1-3-1 Zone Defense

A zone assigns each defender a part of the floor, and the 1-3-1 is named for its lines from the top down. One defender pressures the ball up top. Two wings and a middle defender form the line of three across the free-throw line area, and the fifth player guards the baseline alone, which means one defender has to reach both corners every time the ball swings.

This page numbers the slots the way both of its coaching sources do. X1 is the point, X3 and X4 are the wings, X5 is the middle and X2 runs the baseline. Sergio Scariolo, a European club coach who won league titles in Italy and Spain, plays a small guard at X2 and an athletic, aggressive 5 in the middle in his FIBA Assist Magazine(opens in new tab) article from 2008. Kathy McGee Powers, a high school coach in Flint, Michigan, also calls her X5 the center in Coach & Athletic Director(opens in new tab). If you learned the zone with your tallest player standing under the basket, the slot numbers will feel backwards for a week.

1-3-1 vs 2-3 vs 1-2-2

Zone names count defenders from the top of the floor toward the baseline. A 2-3 starts with two defenders up top and three across the bottom. A 1-2-2 keeps one defender at the top, two at the elbows or wings, and two low. The 1-3-1 is the shape that already has a defender standing in the high post when the ball arrives.

Follow one possession: an entry to the wing, then a skip that flips the ball from one corner to the other. The corner itself is on the trap sheet further down. The diagrams carry the positions. Timing is what breaks a new 1-3-1.

Teach X2 to stay in the lane until the ball is on its way to the corner. McGee's rule is exact on this point, because X2 guards the lane right up to that pass. Leave early and the lane is empty. Leave late and the corner shooter catches with nobody near them. Every move happens with the body on the passing line and the arms high, which is how Scariolo wants his defenders to travel.

The skip diagram shows the passing-lane version, where nobody traps the corner and X2 runs the baseline to the new ball. In Scariolo's trapping version the weak-side wing is already watching the weak side from the baseline, so that wing takes the skip to the far corner and, as Scariolo prefers, plays the ball one-on-one. X5's spot with the ball in a corner also depends on the version. McGee has X5 front the post, while in Scariolo's corner trap X5 sets up "a step outside the zone, between the ball and the basket."

When the Ball Comes Out of the Corner

When the ball changes sides, the weak-side wing is the first defender out to it. Scariolo's rule covers any change of side. If the catch is high, near the top of the key, X1 takes it instead and the wing goes back toward the corner, onto the passing line, so the ball cannot go straight to the corner. Neither source walks through where X2, X4 and X5 go on the reversal, or the skip to the opposite wing, so the diagrams leave them where the trap ended. Settle those rotations with your staff before the first scrimmage.

Choose Your Baseline Defender and Your Pressure

No option is right for every team, and the two sources weigh them differently. Each row shows what an option gives you and what it costs.

Start with the baseline. Scariolo's default X2 is small, and he names the problem himself. Put two small guards on the floor at X1 and X2 and your 2 will suffer mismatches on the glass, so he says you can use a 3 or even a 4 there. Pick the guard if your opponents shoot from the corners. Pick the forward if they beat you on the offensive boards.

Then pick your pressure. McGee writes that you can run the same alignment by playing the passing lanes or by trapping hard. If your roster is new to the zone, start with the passing lanes. You get the shape and the rotations right before a trap leaves three of your players guarding four.

Matching Players to Slots

Before you hand a player a slot, check the skills that slot asks for. The skill names come from Striveon's basketball Defense skill set and the level names from its default 10-level scale, and the checkpoints work on any rating sheet you already use. Treat them as our suggestion and adjust them to your team. No coaching body publishes these checkpoints, so they are a check on your own judgment.

Level 5, "Game-capable," describes a skill that works against an active defender at game speed roughly seven times out of ten. Level 6, "Established," holds up in varied match situations even when the player is tired. X5 gets the higher bar because Scariolo makes the middle defender the first help on drives along the lane. If the position names on your roster are still new to your players, basketball positions explained is a quicker place to start.

A 1-3-1 that traps everywhere teaches the offense where the gaps are. Pick your spots and use the default call for each situation on the sheet. Scariolo also does not want the offense to get used to the double-team in the same situations and the same spots. So now and then borrow the fake from the two-guard row. On a trap trigger, show the trap and recover.

How to Trap Without Fouling

The trap only helps you if it ends without a whistle. Teach the second defender to arrive low, knees bent, with both arms above the shoulders. Hands down invite the easy pass. In the corner, the two trappers close the gap between them with their feet, so the ball handler cannot split them. All four arms follow the ball up and down, and the goal is a bad pass out of the trap.

Watch the line-up before the half-court line, too. Two guards in line read as an offense asking for the double-team so it can swing the ball, and Scariolo refuses to give it. The fake trap still has a job, which is to make the offense hesitate and slow the ball down.

