KenPom: Man Defense vs Zone Defense

[Goose]

Story

TL;DR - Man to man defensive teams do best, zone are ok and switching between the two is a bad idea.

While the zone doesn’t reduce foul rates, it can reduce possessions, which in turn can reduce total fouls. So if you’re a particularly bad team that would like to shorten the game, or you’d just like to shorten your bench, playing a zone could be for you. That’s as enthusiastic as I can get about recommending a zone defense. But given the increasing ability of players at all positions to make 3-pointers, the zone is going to be an increasingly hard sell in the years to come.

 

[NiTownBuff]

Would be interesting to see an analysis of the impact of switching every ball screen

 

[Buffnik]

Interesting. Maybe Tad knows more about basketball than most of us.