The Philadelphia 76ers did something that is rarely run in the NBA and that is running a zone defense in the fourth quarter of their comeback win over the Indiana Pacers. The Sixers held Indiana to 15 points in the fourth as they were able to complete the comeback.
Coach Doc Rivers was grasping at straws trying to push the right buttons for his team to get back at it on defense and, finally, he decided to try the zone and see if that work for the team.
“Zone is so interesting, especially in the NBA because of the short shot clock,” said Rivers. “When you get a couple stops, it starts becoming more mental to the other team. They score and then you have to get out of it, but I just wanted to knock them off rhythm. I thought they had such great rhythm against this for those three quarters, running it towards the end, it was fantastic.”
It was an adjustment that probably threw his team off a bit considering how little they had practiced it, but it’s hard to argue with the end result.
“Probably about five minutes, and it was one practice,” said Tobias Harris with a laugh. “We just looked over it a little bit and it was really in preparation for another team we were playing that played zone and that was about it.”
The Pacers shot 5-for-17 in the fourth quarter and they were just 1-for-7 from deep. In order to break a zone, a team must be able to knock down perimeter shots and that breaks things up at that moment. Indiana was unable to do that and the zone completely took them out of their flow on the offensive end.
“Whenever I do zone, I run it until I think they solve it,” Rivers added. “What it did was stop their movement, their movement was killing us. They were attacking the paint, they were beating us off the dribble, then all of a sudden, we went zone and packed it in. They missed a couple of shots and you miss a couple of 3s early in a zone in the NBA, it becomes tough all of a sudden.”
The important thing for Philadelphia was that it got them talking on that end of the floor and they were able to communicate much more. That is always an important thing on the defense for teams to work through.
“One thing I know about the zone, it got us really talking out there defensively and I think that was one of the major things we always say, on the defensive we got to talk more,” said Harris. “The catalyst to that tonight was being out there and get in zone and no one really knowing how to play a real zone, but at the same time we were communicating ourselves through it.”
The Sixers were able to do a lot of things with the zone including having Dwight Howard clog the paint and protect the rim. That allowed Philadelphia to collapse on any attempted penetration into the painted area.
“I think it was great,” said Howard. “I think the fact that we were able to just bear down in the fourth quarter, playing real solid defense, the communication was great. I think we just wanted it and the zone did us really good. We were able to get out pressure the 3-point shooters, they weren’t able to get shots off like they wanted to or get in the paint.”
The Sixers now move on to face the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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