The high-post row is a choice. Scariolo guards that catch one-on-one and keeps X1 out of a double, and he does not say why. If X1 doubles the high post instead, the top is empty, and the pass back out to the top is the one you give up.

Use the 1-3-1 when the matchup rewards it. Scariolo, who has coached it in the half court, still believes more in man-to-man pressure, and he warns that the three-point shot forces you to weigh every two-on-one you send.

• Against a one-guard team that dribbles up the sideline. The half-court trap is built for a single ball handler pushed toward the line. A two-guard team takes that trap away, so scout the front first.
• To change the look after a dead ball. Scariolo plays transition defense man-to-man and only sets the 1-3-1 when the ball is out of bounds. Your made baskets and made free throws are your entry points.
• When you have a slower defender to place. McGee lists using slow players at certain spots without getting hurt as one reason she runs it.
• When ordinary zone offense is all your opponent runs. McGee's first reason is that normal zone offenses do not work against a 1-3-1 and pull opponents out of their usual sets.

Hold it back when the opponent's corner shooting is the best part of their game, or when your lineup has two small guards and nobody else who rebounds.

Every zone leaves something open. In the 1-3-1 the gaps come from the baseline and from the moment a trap releases the ball.

Read the table from the other bench and you have a scouting checklist for a team that will face your zone, so rehearse each attack with your scout team. When a rotation breaks down, your players fall back on man-to-man habits. Basketball defense drills has the closeout and help-side reps that hold the possession together until the shape is back. If you coach the offense too, pick and roll basketball has a counter for each ball-screen coverage a defense can show you.

Install the zone with a selection of the drills Scariolo lists, kept in his order, after one shape walk-through of our own. He saves a free-throw set for the end, and six against five for when the zone holds.

Many of his drills end with a shot and a box-out, or with a break to the other basket. That is the rebounding weakness, handled in practice before it costs you in a game. Basketball practice plan templates give these reps a block of their own next to skill work and scrimmage.

Decide early how much ground your 1-3-1 covers. In Scariolo's version X1 picks the ball up in the backcourt and pushes it toward a sideline, nobody doubles before the point guard crosses the half-court line, and the trap jumps as soon as the guard does. Then the defense falls into its half-court shape. That makes it a three-quarter pickup with a half-court trap.

A true full-court version puts X1 on the inbounder. Scariolo writes that he has almost never used full-court zone pressure, and McGee's article has none either, so the diagrams stop at the three-quarter pickup. If you coach players 14 and under, check your league's pressing rules first (the youth rows in the rules table).

If your league follows the USA Basketball and NBA youth guidelines(opens in new tab), they settle the youngest age groups for you. Their reason for player-to-player defense is to build individual skill at guarding a player on and off the ball.

Ages 11 and Under

The guidelines call for player-to-player defense only through age 11, with no double-teams. With the 1-3-1 and its trap off the table under those guidelines, spend that practice time on the man-to-man skills the zone will ask for later, because every one of them comes back the season your players turn 12. Closing out, helping and recovering, and boxing out from the help side are all 1-3-1 jobs in disguise.

Ages 12 to 14

At 12-14 the guidelines leave the defense to your discretion and allow double-teams. Teach the shape and the rotations first, with the passing-lane version. Add the half-court sideline trap once the walk-through is clean. Keep the corner trap for later. It needs X2 to read the pass before the catch.

High School and Up

This is where the full trap sheet belongs. Install the hold rules first (two-guard front, high post, low post), then the sideline and corner traps, and the low-post double last. Your players should call the trigger themselves before the preseason ends.

In high school, college and FIBA games your X2 and X5 can stay in the lane as long as the play needs them. NFHS, NCAA and FIBA count three seconds only against the team with the ball, and none of the rule texts in the table rules the 1-3-1 out from age 12 up.

The NBA is the exception. A defender in the lane must actively guard an opponent, within arm's length, inside three seconds, so a middle or baseline defender with nobody to guard has to find a player or leave. That call arrived with legal zone defense itself. On April 12, 2001(opens in new tab) the league's Board of Governors approved rule changes for 2001-02 that eliminated the illegal defense guidelines and added the defensive three seconds call.

Put the progression in one drill at a time over the preseason, and let the four Defense skills in the slot table tell you whether it is working. Striveon has no ready-made 1-3-1 drills, so you add your own. In the drill library you can save each drill with its goal, your instructions and your own tags. You can draw each rotation on a basketball court canvas, one phase per ball position, and link the drill to the Defense skill set, so a library search by that skill set brings the whole install back.

A training event carries the drills or a whole session plan, the roster with RSVP replies, and your coaching notes. For athlete development, you rate each player on the four skills in the Defense set your drills are linked to, on the default 10-level scale, and every rating joins that skill's history. Those four skills come with the basketball starter set you get when you pick basketball during setup. Add your own skill to the Defense set, such as trap footwork or corner-to-corner recovery, when they are too broad for what you want to rate.