HALF COURT ZONES: CORE VS. TACTICAL USE
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HALF COURT ZONES: CORE VS. TACTICAL USE
“Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.”
–George Patton
George Patton was a general that spent most of his combat life invading places, not defending places. He had overwhelmed many fixed defenses. Thus it is not surprising that he would use his bold eloquence to say something pithy and pregnant with insight about attacking and scoff at fixed defenses.
But even the pithiest and most insightful epigrams cannot capture the full truth of things. They are by definition reductions, most often from a particular POV with a particular prison of experience.
While I can recall no fixed fortifications that have withstood full scale, persistent assault by superior numbers over a prolonged period, if only because sooner or later some new offensive technology was discovered for attack, at the same time, I do not recall an instance in which fixed fortifications used, not to hold on no matter what, but rather to shape a battle field and an opponents path of attack and distribution of forces has not in fact accomplished it’s end.
Put another way, fixed fortifications used as strategic ends in themselves are, as Patton’s epigram indicates, monuments to the “strategic” stupidity of man, but fixed fortifications used as the “tactical and logistical” means to shape battle theaters and fields for eventual mobile combat in favorable locations at favorable moments are monuments to the “tactical” genius of man.
For example, Corrigidor fortress and Subic Bay naval base were never intended to be invincible. In peace time, they were places from which a relatively small investment in boots and weaponry could enable gun boat diplomacy to project sufficient force to enforce business contracts of USA’s early transnational oligopoly producers (e.g., Standard Oil and its kerosene illuminant sales throughout East Asia, ALCOA’s early aluminum monopoly, and more generally USA’s maritime trade in a variety of industrial goods and raw materials).
But in war time planning, Corrigedor/Subic Bay were intended to force an enemy, be it the Japanese, or the British, to have to divide its forces at least between Hawaii and the Philippines, when planning any surprise attack. It never occurred to anyone that they could have withstood full scale, concentrated assault. Corrigedor/Subic Bay were largely beyond the “logistical” capability of the USA to sustain in the early stages of any surprise offensive that included an attack on Hawaii, plus a naval challenge of the the supply lines between Corrigedor/Subic Bay and Australia/New Zealand/Hawaii. Thus, despite the early fall of Corrigidor/Subic Bay to the Japanese, these fixed fortifications had already by definition accomplished their purpose of dividing Japanese force application. The Japanese had had to divide their impressive offensive forces to expand their regions of control in the Pacific, rather than concentrate all forces on Wake, Hawaii and so instantly be in position to begin locking down the west coast ports of CONUS in naval blockade, later in probable Japanese planning to be combined with an eventual naval blockade of east coast ports of CONUS by either a victorious German Navy, or an opportunistic British Navy that might have made pragmatic alliance with Germany and Japan in pursuit of joint subordination of USA. Never forget, USA pre war battle plans included the option of having to fight the British, instead of being allied with them. Such are the harsh realities of fundamentally anarchic, strategic international relationships. The enemy of my enemy can become my friend, and more importantly, my friend can become my strategic enemy with the right set of incentives when push comes to shove. (note: this is why all friendly nations spy on their allies as much as their enemies.)
So, jaybate, you say, what the hell has all this digression into fixed fortifications to do with half court zone defense in a flipping basketball game?
Answer: Zones to some extent (emphasize “some”)) should be thought of as a basketball equivalent of the fixed fortification in military strategy.
To wit: a zone distributes five defenders on the floor in fixed zones on the floor; this means that the offensive team knows exactly where opposing teams toughest and easiest elements to attack are from the moment the offense recognizes the zone it is actually up against. Think about that for a moment. You know for an entire possession where the guy is that can eat your lunch everytime you take the ball near him and you know for an entire possession where the guy is that you can beat like a stick. Knowledge is power. It is advantage, if it is used, but not if it is not.
A zone is a fixed fortification of connected elements that is built on an invisible track that allows it to track as a five man battery with the ball moving around an arc, kind of like the guns in a five gun shore battery can move on an arced track (or a cluster of articulated turrets) that has a certain range of sweep of targeting, ships off shore move. Move your offensive forces over here, and the gun battery that is the zone moves there. Move back and the zone moves back. But the individual guns remain largely in their same fixed positions in the array.
