Kobe Bryant vs Zone Defense

As linked by Saurav, above, Jordan never played against anything resembling an elite defense in the Finals. And even then, he often performed every bit as “poorly” as Kobe has against the Celtics (especially in the latter three-peat), and also had extremely poor shooting games, much like Kobe’s 5-21 in 2008, or 6-24 this year.

Also, as to your comment about every player having to face physical defenses… that kinda misses the point. This isn’t about physical play; it’s about kind of defense. It’s about the fact that teams can play a form of team defense against an elite player that (a) was NOT possible before, because it was not allowed, and (b) allows them to recover to other players (after the pass) much more quickly than they could have before, again because now they’re playing in zones now.

The hand-check rule is nice, cute thing to reference. The problem? Jordan got foul calls like no other. Even LeBron and Wade don’t get the kind of superstar treatment Jordan got… and that’s saying something. On a consistent basis, he got far, far more foul calls than Kobe has gotten at any point in these last three years. Do you think Jordan’s Bulls would have taken only 2 free throws to the Celtics 19 at halftime of a game? Yeah, right. So while you can cite the physicality of the perimeter game overall, backed by the lack of a hand-check rule in Jordan’s era, the point applies only to a limited degree to Jordan — because overall, the net effect is that he got far more favorable treatment from the rules and refs than anyone else, and certainly more than Kobe gets these days.

The other problem with that is the fact that in Jordan’s last three championship series, he shot consistently poorly — low .400s. And that second three-peat, if I have my facts straight (I’m honestly fuzzy, and don’t have the energy to look this up, so I could be wrong), was actually after the hand-check rule was enacted. If the hand-check rule is the most significant factor in defending great wing players, why is it that Jordan performed better when hand-checking was allowed than he did when it wasn’t?

The absence of a 3-second rule is relevant — but it does not come close to equating to the current zone defense rules that are allowed, particularly with regards to perimeter players. First — and this is a key point — teams were never allowed to double Jordan before the catch. This meant that Jordan, with the ball in his hands, could look to make his move and deal with the double team as it arrived, rather than finding himself already double-teamed and having to find a way out of it. It’s a simple case of proactive vs. reactive — a proactive approach to dealing with a problem is always easier than a reactive approach. Jordan had that luxury; Kobe did not.

Second, the lack of a defensive 3-second rule is rendered moot by the fact that the vast majority of the time, against Boston’s zone defense, Kobe doesn’t get close enough to the rim for that to have mattered — and Jordan wouldn’t have, either. The double team comes further out, forcing Kobe to take a contested mid to long two, rather than a contested layup or floater — which would have been the result of the big man camping out in the lane coming to challenge Jordan. Against Boston’s defense, Jordan wouldn’t have even gotten into the paint most of the time — as has been said before, what would Jordan have done when double- and triple-teamed as thoroughly and solidly as Kobe was in 2008… sprouted wings and flown over them? He was good, but not that good. Jordan’s options would have been the same as Kobe’s: plow through and get called for a charge, pull up for the mid- to long-range jumper, or pass. The first option results in a turnover, the second in a low-efficiency shot, and the third depends on your teammates.

The reality is that in the 2008 Finals, Kobe did pass out to his teammates quite a bit. But what people fail to recognize is that only one of his teammates had been past the first round… ever. As a result, in the 2008 Finals, Kobe struggled, but his teammates wilted. They just weren’t prepared for it. They weren’t able to compete at that level, nor were they able to deal with such a high degree of physicality (which is really where the physicality came in — Kobe’s no stranger to it, but his teammates were, at the time). They were jarred by Boston’s suffocating defense, mentally intimidated by the Celtics’ ability to get back to cover them on what, 95 or so games, had always been wide open shots. Against Boston, they were contested, and Kobe’s teammates couldn’t deliver on the pass.

What would Jordan have done in that circumstance? Do you believe he would have continued to pass, and pass, and pass, like the model teammate and supreme playmaker everyone prefers to remember him as? Such a belief would be equally ignorant of history. Remember, when Jordan started winning championships (i.e., when he started defeating the Pistons), it coincided with the formation of a very good team around him — a team that, when he left almost without notice three years later, won 55 games… only two fewer than the 57 they’d won with him the year before.

The Lakers’ lineup, that year, included Sasha Vujacic, whose transformation from great shooter to total dud and absolute liability took place, apparently, right before the Finals. It included Vladimir Radmanovic… as a starter. Lamar Odom did the greatest disappearing act of his career… which is saying something. And Pau Gasol wilted; he didn’t have the strength, physically or mentally, to fight back against Boston’s bigs.

There was no defensive wing specialist, except for Kobe himself. There was no enforcer, except for Kobe himself. He didn’t have one of the greatest rebounders in the history of the game, nor one (or two) of the greatest defenders in the history of the game, suiting up next to him. He wasn’t playing alongside one of the top three-point shooters of all time… and with Sasha’s mind caving in, he didn’t really have any three-point threat at all… except himself.

He also played with great defenders; the Bulls were regularly very good defensive teams, usually top three in the league. The Lakers? Starting Radmanovic? Pre-Artest, pre-Ariza, and back when the “soft” label actually was a pretty apt one for Gasol? Not even close.

Do you think that, surrounded by these players (as they were then — inexperienced and incapable, both physically and mentally, of handling the pressure and intensity of that situation), Jordan would have continued to pass, and pass, and pass… even as his passes yielded extremely little positive result? I doubt it. And what would he have done, then? Only two options. Bull through them and turn it over, or raise up for the long jumpers, just as Kobe did. And just as Kobe did, Jordan would have struggled to score efficiently.

The bottom line is that Jordan never faced a defense like the Celtics. Not even close. Certainly not in the Finals, and when he did in earlier rounds, he usually lost. He often performed comparably to the way Kobe has performed in the 2008 and 2010 series against Boston… but did so against far inferior defenses. Had he played against these Celtics, he would also have struggled — especially playing with Kobe’s 2008 teammates, as they were in 2008. He couldn’t simply go over or through them, and he would not have been able to single-handedly take over offensively against that Boston defense… nor would he have been able to play defense 1-on-5 against Boston.

So let’s put aside the whole Zone vs. Hand Check argument, and come to what this is really about: How would Jordan have fared, even in his prime, against this Celtics defense? Because that’s what we’re really after. And the answer is that there’s no reason to think he would have fared better, and plenty of evidence to support the likelihood that he would have struggled just as much.

Oh, and lost.