Zone Offense Strategies

with Bob Knight, former head coach at Texas Tech and Indiana University;
over 900 career wins; 3x National Championship Coach;
Five Final 4 appearances; 4x National Coach of the Year;
1984 US Men's Olympic Coach (Gold Medal);
distinguished member of the Naismith Hall of Fame (1991)

and

with Geno Auriemma,over 1,000 career wins - holds the highest winning percentage in Women's Basketball history;
11x NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship Coach;
John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching award (2012);
8x Naismith Coach of the Year;
distinguished member of the Naismith Hall of Fame (2006); over 30 Big East regular season and tournament titles

This is the fourth installment in the clinic featuring Hall of Fame Coaches Bob Knight and Geno Auriemma. In this clinic, they focus on how to play zone offense and share techniques for attacking a zone.

A zone defense can take the most dominant offense and turn it upside-down. To beat a zone defense, Coach Knight utilizes two basic strategies-dribble penetration and beating the zone down floor. Using on-court demonstrations, he shows every attacking angle that can be used to attack the zone defense off of the dribble. By using this strategy, you will learn how to create offensive advantages.

To beat any good zone defense, you must use the dribble to distort the zone. Coach Knight demonstrates the philosophy of forcing the defense to move as the ball is passed around. He shows how to use the dribble and pass fake to beat a typical 2-3, 1-3-1, and 1-2-2 zone. As he demonstrates, you will learn how to incorporate screens in the zone to maximize scoring opportunities against the zone. A master at dissecting zone defense, Knight shares all of his secrets to help you beat the zone defense that has frustrated your team.

Coach Auriemma follows Coach Knight's instruction with two ways to penetrate a zone: drive the gaps and pass attack to bring the ball to your best player instead of bringing the defense and your best player to the ball.

After learning about the basic principles to attack a zone defense, Auriemma uses on-court demonstrations to share five quick-striking actions to beat a zone defense. Along with the quick strikes, he shows how to use the man-to-man offense to attack a 2-3 zone defense. Your team will look to attack the zone using ball screens, 3-point shots, dribble penetration, and man-to-man offense.

Your zone offense will benefit from the expertise, instruction and philosophies of two legendary coaches as you look to create scoring opportunities and offensive advantages against any zone defense.

Produced at the Spring 2013 Chicago (IL) clinic.

113 minutes. 2013.