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| Friday, April 6 Updated: April 7, 5:10 PM ET Rules changes will put more guys in a zone By David Aldridge Special to ESPN.com |
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I'm an NBA head coach in the year 2001.
I have the Lakers coming to town next week. That means Shaq and Kobe. And that means, now, that I'm playing zone. Box and one, to be specific. That means you, the paying customer, will shell out good money to see Robert Horry and Rick Fox shoot jumpers. The question is, is that necessarily a bad thing? The answer may have a profound impact on the future of the NBA. If, as most everyone assumes, the league's Board of Governors passes the Colangelo Committee's proposed rules changes next week, zone defenses will become completely legal beginning next season. They are already quasi-legal. Pat Riley's Lakers used "man defense with zone principles" 15 years ago; now, under this proposed change, anything would go. After a week of talking with coaches and basketball people, I remain skeptical. The other three proposed changes are fine with me. Eight seconds to get the ball past midcourt instead of 10 is OK. The five-second rule limit on holding the ball in the frontcourt without passing or dribbling should have been in years ago. And I agree that easing up on the handcheck rules should get some flow back in the game. But the zone rule? I'm skeptical.
The Colangelo Committee's notion is that by allowing all zones, you'll no longer see that horrifying two-man set on the strong side of a halfcourt offense, with three guys on the weak side, not at all involved in the offense, trying to draw their men away from the action. Because defenses could now send their players anywhere they want, those three offensive players would have to take part in the game again. The CC believes that zone defenses won't become a staple of NBA play because, a) there isn't enough time in an NBA schedule to practice and perfect zones; b) zones leave defenses vulnerable to giving up offensive rebounds; c) zones eventually give up open shots. Coaches I talked to agree. "You're going to give up an open shot for sure," says former Pacers assistant Rick Carlisle. "That corner three is too easy. Teams would make it just enough to get you out of" a zone. The CC also believes that allowing teams to set up in zones would encourage teams to push the ball up the court -- and keep the opposition from setting up the zone. That would have the added benefit of getting the ball in the hands of the Allen Iversons and Vince Carters of the world out in the open, enabling them to display their skills on the break instead of on clear outs in a halfcourt offense. "Rather than those guys isolate and go one-on-one, they'll have to give the ball to somebody else," a committee member said. "And if the coach doesn't push skill development in the other players, they deserve to get beat. The way you're taught to beat up a zone is to beat the ball down the court. And that's where I think the athleticism of guys like Carter and Iverson can excel." But let's get back to the original question. Is it bad for this league if Rick Fox and Robert Horry shoot jumpers? Think about it before you answer. Everyone agrees that the NBA is suffering from a decided lack of flow. Not enough moving and cutting; not enough midrange jump shooting; not enough pick and screen setting. In short, not enough team play, too much individualism. All right. Fine. But individuality has been the operating principle of this league -- and, more importantly, its marketing division -- since the NBA's inception. This league has always been about Capital Letters. Wilt and Russell. Oscar and Kareem. Clyde and the Pearl. Magic and Bird and MJ and on and on and on. We love our superstars in pro basketball. We identify with the best of the best. Can we identify with Shaq if he is triple-teamed in the post? Isn't that why he left LSU? The CC argues that because defensive players will have the same three-second limit on them in the paint as the offensive players have, you won't be able to collapse on Shaq. And even if he is doubled in the low post, the selfless thing for him to do, the Team Thing, would be what he is already doing -- hit a cutting teammate for a layin, or the aforementioned Fox and Horry for those aforementioned jumpers. And there's nothing that says the Big Fella can't get his butt up and down the floor for some cheap baskets, either. I remain skeptical, however. And the main reason I'm skeptical is because the CC is trusting the very people that have helped get us in this mess in the first place. Not players, though they're responsible for a lot of things. Coaches. Coaches who leap off the bench from the opening tip, and who don't sit down until the final buzzer. Coaches who call every play of every game, from fist up to two down, who insist on micromanaging the life out of their players, who use timeouts like toothpicks. It amazes me every time a team goes on a 6-0 run and someone on TV is screaming, 'they've gotta get a timeout!' Why do they gotta? This is what I like about Phil Jackson, and Dean Smith, and coaches of their ilk. They know that sometimes, you have to let the players figure it out for themselves. That falling down by 12 points in the second quarter isn't a catastrophe. That vainly sticking your coaching nose into every set takes the improvisation out of your players, makes them look at the bench every time they make a mistake. Unfortunately, we've got a lot of coaches in the league now who insist on imparting their wisdom -- and altering the game. These guys are gonna sit back, relax, and let their guys run up and down the floor, making up their own minds about where to pass the ball? These guys aren't going to "manage" the game through their own brilliance, calling every cockamamie junk defense imaginable to try and steal a game against a more talented opponent? Do we need even more excuses for these guys, who can shake their heads after games and moan, sotto voce, "well, we called a triangle and two, but Bob was playing box and one"? We've had five, six years of well-meaning, smart committees tinkering here and there. More flagrant fouls. Less handchecking. Eliminating the rough stuff on cutters going through the lanes. Enforcing the palming rules. Allowing strong-side zone defenses. Calling more offensive fouls on bad screens. All implemented in the last decade, with the intention of raising scores and tempos, and none have done the job. Now comes the CC, with men much smarter than I, with its modest proposal. We've tried everything else, I guess. But call me skeptical.
Is Zo really fitting in? There's tension throughout the team. Roles that were established months ago have obviously been altered. And even though everyone says they're delighted that Mourning has returned, there is still some gnashing of teeth about his sudden comeback. Believe me when I tell you this: a lot of players on the team really didn't believe Mourning would play this season, and they're wondering who knew what -- and when.
