Zone Defense Quotes

There are a lot of teams that don't want to play, that only want to defend against Barcelona, and that makes it difficult. We're always looking for the open space. A lot of times we'll face six defenders and four midfielders.

Any good attacker will always beat a defender who's face-marking you.

In college you could say 'Coach, let's go to zone,' when you're tired.

I was kind of forced to rebound at a young age. I was usually at the back in the press of the 2-3 zone, because my brothers were smaller than me. So I usually got most of the rebounds.

The nickel spot, inside. It's the hardest position to play. It's harder than outside.

I conveniently forgot to remember that people only have two hands, or, as another parent once said of having a third child, it's time for a zone defense instead of man-to-man.

I mean, defense to me is something that when you watch a game you don't really pay attention to defense unless you're very - unless you're a specialist.

Typically, you'll see that zones work better in November than in February. As the season goes on, teams get better and better at attacking zones, and it becomes harder to become an effective zone defense as the season progresses. But early on, it can be can good at times.

Against our zone, even really good offensive teams take longer than usual to get into their patterns, maybe 30 seconds. So we're locked into playing defense for that long... it's hard to run on offense after you've been hunkering down on D for that long.

Back when I played, basketball was all about fundamentals, about hustling, getting those loose balls, all those rebounds under the basket. That equals up to 12, 14, 16 points. You can lose a game with that much. It's different watching basketball now. People don't play the same way. It doesn't matter if you score, if you can't stop the other team from scoring. Our coach used to kick our ass if we didn't. I was told if you saw more of the other team color under the basket than your own team color, you ain't doing your job. Everybody should be under the board, trying to get that ball.

Zones are easier just to throw out there and you don't have to really teach it.

In the NBA they've taken away so much of the hand-checking and the physicality of how guys are able to guard you. So if you touch me, I'm gonna throw the ball toward the rim and get shots.

I don't love playing zone all the time, because it does have an effect on your offense.

Most people would say safety was my best position. To me, the biggest challenge and most gratifying thing I got out of playing football was playing corner, because it was a bigger challenge than playing safety. Playing corner provided me my biggest thrills and my biggest headaches.

My position in football was cornerback, and what your job is as a cornerback is to read the person that's in front of you - read their body language and anticipate what's going to happen next.

Basketball has turned into an offensive-minded situation. They don't play on both ends. They don't play defense.

When there's pressure on the ball, you can go man-to-man on your striker; you've got the advantage because the ball pressure means it'll be a difficult pass to play.

Sometimes I'm in that timeout, and I say, 'Let's go a possession of zone,' and they're like, 'Yeah, let's do it,' and that shows that they're confident enough to roll with whatever we're doing. And sometimes they're like, 'No, no, no, no.' They don't want a possession to get away from them, possibly.

I'd never switch to man-to-man unless we were able to play good man-to-man. Ever.

I prefer to play inside linebacker.

I like playing size per position defensively.

In the NBA, if you can't defend your position, they're going to go at you over and over again.

I want to be active. I want to be able to show everything I can do. I can blitz. I can cover. I can play zone and play man. I can do it all.

I do like playing strong safety.

Rex Ryan does a lot of the same kind of stuff that we do in terms of how they play in the secondary and what they do.