BuzzerBeater Forums

Probably I use too much shortcuts when I write to you. I strongly believe that when you use 2-3 zone means that you are afriad more inside attacks than outside. It also means that you can stop them. Even game manual says "2-3 Zone: Increased inside defense and rebounding at the expense of a lot of perimeter defense". I showed you that you had problems in the past with stoping outside attacks while you played 2-3 zone. And I didn't say that you need all skills above 15 for guards. There is no need to have both perfect shooter and great defender in one body. Another can say - there is no salary space to have player both perfect shooter and great defender in one body. You should choose, who scores/who stops. Having guard with high ID is nothing bad. Moreover it doesn't costs more! That's why managers train IS for guards. To make my thougts more clearly to you about 2-3 zone and the role of guards in it, I checked your all matches in last 3 season, when you played 2-3 zone:

(52064789)
(52064635)
(48765315)
(48765483)
(48902823)
(45457759)
(45458142)
(45599356)

Only twice top scorer was PF. C's averaged 14,75 ppg for 48 minutes in that cases. They don't shoot to many balls :) On the other hand check how much outsider defence perimeter you lose comparing to man-to-man.

Hope it is long enough.

I analyzed the game with moutlinho's tool, which only confirmed my theory - that you lost because your players couldn't handle his outside defense and his players had better secondary skills, which don't affect ratings so much as primary skills.

1. Your sg took 6 threes. Nobody noticed that. Usually he'd take so many 3s in a close game, which wasn't the case here. This means he was forced to take 3s because OF wasn't good enough and/or his OD was too high for you.

2. Racman had 3 open shots. All other shots were contested. He missed the one of three opened shots, but scored on all defended shots.

3. You both had almost the same number of open looks (37 for you and 38 for him). However, his open looks were closer to the basket. Of his 87 shots taken, 54 were close range, 25 mid range and 8 long range. Of your 91 shots taken, 47 were close range and 27 mid range. The difference here was a whopping 17 long range shots from you, which are harder to convert than close range shots even if they are open.

4. He had 10 more RB than you, which is normal since he grabbed a lot of defensive rebounds from your long range misses. What's not acceptable is his 11 offensive rebounds despite your 2-3 defense. 3 coming from his SF, which seems to have better inside skills than your SF since his job description says "PF", while "PG" is yours' SF position. I know these positions doesn't take into account secondary skills, but anyway: His SF being a PF means his inside skills are more "rounded" than your PG's, who probably has only high IS and decent ID for his inside skills. Afterall, he had 3 rebounds compared to his SF's 9.

5. Fouls. Two of your players committed 9 fouls. This means that either their ID is too low or SB is too low to succesfully contest opposing guards' layups.

6. HCA

So offensive rebounding and his OD killed you. I'll go out on a limb and say that you probably encountered your nightmare matchup.

EDIT: I also saw your inside SF's skills since he's on market. 8 for DR and HA, really? Do all your other players so severely lack in secondary skills? Because if they do, this may also contribute to your loss.



Last edited by Koperboy at 9/20/2012 12:18:54 AM

Hello, this will be my first season in B3, going well so far, wish me luck! :)
Great fun to be in the B3...

Hello, this will be my first season in B3, going well so far, wish me luck! :)
Great fun to be in the B3...

good luck :)))))

Thx

My player with 5 fouls
Inside Def.: colossal
Shot Blocking: prolific

If its too low, than I'm a noob.
Other 2 SF have dra and hand 15-16, the other 17-18.

Don't like when his outside player score more vs 2-3 but his OS is just 6.
Just don't like this..

Finally there's a random factor in every games which involves that the best team doesn't win every time

I could discuss about that :)

Yep, me too :)

2. Racman had 3 open shots. All other shots were contested. He missed the one of three opened shots, but scored on all defended shots.

How many of those defended shots were defended by the PF? All the great OD in the world on a PG and SG won't help a bit when it's a big man who is handling the midrange jumper.

To join the debate regarding the 2-3 zone loss, in my opinion there are two aspects that need to be evaluated using a 2-3 zone: How suitable are your players AND how suitable are your opponents players. Some of the reasons are in bullets below:

- The gain when using a 2-3 zone is not only in inside defense but in rebounding as well. Rebounding often goes underestimated when talking about 2-3 zones
- You need high ID,SB and RB on your inside players to maximize the effectiveness of the zone on the inside players.
- Uneven ID distribution between the players used at the SF,PF and C spots may lead to worse performance against a certain high IS player in the opponents team.
- You need high OD, ID and to a degree SB on your guards.
- Opponent guards with high DV and IS are extremely dangerous against 2-3 zones.
- Good passing guards kill 2-3 zones by making perfect passes to their big men. Often the "assist" bonus of the offense is bigger than the "2-3" bonus of the defense. Usually this results into huge assist to turnover ratios for the opponent.
- Guards with good shooting skills will have a higher chance to take and make an outside shot.

In general, zones struggle against balanced players with strong secondary skills IMO. The 2-3 zone can and does work, but only in specific situations. and against suitable opponents. In a competition like B3 that is not often the case unfortunately, since the rosters of most participants are well prepared for 2-3 zones especially if they are a heavy LI team..

All of this is my opinion of course.

Very good and nicely argumented writing you got there, I agree with almost all statements except this:

since the rosters of most participants are well prepared for 2-3 zones especially if they are a heavy LI team..

Heavy LI team actually should feature guards without good shooting skills, which you stated is dangerous against 2-3 zone. But I'll agree this is a nitpick, as heavy LI team features guards with great PA, DR and good IS, which you already stated kills a 2-3 zone.