Next, realize that somewhat like a fixed fortification in war, a zone has the quality of compressing concentration of force projection when its outer boundary is breeched. Get inside the first wall of a fort, and one encounters a designed “kill zone” where machine guns and rifles aimed out of gun slits confront the enemy with withering gun fire in a confined space. Big forts are designed to have several layers of these kill zones, too. Basketball zones simply compress when the ball enters the kill zones. Two men are suddenly guarding one. But if attack can be quickly redirected to another side, then fixed fortification that is a basketball zone can have difficulty redirecting the interior to stop and move to attack elsewhere.
Next, realize that as a fixed fortification, or a basketball zone, compresses to fight defensively within its perimeter, then beyond its shrunken perimeter its opponent is virtually free to position for further attack. Suddenly the offensive team can combine internal attack with now suddenly feasible mortar attack at the three point line, rather than 25-27 feet out…assuming it is capable of rapidly kicking the ball outward.
Teams that learn to play great zone defense (like Syrexcuse) try to be long everywhere but one position. And at that one position that short player is most often an incredibly athletic and tough human being. As five gun defensive battery, such teams become incredibly adroit at collapsing and expanding so as to hamstring even the best of offensive attacks.
But there is one defensive vulnerability that even the best zone defensive coaches have never been able to over come, just as generals have never been able to over come the same kind of vulnerablity in fixed fortification. The individual elements (i.e., guns) have to remain in a fixed array in relation to each other. And there in lies the Achilles heel of all defenses and of all fixed fortification. The offense, if it has the resources and time to persist in a varying series of attacks can eventually move its individual elements of attack (its offensive weapons) into positions where it hold match-up advantage over the fixed elements of the zone/fixed fortification, even with the ability of the zone/fixed fortification to sweep in arc into position of against a new point of attack.
If Bill Self knows where Cory Jefferson and Gathers/Austin will be in any given zone formation for the entirety of a possession, then all Bill Self has to do is move Perry Ellis out of Cory Jefferson’s zone–a player Perry Ellis cannot offend effectively against–and move him into a zone with a player Perry Ellis can offend effectively against. Perry is a great scorer with many spin moves and good springs, so bigger slower players like Gathers/Austin are very prone to be outmaneuvered by Perry and to foul him for three point plays, where as Cory Ellis is capable of both staying with Perry’s moves and then cramming his shots back down Perry’s throat.
Next, realize that Bill Self cannot only move Perry Ellis, but each and ever player into such mismatches. And by so moving them, then can anticipate where the zone will have to deform the most to compensate for the mismatch and then coach his player with the matchup advantage deforming the zone about where to look for the open man created by the zone deformation.
Other things equal, over the course of 40 minutes of action, as an offensive team gets increasingly quick at recognition of the zone, then distribution of its players into the zones of mismatch, the offensive team holds greater and greater advantage, even with not very good outside shooting on a given night. And if one adds a hot shooting hand from trey in a given game, then the zone/fixed fortification virtually has no chance to prevail.
But jaybate, why does Syracuse win so much then?
Because Boeheim recruits L&As suited to play the zone, plus a skill perimeter player about as well as anyone in part because most other coaches are trying to recruit m2m defenders. Boeheim by doing what the others ain’t can always keep his larder stocked with a lot of L&As suited to playing zone, but not necessarily well suited to playing m2m, because these are not being sought out by most coaches in such large numbers.
In turn, Syracuse is very, very hard to beat unless you are a team with an exceptional array of very good players that enable you to create 2 mismatch zones for most of a game, and have two good outside shooters to make Syracuse pay for deforming the zone to overcome your mismatches.
Now we get to the meat of the matter in why Self plays m2m as his core defense–the defense that he starts with and always comes back to. If Self has great m2m defenders capable of switching AND helping, he has the best of all defensive worlds, without giving an opposing the opportunity to create mismatches in known locations against known defenders. Self can bring help from many angles that can be quickly varied even during a single possession. Self can refuse to switch off if his defensive player has MUA on an offensive player. Self can switch, whenever an MUA occurs and help cannot be brought without too great of a loss at another position. And so on.
For Self then, the m2m is a core strategy and the zone is a tactic. He goes to zone for brief periods, when doing so may enable him to halt a point of attack at a weakness that his m2m has no means of countering, at least without some half time scheming. He goes to a zone to force some recognition problems briefly to get a stop. But Self is determined to come back to his m2m if at all possible, because he knows that giving an opponent more than a few trips looking at a zone will lead to the opponent putting their MUA player in a KU zone where a KU player is at match-up disadvantage.
