Dallas Morning News

["hironaka@xxxxxxxxx"<hironaka@xxxxxxxxx>]

Reading stuff like this makes me wonder how George Karl 
landed the job coaching Team USA. But of course he found 
a convenient scapegoat in Paul Pierce. I'm sure we'll do 
better next time.



http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/mmcallister/st
ories/010503dnspomcallister.16075.html

Zone throws some coaches for a loop 
01/05/2003 

George Karl starts rattling off a few of the offenses he 
can run against a man-to-man defense. The 1-4. Box. Flex. 
Hawk. Triangle. Princeton. Pick-and-rolls "all over the 
court." 

In other words, the Milwaukee coach can choose from a 
lengthy list  as many as 100, he says. That allows him 
to create just about any matchup he wants. And in the 
NBA, matchups are the runways to successful offensive 
flights. 
 
But then the topic shifts to offenses used against the 
zone defense  and Karl basically draws a blank. He has 
won nearly 700 NBA games, is the league's highest-paid 
coach at more than $7 million per season, is a former 
(albeit unsuccessful) U.S. national team coach, and has 
been part of the professional basketball landscape for 
nearly 30 years. 

And he's not sure how to attack a zone defense. 

"Against a zone," Karl says, basically shrugging his 
shoulders, "I don't know where the shots are going to 
come from." 

For a coach in any sport, nothing is scarier or more 
frustrating than lack of control. Just ask some of Bill 
Parcells' predecessors at Valley Ranch. A coach without 
control is a coach who can't dictate his own success or 
failure. 

Perhaps that's why some coaches in the NBA fear the 
increased use of zone concepts that were allowed into the 
league last season and that the Mavericks have used so 
successfully this season. 

It's not so much zone defenses that make them nervous. 
It's having to run zone offenses. The number of plays is 
reduced. So is the control. 

When one team plays a zone defense, the opposing coach 
basically is left standing on the sideline and hoping his 
players can find an open shot. 

"Offensively, I cannot tell my team where I want them to 
go when you zone me," Karl says. "They've got to play 
together, play as a team and find their shot." 

But Mavericks assistant coach Del Harris, who wrote the 
book on zone offenses in 1975, insists that the increased 
use of zone in the NBA does not detract from a coach's 
ability to influence a game. 

"It doesn't take the coach out of the game; it actually 
puts the coach more into the game," Harris says, "because 
he has more tools to work with on defense. It's then up 
to the coach to be able to get his players to the point 
where they understand how a zone defense works and 
therefore how a zone offense has to work." 

Harris does acknowledge that zone offenses are less about 
drawing plays and more about drawing up concepts. He also 
predicts that as NBA players become more experienced at 
attacking a zone, they'll also become more successful at 
it. 

Even so, zone offenses are not easy to learn  or teach. 
Harris understands his good friend Karl's frustration. 
Heck, Harris himself even has to constantly relearn the 
intricacies of the zone offense  and yes, that does 
include re-reading his own book Coaching Basketball: Zone 
Offense. 

"The last bastion of basketball strategy, even as the 
game has progressed, has been zone offenses," Harris 
says. "There have been more coaches who lack the 
understanding of the zone game than any other aspect of 
the game itself. 

"But it's all learnable. It's not nuclear physics." 

Wonder if George Karl would agree. 
  
     
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