@JayHawkFanToo
Hi Backfill Buddy. Its been awhile since you backfilled. So to show good faith, I'm backfilling you, too, for fun. :-)
First, using Wikipedia for a serious source on basketball strategy is kind of shakey, don't you think, unless they are footnoting folks that do know their shizz? Here is who I found footnoted: Jane Woodlands on Net Ball with a dead link. :-)
Oh, wait, there was a second reference--an ESPN link to a post game commentary on a Dallas Mavericks vs. Miami link that, you guessed it, doesn't mention zone being less taxing to play than m2m.
But, at least you tried, so I will try to.
I'm feeling generous today.
I got my initial wake up call rather late in life from an old board rat at the previous site that I decided knew more about basketball than me, or anyone I had ever met, after he had schooled me and many others repeatedly in a friendly, coach-ly sort of way. And he fessed up that he had coached the game a long time. He also became persuasive to me after he would explain what Self had done wrong in attacking this defense, or that defense, and then Self would come back the next meeting with the same team and do exactly what the old board rat said he should have done the first time. His alias was 100. I have no idea if he was really an old coach, or an old sports writer, or the an in the moon. But he was good, kid, the best there ever was on a board that I have read. Probably the best there ever will be on a board since there's no pay. I'm an entertainer. He was the real deal.
So don't feel too stupid, because I used to think zones were easier to play myself, because of the zones I played in kiddie leagues and high school. But, as I said, I got set straight on that few years ago at the other site. Church league zones, and bad high school and bad college zones, most definitely expend almost no energy.
In fact, some coaches of poorly conditioned teams, or teams with short benches and no ability intent to play sound zone, resort to bad zone defense precisely to rest players. So: to be conciliatory, let me say that your reaction was dead on for bad zones in 6th grade YMCA ball, for one example.
But D1 zones played as one's core defense for any length of time require much more energy to play than m2m. Boeheim's Syracuse zone requires awesome stamina to play. Its easy to understand once you "think" about it and and stop with the reacting to it. :-)
All five players in a zone have to move every time the ball moves and they all have to move quite a considerable distance as the ball is whipped around the perimeter as a high and a low post move through its tracking arc looking for seams. Compare this to m2m, where the ball on defender has to move a lot, the one pass a away guys have to move some, and the two pass away guys have to move very little with each dribble, or pass, all the while threatening the passing lanes ball side.
Back to zone. In order to be ready to move in unison they have to keep their feet moving constantly, which m2m defenders two passes away do not have to do at all, and which m2m defenders one pass away only have to do a little to guard the passing lane.
There is no rest in a good zone, of the kind you witness routinely even in tenacious Self Defense on the back side, because even when you are back side in a zone, you have to track around with the ball, then you have to be ready for passes into the seams and you have to keep your feet chopping so that you are ready to close on penetrations, not just from one man, but from as many as approach your zone. This becomes especially exhausting when you play a Carolina passing offense/high-lo that Self runs where no ball sticking is a prime directive precisely to keep the zone defenders moving their feet constantly.
m2m is only exhausting to guard m2m, when an opponent runs a set with lots of long cuts and picks and runs the stuff for 30-35 seconds each possession. But here's that thing that Self figured outm from the expensive lesson taught him by Shaka Smart. If he gets his guys in as good of condition as a team that tries to do that to him, then his defenders really aren't working any harder than the offenders in all of this chase the rabbit game, and switching done well can completely tip the energy budget expenditure heavily in KU's favor. Everyone is quitting the Princeton System because it is, if played well, bad energy budget management on both ends. Energy depleting zone on defense, a bunch of 30-second sets on defense that take more work to run than to guard.
Back to zone. Another drain is that you are almost always drawn into double teaming that you often don't have to do in m2m unless you have an acute MUD, and then only with two players, rather than intermittently with all five. The double teaming requires constant foot chopping to be ready to move aggressively in timely fashion.
And you have to play the zone standing more upright and with hands over head more frequently, in order to prevent cross court passing to weak side; both of which require more, not less effort than a m2m crouch with a hand check.
Think about Self's vaunted m2m defense. The scheme is to force the ball handler, and as much action as possible to the center of the floor and into the high paint. There, help can come from all sides and an offender is facing a 6th defender--the 3 second clock. Self Defense differs from many m2m's that force the action to baseline, thus using the baseline as a 6th defender. But the key is that Self Defense actually greatly reduces the tendency of defenders to have to cover vast amounts of ground. Self Defense is always trying to turn offenders into where defenders already are, so they don't have to slide far to help. Self Defense tries (and often succeeds) in reducing the effective range of floor to be guarded by funneling action inwards.
Some of the teams that give Self Ball the most trouble are those that are schemed to flank the Self Defense's effort to turn the offense inward. Once a ball flanks the Self Defense's effort to turn it inward, the Self Defense is suddenly under its greatest stress and its defenders are having to slide a long ways and very rapidly to stop the flanking. The best of all possible worlds for Self Defense is for the ball to be turned inward and only one player "runs," not slides, from back side to "explode out of his position" to not just stop the driver, but leap and block his shot. This is what Jam Tray is so good at doing.
But the point of the digression is to make clear that only one guys is making a major expenditure of energy in Self's m2m and he's making it by running, which is way easier than sliding into position. Self defense allows a lot of running for back side help, rather than sliding. Long, hard sliding is the great burner of calories. This is why Self wants guys chasing offenders over the top of picks, or else switching. He wants the ball to go to the middle of the floor and he doesn't want his guys wasting all their calories on sliding. Sliding is for steering the offensive player. Running is for catching the turned offensive player.
But now back to zone.
Watch zone defenders. They are ALL sliding ALL ...THE...TIME, at least if the offense makes an honest attempt to keep the ball from sticking and throws it into the posts in the seams, so as to force the zone defenders to expand, and constract and expand rapidly.
You have to have lots and lots of depth to play zone defense full time.
KU could never have survived playing Boeheim grade zone the year KU went to the Finals with a seven man rotation. No way.
Kentucky couldn't have prevailed playing a zone full time with its 6 man rotation either.
Falling back into a zone to conserve energy, or avoid fouls, is perfectly kosher for brief periods, but if you play zone full time and well, it is a heavy energy budget drain.
To get down to a 7 man rotation, which coaches want to do, because it is typically the optimal way to keep the best players on the floor the most minutes, you almost have to play m2m, even if you have a deep bench that could enable you to play zone.
Boeheim has always kept the cupboard massively stocked in order to play zone full time and he has done that because he is smack dab in the heart of the most populace state on the eastern seaboard where he can get numbers in his sleep.
Basketball is a game that rewards thinking about it, rather than reacting to it. :-)
Rock Chalk! And...
Next.
