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One of the more common requests that I receive from coaches of all ages is for a good zone offense:

That is a difficult request for me to answer, mainly because I usually don’t know the first thing about their team, other than occasional mention of the age group they coach. I can’t give a good answer if we haven’t spoken or interacted a bit more…and I don’t want to give them the canned response they can get anywhere. So…I think a good way to answer those questions is to take a look at the principles that drive all good zone offenses.

Zone offenses – good ones, at least – rely more on these concepts than on any particular play. This can be a difficult

point for a lot of coaches to really grasp – while it is important to have a basic offensive pattern that follows sound principles – filling the gaps, etc. – the ability to put these basic concepts into action from within that framework is far more indicative of how effective the offense will be:

Click on the images for close-up viewing

Fill the Gaps – As one of my coaches used to say – “Go where they ain’t”. Standing in the gaps puts offensive players in areas that the zone isn’t set-up to neatly defend.A player can cause confusion when he stands in an area of shared defensive responsibility
Drive the Gaps. If the ballhandler gets into the paint and nobody steps in to help, he should first look for the shot. We want shots in the paint. As popular as the ‘drive and kick’ concept is, belies another important concept, particularly at the youth levels – the 3 point shot is just ‘fools gold’ if you’re giving up layups to shoot it. The team with the most shots in the paint usually wins. Driving the gaps forces two players to defend against one, distorting the zone and creating other openings. By drawing the top 2 defenders, the baseline defender must leave his area to help defend 3. Which illustrates why it is good to… Utilize the short corner. The short corner provides great short range shooting opportunities, often as a result of the zone being distorted by earlier ball movement. This is the area a lot of coaches are talking about when they say to “get behind (or underneath) the zone”.
Use Pass fakes: Zones are ball oriented; as the ball moves, the zone tends to move with it. A well timed pass fake by 1 often leaves a wide open (on the return pass to 3 in the image) shot if the defense’s momentum leaves it out of position.
Screen the zone. Two Especially effective ways to screen the zone are to screen for the ballhandler and to screen the weakside

Weakside cutters are very effective against zones. Why? Because zones are ball oriented and more likely to lose awareness of weakside cutters than a man to man. It is important that cutters come from behind. 4 cutting to the ball from the wing is not nearly as effective as 4 coming from behind where defenders have less chance of locating the cutter in their peripheral vision.
Post player should work in tandem against zones. When 4 catches, 5 cuts and voice verse.
Look for the high post. The high post should look for 1. shot 2. look for his partner 3. look for the weakside cutter.
Two more KEY concepts that I wont diagram but I will mention are: 1. Ball Reversal: When the ball changes sides of the floor, the zone has to shift and move. When the ball stays on one side of the floor, players can rest on defense (allowing the opposing coach to ‘hide’ his or her defensive liabilities). The defense is also more likely to miss its help rotations and commit fouls when the ball gets reversed. Another closely related fundamental for high school level teams is to use the skip pass. 2. Beat the zone up the floor. The most effective zone offense is a fast break that scores before the zone can get organized.
The shop has a complete resource – a 44 page eBook on Zone Offense.