When playing against a zone is it pointless to give extra distribution to the guy specifically playing across from a weak defender - as opposed to, say, just giving extra touches to the area of the court in general - say if the guy has a weak defensive center, just giving extra touches to your posts in general as opposed to the center in specific? Just always been curious about how that works on a zone.

I would say yes, it is pointless.

I would disagree

Posted by teamrc on 6/29/2012 9:39:00 AM (view original):
I would disagree

Could you elaborate?

 

It depends what the other defenders do -- my understanding is defensive ratings in the zone are averaged together (i.e.-in a 2-3 the '2' are averaged for one defensive rating for perimeter defense and the '3' are averaged for a post defense) so just because a player is a weak defender, if he's paired with above-average defenders there might be minimal/no benefit...a 14 defender paired with a pair of 90s, for example, would create a better defensive average than a pair of 60 defenders, in which case targeting the weak defender is actually going to be playing into the teeth of the defense. 

Yeah.  I've seen that description, and I've also seen one that says it randomly picks which defender you go against. . and so on.  Peoples analysis of zone seems to be all over the map sometimes when reading this forum.

Usually I personally just go with the averaging theory and look at the zone in 'zones' - like "Posts plus SF if its a two three, Guards plus sf if its a three two, etcetera, and plan against those.

Interesting theories I never considered.....learn something new everyday with alzheimers

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/29/2012 10:35:00 AM (view original):
Usually I personally just go with the averaging theory and look at the zone in 'zones' - like "Posts plus SF if its a two three, Guards plus sf if its a three two, etcetera, and plan against those.

This... plus, I'll attack the "2" side of a 2-3 or 3-2 almost regardless of defensive ability.  If you play a 2-3 against me, my guards are coming at you harder than they would against a M2M or a press unless you're putting out 90/90/90 ATH/SPD/DEF in those guards.

Posted by taniajane on 6/29/2012 10:37:00 AM (view original):
Interesting theories I never considered.....learn something new everyday with alzheimers

*like*

Recently a few people have posted tickets stating that the averaging theory is the correct one.  They also stated that it's an average based on spot on the floor and not necessarily ONLY involving the 2 or the 3 - IE a midrange shot might actually average the defense of all 5 players on the floor with different weights.  But even if that doesn't weight each of the 2 or 3 equally in all cases, the inability to tell players where to shoot from in this game still makes it virtually impossible to isolate an individual defender, and I'm fairly certain that in most if not all situations all players from one half of the zone are weighted equally.

I read somewhere (not sure where, but somebody really legit said it) that there was a 60 % chance that the guys at the same position were guarding each other.  

you probably read it in the aejones winning at d2 and d3 thread.

Posted by cornfused on 6/29/2012 11:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 6/29/2012 10:35:00 AM (view original):
Usually I personally just go with the averaging theory and look at the zone in 'zones' - like "Posts plus SF if its a two three, Guards plus sf if its a three two, etcetera, and plan against those.

This... plus, I'll attack the "2" side of a 2-3 or 3-2 almost regardless of defensive ability.  If you play a 2-3 against me, my guards are coming at you harder than they would against a M2M or a press unless you're putting out 90/90/90 ATH/SPD/DEF in those guards.

This is how I do it as well ... 2-3 I would have more outside shooting and guards (or SF if he shoots 3's) taking shots.  In a 3-2, I would shoot less 3's and give distro to the guys who can score in the paint, etc.  I still do look at individual match-ups as well ... just do not give them the full value that I normally do for assigning distro.

Posted by ryandaniel on 6/29/2012 9:48:00 AM (view original):

Posted by teamrc on 6/29/2012 9:39:00 AM (view original):
I would disagree

Could you elaborate?

 

attacking the weakest place in anothers defense with your best option at that position works against every defense.
It works far better than pretending the guy doesn't exist just because you read somewhere that zone averaged everyones def #'s

Less effective than attacking the same guy in a M2m, yeah probably, but far from pointless.