New Orleans Pelicans: 2 Schematic innovations for Stan Van Gundy

Stan Van Gundy spent a lot of time during the NBA playoffs picking apart zone concepts, and he might bring some of them to the New Orleans Pelicans

Zone Defense

If you’re like me, you heard Van Gundy calling the NBA playoffs for TNT, specifically you heard him cover the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, and Toronto Raptors. Those three teams are currently leading the NBA’s zone defense revolution and Van Gundy might adopt some of those concepts next season.

This would be a major progression for Van Gundy because the NBA he coaching in for most of his career used little zone defense and Van Gundy’s team who did use some still mostly attacked with man-to-man concepts. Today’s contenders are showing that zone defense concepts can be beneficial in slowing modern offenses down.

Am I saying that Van Gundy should totally shift his scheme and go “zone crazy” like Nick Nurse throwing and call a box-in-one or a diamond press? No way, but sprinkling some simple 2-3 zones like the Miami Heat or zone defenses on out of timeout plays like the Boston Celtics might work.

Van Gundy even said himself that zone defenses and press concepts combined with man-to-man defense helps teams win games, so using it might help the Pelicans.

Zone looks also do exactly what Van Gundy likes to do on defense too, prevent the opponent from attacking the rim, throw shooters out of rhythm, and pressure ball-handlers. The New Orleans Pelicans need to improve on all of those things and with modern NBA offenses, a little bit of zone defense might be the perfect wrinkle for Van Gundy to add to his scheme.

It’s that simple, two trends around the NBA that Stan Van Gundy saw first hand during this past season. I firmly believe that after breaking them down in the booth and seeing how they benefitted teams, there’s a good chance that Stan Van Gundy might add some off-ball movement and zone defense to his scheme with the New Orleans Pelicans next season.