed fortification to sweep in arc into position of against a new point of attack.
If Bill Self knows where Cory Jefferson and Gathers/Austin will be in any given zone formation for the entirety of a possession, then all Bill Self has to do is move Perry Ellis out of Cory Jefferson's zone--a player Perry Ellis cannot offend effectively against--and move him into a zone with a player Perry Ellis can offend effectively against. Perry is a great scorer with many spin moves and good springs, so bigger slower players like Gathers/Austin are very prone to be outmaneuvered by Perry and to foul him for three point plays, where as Cory Ellis is capable of both staying with Perry's moves and then cramming his shots back down Perry's throat.
Next, realize that Bill Self cannot only move Perry Ellis, but each and ever player into such mismatches. And by so moving them, then can anticipate where the zone will have to deform the most to compensate for the mismatch and then coach his player with the matchup advantage deforming the zone about where to look for the open man created by the zone deformation.
Other things equal, over the course of 40 minutes of action, as an offensive team gets increasingly quick at recognition of the zone, then distribution of its players into the zones of mismatch, the offensive team holds greater and greater advantage, even with not very good outside shooting on a given night. And if one adds a hot shooting hand from trey in a given game, then the zone/fixed fortification virtually has no chance to prevail.
But jaybate, why does Syracuse win so much then?
Because Boeheim recruits L&As suited to play the zone, plus a skill perimeter player about as well as anyone in part because most other coaches are trying to recruit m2m defenders. Boeheim by doing what the others ain't can always keep his larder stocked with a lot of L&As suited to playing zone, but not necessarily well suited to playing m2m, because these are not being sought out by most coaches in such large numbers.
In turn, Syracuse is very, very hard to beat unless you are a team with an exceptional array of very good players that enable you to create 2 mismatch zones for most of a game, and have two good outside shooters to make Syracuse pay for deforming the zone to overcome your mismatches.
Now we get to the meat of the matter in why Self plays m2m as his core defense--the defense that he starts with and always comes back to. If Self has great m2m defenders capable of switching AND helping, he has the best of all defensive worlds, without giving an opposing the opportunity to create mismatches in known locations against known defenders. Self can bring help from many angles that can be quickly varied even during a single possession. Self can refuse to switch off if his defensive player has MUA on an offensive player. Self can switch, whenever an MUA occurs and help cannot be brought without too great of a loss at another position. And so on.
For Self then, the m2m is a core strategy and the zone is a tactic. He goes to zone for brief periods, when doing so may enable him to halt a point of attack at a weakness that his m2m has no means of countering, at least without some half time scheming. He goes to a zone to force some recognition problems briefly to get a stop. But Self is determined to come back to his m2m if at all possible, because he knows that giving an opponent more than a few trips looking at a zone will lead to the opponent putting their MUA player in a KU zone where a KU player is at match-up disadvantage.
Thus, Bill Self would probably agree with George Patton that half court zones and all fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man, but that tactically zones can accomplish useful objectives in brief application, but never as strategic solutions to the problem of winning.
Winning is ultimately about staying on the attack against the opponent's weakness until even the opponent's strong holds are so weakened that they can to can be attacked and overwhelmed as is tactically expedient. Thus Self's recurring preference for playing to wear down the opponents strong players, and getting them into foul trouble with ten to go, so that a team can be attacked at ever more points of advantage. Eventually the opponent crumbles from within. And if it can withstand the constant assault on its mismatches, then Self apparently reasons that at that point the game comes down to a great stop and a great play best done by great impact players, which he tries to stay as satocked up with, as Boeheim tries to stay stocked up on great zone defenders. And for Boeheim's part he too tries to stay stocked up on great impact players to decide the close games.
But one structural advantage Self always holds over Boeheim, whether he has the players he needs to exploit the advantage or not, is he knows where the match-up advantage for his players will be in the Syracuse zone much more than Boeheim knows where it will be versus Self's m2m.
Boeheim's advantage is that much more of the time he can bring two defenders to bear on one offender.
Who wins in a game between Syracuse and KU, as coached by Boeheim and Self, and where both coaches have a lot of talent and depth, largely depends on which coach in a given game has the best players for his particular core defense, and with the timeliness (and surprise) of each coach in springing his non-core defense (Boeheim his m2m and Self his junk zones) on the other, and with the degree of advantage held by each coach's impact players over whom they can be positioned against core, or tactical, defenses, at go get a basket time, if games stay close.
Neither approach can prevail everytime; that is a naive hope. There is too much emergent complexity in any basketball game for certainty of outcome based skillful adherence to effective strategy and tactics.
But if one looks at the winning percentages of Boeheim and Self over the course of their careers, you see that Self holds an edge. Not much of one, but still a statistically significant edge, and it is especially significant, since Self had to coach for quite awhile at schools where he could not rely on the talent and depth that Boeheim attracted to Syracuse, the only place Boeheim has coached. One could also counter that Boeheim has coached longer against top competition and so reasonably discount somewhat the argument that Self won with lesser talent. So: in the end, we are left with just the raw winning percentages of both coaches to make a judgement.
Boeheim is at .749 career. Self is at .756 for career. At Syracuse, Boeheime is of course also .749. At KU, Self is .833. Self's approach wins a little more overall and a lot more at a basketball heavy weight, with the caveat that Self has not coached quite as long overall as Boeheim, an not nearly as long at a heavyweight, and so his approach has not yet seen as much change as Boeheim's has had to contend with. But looking at Self's staggering advantage in winning percentage at a heavy weight program, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that Self's approach is the more effective.
What makes me finally side decisively with Self's extreme reliance on m2m is that among the game's greatest winners throughout the many eras of the game, Allen, Rupp, Wooden, Smith, Knight, Sutton, and Coach Consonants, these have all used m2m as their core defense and supplemented tactically (and sparingly) with zone. Thus, the proof is in the pudding to me.
But seeing the pudding, and seeing the proof in the pudding, are not the same as rationally understanding why and how the m2m defense should be the core defense and the zone should be the tactical complement, and not vice versa. It has taken me a long time of watching basketball, nearly 50 years of it, to come to be able to explain it in the terms that I have in this post.
And that length of time is perhaps why I never became a coach.
I never had a great mentor explain the why and how of it to me. And I have been a bit slow on the uptake. :-)
Rock Chalk!!!!!!
