Film Session: Georgetown attacks IU’s zone

  • Nov 26, 2012 in

With four starters 6’8″ or taller, Georgetown presented matchup issues for the Hoosiers in their 82-72 overtime win last Tuesday at the Barclays Center. As such, Indiana went 2-3 zone for long stretches of the game instead of playing man-to-man defense against  John Thompson III’s much larger perimeter players.

While it worked at times, Georgetown was also able to exploit it for a host of 3-pointers, particularly in the first half. The Hoyas went 8-of-14 from distance during the first 20 minutes of action.

A look at four of those first half 3-pointers all coming against Indiana’s 2-3 zone in the latest edition of Film Session:

I. Georgetown passes the ball around the perimeter for the first 10-15 seconds of this possession:

The ball makes it back to Jabril Trawick on the right wing and he dribbles towards Otto Porter, who’s instructing him to pass it up top to Markel Starks:

Porter puts a body on Remy Abell as Trawick drew Jordan Hulls to the middle. That leaves Starks with room up top. Trawick passes the ball to him:

Though he’s several feet behind the line, he has space to rise and fire with ease. He connects:

You beat a 2-3 zone by getting the ball into the middle, drawing the defense and finding the open man. This was one way of Georgetown getting that done.

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II. Again, Georgetown drains the shot clock a bit here by passing around the perimeter. D’Vauntes Smith Rivera looks over the top:

But decides to go over to Porter on the right wing. Porter draws over Yogi Ferrell:

Porter kicks it back up to to Smith-Rivera. He has the option of swinging it around to Nate Lubick on the left wing, but with Hulls under the top of the key he starts to step into a shot:

And connects on the trey:

Not bad defense by Hulls per se. But because Georgetown took some of these 3-pointers from a few feet behind the line, there was room here for Smith-Rivera to take the shot. This is what happens when you guard a space/area as opposed to face guarding; the room is there to use.

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III. This one starts with a fluke. A Starks pass hits the ref:

It’s eventually swung over to Greg Whittington on the right wing:

He finds Porter, who was calling for it in the middle:

This collapses the zone. All five Hoosiers are at or below the free throw line and three have two feet in the paint:

This allows Whittington to slide down to the right corner, receive a pass from Porter and connect:

This was a more extreme example of getting the ball into the middle, collapsing the defense and finding the open man.

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IV. Porter passes it into Mikael Hopkins, who — you guessed it — is in the middle of Indiana’s 2-3 zone:

From there it’s a turn to his backside as Abell comes over:

This give Nate Lubick space to catch …:

… shoot and hit yet another Georgetown 3-ball:

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