Thus, Bill Self would probably agree with George Patton that half court zones and all fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man, but that tactically zones can accomplish useful objectives in brief application, but never as strategic solutions to the problem of winning.
Winning is ultimately about staying on the attack against the opponent’s weakness until even the opponent’s strong holds are so weakened that they can to can be attacked and overwhelmed as is tactically expedient. Thus Self’s recurring preference for playing to wear down the opponents strong players, and getting them into foul trouble with ten to go, so that a team can be attacked at ever more points of advantage. Eventually the opponent crumbles from within. And if it can withstand the constant assault on its mismatches, then Self apparently reasons that at that point the game comes down to a great stop and a great play best done by great impact players, which he tries to stay as satocked up with, as Boeheim tries to stay stocked up on great zone defenders. And for Boeheim’s part he too tries to stay stocked up on great impact players to decide the close games.
But one structural advantage Self always holds over Boeheim, whether he has the players he needs to exploit the advantage or not, is he knows where the match-up advantage for his players will be in the Syracuse zone much more than Boeheim knows where it will be versus Self’s m2m.
Boeheim’s advantage is that much more of the time he can bring two defenders to bear on one offender.
Who wins in a game between Syracuse and KU, as coached by Boeheim and Self, and where both coaches have a lot of talent and depth, largely depends on which coach in a given game has the best players for his particular core defense, and with the timeliness (and surprise) of each coach in springing his non-core defense (Boeheim his m2m and Self his junk zones) on the other, and with the degree of advantage held by each coach’s impact players over whom they can be positioned against core, or tactical, defenses, at go get a basket time, if games stay close.
Neither approach can prevail everytime; that is a naive hope. There is too much emergent complexity in any basketball game for certainty of outcome based skillful adherence to effective strategy and tactics.
But if one looks at the winning percentages of Boeheim and Self over the course of their careers, you see that Self holds an edge. Not much of one, but still a statistically significant edge, and it is especially significant, since Self had to coach for quite awhile at schools where he could not rely on the talent and depth that Boeheim attracted to Syracuse, the only place Boeheim has coached. One could also counter that Boeheim has coached longer against top competition and so reasonably discount somewhat the argument that Self won with lesser talent. So: in the end, we are left with just the raw winning percentages of both coaches to make a judgement.
Boeheim is at .749 career. Self is at .756 for career. At Syracuse, Boeheime is of course also .749. At KU, Self is .833. Self’s approach wins a little more overall and a lot more at a basketball heavy weight, with the caveat that Self has not coached quite as long overall as Boeheim, an not nearly as long at a heavyweight, and so his approach has not yet seen as much change as Boeheim’s has had to contend with. But looking at Self’s staggering advantage in winning percentage at a heavy weight program, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that Self’s approach is the more effective.
What makes me finally side decisively with Self’s extreme reliance on m2m is that among the game’s greatest winners throughout the many eras of the game, Allen, Rupp, Wooden, Smith, Knight, Sutton, and Coach Consonants, these have all used m2m as their core defense and supplemented tactically (and sparingly) with zone. Thus, the proof is in the pudding to me.
But seeing the pudding, and seeing the proof in the pudding, are not the same as rationally understanding why and how the m2m defense should be the core defense and the zone should be the tactical complement, and not vice versa. It has taken me a long time of watching basketball, nearly 50 years of it, to come to be able to explain it in the terms that I have in this post.
And that length of time is perhaps why I never became a coach.
I never had a great mentor explain the why and how of it to me. And I have been a bit slow on the uptake.
Rock Chalk!!!
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@jaybate - I could talk zone vs. man all day.
I find myself always gravitating toward zones, and zone traps, and zone presses. They’re intriguing, they’re controllable from a coaching perspective, and they are repeatable. But most of all, they are coachable – and a varying level of talent can excel under this format.
With m2m, that is just not the case. Sticking with the military theme, what would a general look for when attacking? The opposition’s weakness. I find it much easier to attack the opponent’s defensive weaknesses if they’re playing m2m. It’s much easier to run a smooth and attacking offense against m2m. It’s more predictable. I bet if you ask coach Self what defense he’d rather face, he’d say m2m. There is comfort in what you know … most teams play m2m. They practice against it.
