Four Zone Defense Drills to Strengthen Your Team
- By Grant Young
Zone defenses can be a game-changer in basketball, providing teams with strategic advantages that can significantly impact the outcome.
By effectively covering key areas, a zone can force offenses into taking lower-percentage shots and making precarious passes, leading to turnovers and contested attempts. This is especially valuable against teams that favor isolation plays, making them less comfortable and more prone to errors when faced with a well-organized zone.
However, for this strategy to truly shine, zone defense drills must be implemented that emphasize communication, positioning, and rotation.
Drills are essential for zone defenses as they help players develop the necessary skills and understanding for success. Repetition builds muscle memory, enabling players to confidently execute these actions under pressure. Simulating game-like scenarios through drills prepares players for real-world challenges, helping them recognize offensive patterns and adapt quickly.
All of this is to say that by honing skills and fostering unity among players, a zone defense can become an unstoppable force on the basketball court. This is why we’ve pulled four fantastic zone defense drills from three great basketball coaches that you can use to great effect, depending on which zone defense you’d like to use.
Guy Shavers - Five Trips Drill
Guy Shavers spent 17 seasons as a high school basketball coach. He had the #1 ranked team in North Carolina in 2019 and finished #76 in the country, but #2 in the state of NC in 2017 finishing with a record of 28-3.
Guy’s accomplishments read as follows: Conference Coach of the Year 5 times, District 7 Coach of the Year 5 times, All-Northwest Coach of the Year 3 times, 7 Conference Championships in his last 9 seasons including 5 outright titles, 2 Western North Carolina Region Championships, 2 North Carolina State Championships (4A 2016-2017 season, 3A 2018-19 season) going undefeated with a 32-0 record in 2019.
In Coach Shavers’ ‘Modified Amoeba Defense’ Course, he discusses a key drill for his Amoeba zone defense that’s called the Five Trips drill.
This drill starts with a free throw shooter taking a shot with two players on the defensive blocks. After the shot, the players on the blocks will initiate a 2 on 1 full court transition with the free throw shooter on offense.
After that possession, two more players will join the original free throw shooter and conduct a 3 on 2. This eventually continues until it becomes a 5 on 5 for both sides.
This is an effective zone defense drill because it provides players an understanding of where they must position themselves in a fastbreak depending on how many attackers there are and how many defenders.
Frank Fogg - Cut Throat Drill
Coach Frank Fogg, with 10-plus years of coaching experience, loves to share his championship-winning knowledge. Working as a high school coach at the highest level in Texas, Coach Fogg is a go-to resource for coaches across the nation.
Coach Fogg’s ‘The 1-3-1 Defensive System’ course discloses a ‘Cut Throat’ drill that starts with three teams of five on one half court and two balls.
One team will be on offense, one on defense, and another at half court. If the team on offense scores then the defense goes off and if the defense gets a stop then the offense goes off.
Coaches should be aware of switching players often forcing the defense to adapt and get used to communicating and working with teammates.
Frank Fogg - Scramble Drill
Another 1-3-1 zone defensive drill Coach Fogg is fond of is the Scramble drill, which begins with a Shell 5 formation that emphasizes moving the ball.
A coach will then call a player’s name, and that player has to sprint and touch the opposite side’s free throw line. The play then becomes live, with the offense trying to execute a play and score before that vacating defender returns.
Coach Fogg notes that it’s important to coach the vacating defender communicating where he’s going upon his return by yelling to his teammates. The coach also wants to ensure that his defense isn’t fouling in order to give them an extra advantage on top of the one given to them by the defender leaving.
Donnie Jones - 7 on 5 Drill
Donnie Jones is currently the men's head basketball coach at Stetson University. Prior to Stetson, Jones served as the head coach of the UCF Knights men's basketball team from 2010 to 2016 and at Marshall from 2007–2010.
Coach Jones led Stetson to their first ASUN Championship and first NCAA Tournament appearance in Stetson’s 53rd season at the Division 1 level.
In his ‘Zone Defensive Strategies’ course, Coach Jones explains that he likes to do a 7 vs. 5 drill with 7 players on offense and 5 in his zone defense.
Overloading the offense (especially adding players on the wings) and sending them to crash the boards will demand the defenders get a body on their man and box out (which is a common problem with zone defenses) because it’s the only they’ll be able to secure a rebound while being at such a disadvantage.
The same thing can be done by adding an eighth offensive player in the post to get repetitions of crashing down on that player when they get the ball and then closing out when they kick it out to the perimeter.