For now, though, there is concern about Miami's defense. With Mourning back, there's been a little letup in the Heat's individual intensity. Perhaps that's a natural letdown with one of the league's best shotblockers and intimidators back on the floor, but it's not something that Miami needs now, fighting with New York for second place in the Atlantic and trying to maintain homecourt advantage. "Right now, I think we're pretty comfortable in feeling that 'Zo is going to be with us for the rest of the year," Brian Grant said. "I think the thing that Coach Riley is trying to convey to us is regardless of what happens, you all still have to continue to play. You still have to continue to get it done, the way you were doing it without 'Zo. And now that he's in there, even though he hasn't been able to use him as much as he'd like to, as much as we'd like to see 'Zo out there, you've still gotta get it done. With myself, at times, and I don't think it's consciously, maybe it's subconsciously, we sit there and wonder, 'okay, what are we going to do? What are we supposed to do?'" Riles has said that when Mourning is ready to be a starter, Grant will be the one coming off the bench. Grant says he's fine with that. I wonder.
"I know I'm going to get to play," he says. "If it is me, I know I'll get to play. It's not a situation where, OK, I'm coming off the bench, I don't know if I might get 10 minutes, I might get maybe 20. No matter what, I'm going to get to play, and I'm going to be a significant factor in what's going to happen to the team when I'm out there. That doesn't bother me. I hope (Mourning) gets to the point where he's able to play 30, 35 minutes. I think that's going to solve a lot of things, because now Coach can use him the way he wants to use him, and everybody else gets to fall into whatever scheme Coach comes up with."
Karl's Bucks: Good, but drive him crazy And when you're winning, everything goes down better. Do you like your team, I asked George Karl a couple of weeks ago, before the Bucks went out west for the last time this season. This regular season, anyway. "Oh, hell no," he said. "If you're asking me if I like them personally? Yeah, they're good guys. But do I like them in the fundamental nature of basketball? They drive me crazy." He was smiling when he said all of this. His team does everything it can to make him pull out what little hair he has left, but it's going to have 50-plus wins and the Central Division by the end of the regular season, so what can he do, really, but smile on the outside and seethe on the inside? "Well it's not a secure feeling, I'll tell you that," Karl says. "But in the same sense, I respect them. I respect what my team has done. In the sense of the fundamental nature of Carolina fundamentals, traditional basketball, we don't play it that way. We take bad shots, we take selfish shots, uh, we don't defend the ball very well, we don't have a lot of consciousness towards game preparation all the time. But we are getting better and we are winning. As a coach, winning is the key and winning is the paramount fundamental. After a lot of wins this year I've gone home wishing we had some fundamentals to what we do but, um, I think they are listening, and I think they are respectful, and I think they are getting better. But they are frustrating." But there are the playoffs looming ahead, and the Bucks haven't gotten out of the first round since 1989, and Karl wants to tighten up the ship as Milwaukee gets ready to make a run. "I still think the foundations of fundamentals are going to be necessary for us to win in playoff basketball to make that next step," Karl says. "We've made it very clear that we're not going to be very happy unless we win in playoff basketball. No matter if we win the division, don't win the division, get a homecourt, don't get a homecourt, whatever it ends up at we think we should be prepared to win a playoff series." After three years of George (and three more to come, now that he's finally signed that two-year extension), the Bucks are used to Karl's rants. Matter of fact, they've helped.
"I think George has said the same thing over and over again," Ray Allen says. "He said the same thing, and he said different things meaning the same thing. So I know a lot of times we get sick of hearing the same thing over and over again. But, you know, the proof is in the pudding. We've gotta play defense and we gotta rebound ... in order for us to do something for later in this month, we've got to do those two things." After the Bucks stumbled out of the gate in November, Karl ripped his three stars: Glenn Robinson, Allen and Sam Cassell. Those rip jobs have continued on and off throughout the year. "I think it picked up when he started calling us out," Robinson says now. "I think we all put our heads together and said we're going to go out and play the way we played the last month, the last two months, the way we ended the season last year ... we was kind of big headed. I think that probably took an effect, too. People were talking about us, saying we were going to win the Central Division ... that we were going to come out of the East, and we had our chest stuck out thinking that teams were going to lay down on us, not knowing that when you're on top teams are going to be gunning for you, and we found that out quick." Karl has still had to make compromises. He's gone away from the double teams he's used with some of his previous teams, and he's had to use his big men out front a lot more than he'd like. The other night in Sacramento, he left Ervin Johnson up top with no help against Chris Webber, and Johnson did a more than credible job handling Webber's drives to the basket. "We are a good defensive team once in a while," Karl says. "Unfortunately, it's not as often or consistently as the fundamental nature of the game of basketball says we should be. In the same sense, we're unorthodox offensively. I have a theory on our team -- if it is an open shot, it's a good shot. It doesn't have to have picks, passes -- weakside, strong side rotations. If Sam, Ray, Glenn, Timmy (Thomas) or Lindsey (Hunter) shoot the ball when they are open, it's a good shot." That's hard for Karl to say, because he's a purist, from the Smith Wing, which descends from the Phog Allen Wing, which descends from Ol' Naismith himself. But the Bucks are definitely New School. George is learning to deal with it, yes he is. "It's hard to accept, because some of our shots are quick, some of our shots are too fast, some of our shots don't have any sense to the clock or the scoreboard," Karl says. "But, you know, I can sit here, and I am saying I am chaotic about how we handle the clock and how our shot selection is. Our record is (48-3) in having the lead with two minutes to go in the game. So I am going 'that's pretty impressive.' So I gotta walk away and say they are doing something right. "But they are driving me crazy."
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