Seeing the names that have relied upon m2m to win, the heavyweights as you state, is impressive. And for me, it’s hard to argue against anything Bob Knight does or did as a coach.
I personally believe with every fiber of my being that using a base zone 1-3-1; flexing in and out of aggressive trapping (like Florida utilized); then incorporating a sporadic 2-2-1 3/4 court press (like OSU ran) and 1-2-1-1 full court press at least 5 possessions per half is a winning strategy. Using that as your “core”, and then using m2m tactically.
How can a team, that is not a zone/zone trap/zone press team, replicate what you will throw at them in a game situation?
Particularly if you are not in the top 20% in talent, this strategy makes sense. It changes the game. It is an “x” factor. It permits perhaps inferior talent to compete and prevail. It’s like bad weather in football. It’s an equalizer. It requires alternative preparation. It allows you to cause your opponent to utilize a response that is perhaps not its strength, and that’s where you can gain an advantage. You can create the type of game you want to play, and force your opponent to be a part of that game. Combine that with a fast paced offensive strategy, and you have chaos.
But then logic sets in. Why doesn’t any D-1 coach employ this strategy?Could it be that they know it would fail?
I don’t know. I’ve seen coaches at all levels do the inexplicable. I also believe that zone is looked down upon. Zone is not seen as “manly” as m2m. And zone is viewed by some as gimmicky.
For my money, I’m going to play the defense that most coaches don’t want to face. There is a reason they don’t want to face it.
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@HighEliteMajor, a mighty fine commentary, sir. Just between you and me I have long preferred your reasoning and favored what you favor, that 1-3-1 Magic’s Michigan State team ran so long ago now. However, I had not developed my thinking enough to include two different zone presses, also.
I played on a high school team that used the 1-2-1-1 and can vouch for how much havoc it could create, but it drew down our energy budgets a good bit doing it. And we mostly only used it when behind.
My devotion to the 2-2-1 zone press is the closest thing I have to an ideology in my life. It is good to play it if you have talent. It is good to play it if you don’t. It is good to play it to force half court offenses to initiate farther out. It is good to use it because sooner or later, though its primary purpose is not to force turnovers, it always does force turnovers. It is good because opponents hate playing against it for an entire game. It is good because it can be played with green eggs and ham, Sam I am.
The 2-2-1 was instrumental to Wooden winning ten rings.
The 2-2-1 won rings with a 6-5 anchor.
The 2-2-1 won rings with footer for anchors.
The 2-2-1 won rings with tweeners for anchors.
But that is all pressing stuff.
The half court logic remains that if you run a zone, I may not like playing it, but I know where your chess pieces are, and I know you won’t move them during any single possession, and so I know where to put my guys to create MUA.
And even if you do move them before each possession, my guys can make a couple of passes to find out where they are going to be.
Now, HEM, here is where you and I might revolutionize the zone and so revolutionize defense in basketball.
If we were to come up with rules for switching defenders from zone to zone during a possession, then we would have some thing that could avoid the mismatches.
The “switching zone.”
Not a switching man to man.
But a zone where if I move Perry Ellis to the other side, then Cory Jefferson’s zone moves over to the other side.
Hmmmmm, I like that!
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@jaybate 1.0 A “switching zone?” That’s next level stuff. Is it legal? Is it possible? If so it seems that it would be a decoy of a fixed fortification defense. One that would seem to have its defense on a fixed track but then it jumps the track and mutates into something else on another track. Any offense would instantly be caught off guard and go on the defensive during their offensive possession just to protect the ball and move it to the right MUA, if they can find one.
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@HighEliteMajor, here is a heuristic expressed as a Boolean logic for when not to zone an opponent
“If an opposing team were talented and skillful enough to put its players in your zones where they hold MUA consistently, then no zone, else zone.”
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Great discussion… Of course, this reminds me of why I like the very-well-rehearsed 08Champs as an evidentiary example of how a well-coached and well-practiced team can beat zones. I recall the recurring theme of opposing coaches throwing a zone defense vs the 08 guys, who would instantly recognize it, and go to their pass-pass-pass then lob for dunk, OR have the “high” bigman shine in his decision-making role. Often, the typical Bill Self bigman’s usual possession of a face-up jumper served them well here, as that FT line jumper could serve the big in that position in the possession as KU tried to beat the zone. I dont recall zones bothering that particular KU team.
