Three Positioning Tricks For a Basketball Zone Offense

• By Grant Young

The zone offense in basketball has become increasingly effective in modern basketball for several reasons: 

1. Spacing and Ball Movement: Zone defenses require teams to spread the floor and utilize crisp ball movement. This helps create open shots and driving lanes. Players adept at moving without the ball can exploit the gaps in the defense, leading to high-quality scoring opportunities. 

2. Exploiting Weaknesses: Zone defenses often have vulnerabilities at the high post and corners. A well-executed zone offense can exploit these areas, forcing the defense to make tough decisions and potentially leading to mismatches or open looks for shooters. 

3. Versatility of Personnel: With the rise of versatile players who can shoot, pass, and drive, teams can adapt their zone offense to different lineups. This flexibility makes it difficult for opposing teams to predict how to defend against them. 

4. Three-Point Shooting: The modern emphasis on the three-pointer means that a zone offense can be particularly destructive if it incorporates strong outside shooting. Stretching the defense horizontally can leave players open at the arc, capitalizing on the increased value of three-point shots. 

5. Pace and Flow: A well-executed zone offense can maintain a high pace, tiring out defenders while creating rhythm for the offense. Quick ball movement and timely cuts can catch defenses off guard, leading to easy transition opportunities. 

6. Player Intelligence and Awareness: Today's players are more skilled and knowledgeable about the game than ever before. They understand how to read defenses, recognize patterns, and make quick decisions that can exploit any lapse in coverage during a zone setup. 

7. Reduced Reliance on Isolation: By focusing on team play and ball movement, zone offenses can reduce the reliance on isolation plays that can become predictable. This unpredictability makes it harder for defenses to adjust.

However, these clear benefits are only available to coaches and teams who know how to successfully implement the zone offense into their offensive strategy. To ensure that you know how to do so, we’ve taken three lessons from coaches who know the zone offense like the back of their hand and included them below for your use. 

Scott Morrison - Preferred Zone Attacks

Scott Morrison is an assistant coach with the Utah Jazz.  

Before joining Utah’s coaching staff, Morrison joined the Boston Celtics as an assistant coach after spending the three previous seasons as part of the organization as the head coach of the team’s NBA G-League affiliate, Maine Red Claws. During his remarkable rookie campaign at the helm (2014-15).  Prior to the 2014-15 season, Morrison was with the Red Claws as a player development coach for the 2013-14 campaign.

Coach Morrison’s ‘Zone Offense’ course illustrates some of the best attacks that a zone offense can employ. One way is to ensure that your offense is spaced out (especially with a player in each corner) with your dunker filled. This is essentially where a zone offense becomes dependent on the dribble drive, with an aggressive guard that can attack the paint and either get fouled, make a layup, or dish it out to a man wearing at either corner. 

Another option (especially if you don’t have many guards who are great off of the dribble alone) is to focus on executing ball screens and pick and roll players early in on the shot clock.

Coach Morrison noted that these concepts are effective on a zone offense because they encourage more threats, more often, in a possession. A team can create an advantage early, and if that initial advantage doesn’t bear fruit then there will be other opportunities to capitalize and defeat the defense. 

Robert Starkey - Screens Off Ball

Coach Bob Starkey returned to the LSU Tigers in April 2022 to serve as the associate head coach on Coach Kim Mulkey’s staff. Starkey’s impact was immediately felt, helping lead the Tigers to their first national championship in 2023. 

Starkey came to LSU after one year of coaching at Auburn. From 1989-2011, Starkey coached at LSU with tenures with both the men’s and women’s programs, coaching basketball legends like Shaquille O’Neal and Sylvia Fowles. 

Coach Starkey’s ‘Things To Do When Your Zone Offense Isn’t Working’ course discusses why setting off ball screens is vital in a successful zone offense.  

He stresses, “Where you place all the players on each pass, cut, and movement is big.” For example, if you’re going to have the point guard pass it into the post and then set an off-ball screen to a wing player on the strong side, it’s crucial to have another player available on the opposite wing. 

This is because the zone defense does a good job of stopping the threat of the off-ball screen or the player on the zone’s outer edge collapses down, the post player won’t be trapped and will have an outlet on the perimeter to pass to. 

Todd Simon - Corner / Short Corner

Todd Simon will enter his second season as the head coach of Bowling Green’s men’s basketball program in 2024-25, being hired to the post in March of 2023. Simon joined the Falcons after spending seven seasons at Southern Utah as the head coach of the Thunderbirds.

In his first season with the Falcons, Coach Simon tallied 20 wins for just the 10th time in the program's MAC era, becoming one of 10 teams in the nation to go from 20 losses in 2022-23 to 20 wins in 2023-24. 

Coach Simon’s ‘Zone Offense’ course discusses one trick to beating a zone offense: Having a wing on the opposite side of where the ball is located to make a back cut across to the other corner. 

Not only will this be difficult for a zone defense to track, but having a player on one corner and another on that same side’s post is nearly indefensible for one player in a zone; especially if the ball is quickly passed into the post.