Coaches Guide to the 2 3 Zone

Okay, guys, today we're going to be talking about the 3-2 zone defense

Basically, we're going to talk about the setup and then what to do when the ball starts rotating

just to give you guys an idea of how the defensive players will rotate and kind of what their goals are in the overall strategy

First, before I begin, the 3-2 zone is designed to keep the ball out of the paint

So if you're playing against a team that's got a good drive, they can get in there

This would be a good defense to help you out with that. It'll also protect against the perimeter shooting teams

I will say that in my experience, the corner three is somewhat vulnerable on this if you can't react to it right

So just keep that in mind. but this zone will help you keep teams from running all over you

So the first thing I'll do here is I've already got these things set up. As you can see, I've got three players along the perimeter up at the top and then two post players down below

That's the three two zone. You want to put your guards up top and you want to put like a small forward or somebody right in the middle

I like to use someone that's somewhat tall, pretty athletic, and really can move around quick in this zone

That position is, or that player should be right here. Your bottom two players should be your taller players, you know, your power forward or your center

And that's how that's set up. Now, the, you know, the ball, there's several vulnerable spots here when you're running the zone

You know, you obviously have your wing, you have the top of the key, you have your short corner, you have your corner, and then probably the most vulnerable is the high post

So those are the spots that the offensive players are going to try and get the ball into

And essentially, any time there's a gap, and you'll see as I'm doing this, there are plenty of gaps in this zone defense or any zone defense for that matter

And that's what the other team is going to try to do is get the ball there. So, you know, obviously they want to get to the high post first

I going to talk about the high post last what happens when the ball gets to the high post The first one I go into is probably going to be the easiest place for the offensive team to get to

and that's going to be the wing. So they're going to try and move that basketball and get it here

So really what we should be doing as defense is, you know, this player here and this player here should be trying to deny the pass there

without, without, you know, moving out of position too much. and they can do that by kind of moving up, you know, stinting forward just to deny that pass

you know, discourage the team from getting it there. And really what that'll do is that'll just make the player kind of back up and receive the ball here

And unless I'm playing an extended three, two, which I really don't like to

I tell my players not to go past this line unless they've got a good steal

Because then, of course, you can have that little cut here and get the ball

and now, you know, we're dealing with a different problem. So when the ball gets into the wing area

really, you know, what's going to happen is, is this player here is going to come up and provide pressure here

You're going to have this small forward move over and still cover down on the high post

but he's going to move up to that elbow. And then you're going to have the other wing player

the weak side wing player. you're going to have them move down here

And what that does is it helps kind of compact that paint

And then you're going to have that low post or the weak side low post come over. And really what we're doing is we're just trying to get the defensive team on one side of the court

so that we can be more effective as in our zone. You will want to have your center kind of

of getting in front of any offensive players or any post players that are back here

But for the most part, that's how you, that's how you do the rotation on with the ball on the wing

Now let's say that the ball gets over to the corner, which, you know, will happen

It's inevitable. The two post players are responsible for the corner. You know, they should shoot out to the corner and be ready to guard

that corner player and prevent them from shooting the ball. So they be out here And what you need to do is you need to have the other low post player come out completely and in front anybody that you know standing on that block You can have your you can have your

you know, keep your player here. The wing player will actually want to drop down just a little

bit so that he or she can can help protect here. And then your three can still be here

but maybe drop down just a little bit because, you know, they could drive that baseline and

you know, pop a quick, or make a quick basket here. And then you'll want to have your other

player, your two or your other guard kind of come back down in here and be able to, you know

shoot out and protect if there's a skip. pass thrown to the other wing

But most guards can cover that pretty quick and get there, but they have to be paying attention

So there has to be communication in this. Now going over to the low post, so let's say that the ball gets into the low post, you're

still going to have, so say the balls here in the low post, you're going to, the small wing

is going to have to come over and help. you know the the big man that popped out to the corner it's got to be careful

he doesn't want to leave this person open so you got to make an option a choice there

you know if you got a three-point shooter a lot of these kids can shoot from the corner

pretty easily but you want to make sure that they can cover that and then you want to have that

three come down and put some pressure in here so that you can prevent any passes so

you'll have that. And that's pretty much what you have going on there

You know, they're going to, if they can score, they're going to try and score. If they miss it, you got your rebound and you go into your transition offense and you start moving

They're likely going to try and kick it out or skip it over to this player here, which is the next step

And then obviously you just rotate that ball around, do exactly what you were doing

You know, that two or the second guard is going to, you know, sprint up here

the flight of the pass. You know, they may go for the shot

they may not, but definitely contest it and get them moving. Now if the last one I talk about is the high post So if the ball does get into the high post what you want to do is you want to take the four and five the post players

You want them to, you want them to pinch in. It's never good when the ball gets in the high post

You know, they can just easily drive in. They can look for an easy pass into one of the other big men

there. So these two players have got to do a good job of pinching in and blocking, being there

to discourage the pass and to discourage, you know, a dribble drive in and getting an easy layup

You also want your two wing players to drop down as well, and that'll help prevent this

And really what that does is it just keeps them from being able to score in the pain area

which is where all the high percentage shots are, and you don't want that

You'd rather them kick it back out to the wing and just start this vicious cycle over

So that is it for this video. I'll do a real quick recap

We basically talked about the setup, which is a three-guard front and two post players in the bottom

Remember, you want that long, tall, athletic player to be in that middle position

just so that he or she can take advantage of the other teams

or being a position to guard against that high post and still build and move around

You know, there are some other ways in the 3-2 zone where you can end up trapping

and you want to be able to make sure that that small Ford can get back into the spot

We talked about what to do on the wing and how everybody kind of moves over

to one side and also in the corner. So just one final point before I end the video is, you know, just like in any zone

or man defense, you basically want to split that court in half. The ball's over here

You know, most of your defenders are going to be over here on this side, making it

difficult for the offensive score. I mean, they're literally going to have to do some serious skip passes to try and maneuver

around this, which will force bad shots and bad decisions that you can

take advantage of. So that's this. I hope that this video helped you out