Fixed fortifications: You mean the Maginot line was defeatable? (Not just circumvent-able thru Belgium as the Germans actually did…). MacArthur, of course, legendarily used island-hopping to bypass certain strongpoints (Rabaul and Truk), eventually rendering them irrelevant. Sometimes attacking fixed fortifications could be deemed too costly, if there was a better alternative.
Self and Zone Defenses: I think Self publicly sticking to his m2m mantra has a benefit. It makes the opponent prepare for who we usually are. But, to take HEM’s point “in reverse”: if we then throw a surprise zone defense, the other team has not practiced that, and the advantage goes to us. Its about being UNexpected…sometimes the changeup can cause a gamechanging swing…hence Self’s crafty use of different defenses as “junk” defenses. Ya, junks the opponents offensive flow…
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@ralster regarding the Maginot line, that is exactly what I was trying to say. The Maginot line takes a lot of grief as a fixed fortification that failed to save France. But in fact it was quite effective as a tactical fortification in channeling the German advance. The problem was that French leadership did not correctly estimate the probabilities of where the line would channel German advance and so concentrate forces accordingly. No defense, neither fixed, nor mobile, neither strategic, nor tactical, is effective without correct estimation of how the battle field is reshaped and how the opponent will act on the revised shape.
History is littered with fixed fortifications that have appeared to be disasters, but that in fact achieved their tactical function, only to have leadership misread the enemies tactical response to them.
Also, fixed fortifications are often constructed in ways that start out tactically effective and grow obsolete in a tactical sense. The Maginot line probably was very effective in its tactical channeling of German force before military technology change enabled an order of magnitude leap in speed of movement by the time of the German’s actual out maneuvering of it. In this sense, fixed fortifications need to be not such deep sunk costs that one cannot afford to abandon, or revise them, as military flanking capabilities evolve.
Some ask why USA has scattered dozens or hundreds of tiny bases around central Asia that could probably not individually be held under concentrated attack. That would probably be because their tactical function is to force opponents to have to divide forces to attack them, and to make them relatively inexpensive, so that as circumstances change, there is little sunk cost in their abandonment.
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“I personally believe with every fiber of my being that using a base zone 1-3-1; flexing in and out of aggressive trapping (like Florida utilized); then incorporating a sporadic 2-2-1 3/4 court press (like OSU ran) and 1-2-1-1 full court press at least 5 possessions per half is a winning strategy. Using that as your “core”, and then using m2m tactically.”
It’s statements like this that make me want you coaching my kid!
I think I’d have to be in coaching for a while to feel totally comfortable with a strategy.
There are so many factors that play into strategy, and what ends up being successful.
A. How teachable are the kids? And will they stick around for 4 years?
B. What is everyone else running (in general)?
Thinking in general… it seems obvious to have several different defensive looks or you will be predictable and totally prepared for in advance of games.
I put a big value in scouting and preparation before a game. That means your team has to mimic the play of your opponent. I’ve always felt that the most-successful coaches are able to teach a style of play that is hard to mimic in preparation to play them.
You can never overlook the level of talent you have along with their ability to execute. Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid are two guys that are starting to tilt the playing surface for a defense to a positive angle. Opposing teams can not really prepare to face Embiid because there isn’t another big man in college basketball right now with his skill set. And Andrew is starting to defend at a high level (different from Embiid) and his abilities are hard to prepare for. For example, how can a team’s big scorer prepare to play KU when they have no player on their roster with his speed, agility, arm length…
For Kansas, this year, we need to take advantage of the two guys that are really holding up our defense right now. And we need to lift up the weak parts of our defense (mostly our poor PG defense).
I kind of like the idea of a 1-3-1 with Wiggins and Embiid in the post. Wiggins has the length and speed to shut down the weak spots in that defense (the post baseline).
I still feel sure that we always need to keep our M2M in use. It is starting to payoff for us, even though we have a team full of freshmen. Our weak spot now is at the PG spot. We seem to let every PG in the country drive past our PG and into the post to create havoc, breakdown our defense and draw fouls on our big men.
We need Tharpe to step up on this one. As it is now, he is suddenly our player capable of getting in foul trouble because he can’t guard his man. We need Tharpe to stay out of foul trouble and run the team, and we need him to stop all that PG penetration which is creating offense and fouls on our bigs!
As soon as Tharpe figures out how to stop the drive on the point, our defense will jump to a whole other level!
And if he never figures it out, we will need to play more zone, if for no other reason than slow down fouls.
I really don’t understand why our PGs get burned so often. We have lightning speed with both Tharpe and Mason. Neither understands how to hedge the drive. I really question our ability to coach perimeter defense! It is the one remaining piece of the puzzle that needs to be solved in order to have an outstanding M2M defense!
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@drgnslayr and @HEM, the 1-3-1 matchup that Heathcoate ran with Magic and Kellogg was the greatest single half court defense I ever saw in college basketball. Boeheim has strung together a couple of great 2-3s but I don’t recall either of them being quite as stifling as Jud’s 1-3-1.
The keys to a great 1-3-1 is a fast, tireless 1 man on the baseline and size on perimeter capable of stretching out and pressuring trey shooting. Wiggins could be the ultimate baseline defender, but it would waste him for the offensive end. If you have a guy like Embiid in the middle then it would be brutally effective.
But the problem that persists is that even with all the trapping and all the perimeter pressure and rim guard of an Embiid, if an opponent has an MUA against any one of our guys, into that zone he goes and then its just a matter of passing to the uncovered man exposed when the zone deforms to stop the guy with the MUA.
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I want Wiggins right in the middle, just in front of Embiid, to be the guy who can fill in every gap. He has the speed and arm length to do it.
I don’t know who could score on something like that. The only issue is I think it would put Perry on the pine, because I’d rather have Greene and Selden as my wings.
In truth… our hi/lo might work better, too. Imagine if we have 4 guys capable threat at 3, circling the perimeter and clearing out the post for Embiid? We are used to having two 4s running the hi/lo… Why not just one legitimate 5 (Embiid) and the other guys all scoring threats from the perimeter, with Selden and Wiggins as slashers?
Sometimes now with Embiid dominating in the post, it looks like Ellis may be clogging up the post (along with his defender).
It’s just a wild thought… but there have been some dominating offenses that ran 4 guards and one big…
I’m not thinking of a 40 minute offense and defense. Let’s just call it our “junk defense” and “junk offense.” Better… the offensive set should be called, “the ring and one.”
I’d loveeee to see us attacking the baseline more. I do miss players who knew how to score on the baseline… guys like Kelly Tripucka and Jamaal Wilkes come to mind. Selden has a good build and the right mind to attack from the baseline. In fact, he had one super sweet score right down the line!
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@drgnslayr I’d put Wiggins on top too, wing span. Jamari attacked from the baseline too, was it from Embiid?
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@Crimsonorblue22 You bet. Forgot about Jam Tray. He could do it for sure.
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Well, regarding tactical change, we probably have not seen the last of Bill Self’s adjustment and manipulation of his defense this season. Somewhere down the pike we are bound to see him employ some zone, if not in desperation, just to satisfy his curiosity about the limits of his current long and athletic superstars (who likely will test an option to m2m in practices prior to the league tournament). Practice time programmed that direction would stem from exasperated realization that Tharpe, Mason (Frankamp) were just not yet capable of stopping a healthy Kane or Craft. Perhaps Smart, too, although we already seem to have gotten into Smart’s head. His current frustrations and rages probably date back to the Cowboy loss at AFH. I see several instance of LIKELY and PROBABLY in my posting here. But that is the way I view the m2m/zone situation and eventual likelihood, as it currently exists. Wily Bill ain’t displayed his sundry options yet.
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@REHawk, agree with you that we are going to see something emerge on the half court zone front. My guess is that it will be a zone that masks the general defensive weaknesses of Tharpe and Mason in front, and situationally with Perry against the particularly strong L&As that give Perry trouble. One other possibility is a zone designed to trigger some TOs. Self needs to find a bit more half court disruption on demand.
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" I’d put Wiggins on top too, wing span. Jamari attacked from the baseline too, was it from Embiid?"
Now you brought back some fond memories of Brandon Rush pressuring out top on Memphis! Bravo!
I’m trying to think of the play you are talking about. I’ll have to watch the game one more time and find it!
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@drgnslayr, Wiggins has the kind of length, reach and slide, that he can cause headaches wherever you put him. But putting him on top guaranties that the opponent can never really get away from his storking!
