Grand Valley Cardinals 1-3-1 Zone

Defense
Goal of the 1-3-1 Zone Defense
The 1-3-1 zone defense has a different concept to it than most defenses. The focus of the
1-3-1 is to cut off normal passing lanes and force the offensive team to throw lob passes over
the defense, pass slow bounce passes around the defense, or try to create off the dribble.

This gives the defensive team plenty of opportunities to read the pass and get deflections &
steals, or create traps.

Advantages of the 1-3-1 Zone Defense

1. The offense has to adjust to your defense. The 1-3-1 is unique from most defenses
and opposing teams struggle running their regular offenses against it. They’re forced
to play a different game than they’re used to.
2. Speeds up the game. At Grand Valley, we love to exploit our athleticism and play fast
basketball. This defense plays right into that goal.
3. Great for transition. Going along with the previous point, when our team gets steals,
we’re already in position to run the floor to get lay-ups.
4. Causes confusion. Especially when mixed in with other defenses (as we usually will be
doing), it is such a different attack that it can really throw teams off-balance.
5. Changes the tempo of the game. Great defense to implement mid-game to force a
couple quick steals and pick up the speed of play.
6. Many variations and adjustments. The 1-3-1 allows you to easily adjust to different
teams to counteract their strengths.
7. It’s exciting and fun to play. Players love that they’re encouraged to be aggressive,
anticipate, and go for steals.
8. Understand how to beat it. Learning to run the defense will also help us prepare for
how to beat the defense when we run into it.
Disadvantages of the 1-3-1 Zone Defense
1. Select areas that are exploitable. The corners are a weakness in the 1-3-1, as can be
the high post depending on personnel.
2. Occasionally gives up the easy basket. Being aggressive, gambling on passes, and
diving for deflections means that sometimes you will be caught out of position. You
must concede that you will give up easy baskets from time to time.
3. Needs practiced. If not used as one of our main defenses, it may not be worth
spending the limited practice time teaching and drilling it.
4. Rebounding. It’s a zone, so knowing who to box out can be a problem. Players must
attack the boards and body up on someone.
5. Requires a lot of energy. Just like most of our philosophy at Grand Valley, this is a
high-octane style of defense that feeds our explosive offense. Players need to be in
great shape, and it helps to have a deep bench.
1-3-1 Zone Defense Rules
1. No straight-line passes. Stay in passing lanes and force the opponent to make high
lob passes or slow bounce passes.
2. Read eyes. Defenders must always be reading the eyes of the player with the ball and
anticipating where the next pass will be thrown. The 1-3-1 is aggressive and players
should be going for deflections at every opportunity.
3. Move on pivot, sprint on pass. Players must start rotations based on the eyes and
shoulders of the person with the ball. Players must sprint to position while the ball is in
the air. Slow rotations lead to open shots.
4. Must stay in a defensive stance. Players who aren’t in a defensive stance will be too
late reacting when passes are made. Being late leads to breakdowns in the defense
and open shots. Coaches must constantly remind players to be in a stance with hands
up.
5. Crash boards. Rebounding is a team effort. When a shot goes up, every player must
crash the boards and get the rebound.

1-3-1 In Two Flavors

This zone can be run as a ¾-court trapping press that
we call 34 or ½-court defense that we call 33. The
biggest difference between the two is where we trap.
In 33, we just trap at the baseline corners. In 34, we
trap those corners as well as the corners at half court.
As such, 34 is more aggressive and 33 is more
conservative.

Roles & Responsibilities

The 1-3-1 zone doesn’t have specific spots for certain
positions. For example, just because a player is the 1 on
offense, that doesn’t mean anything for defense.
Players are put in zone positions based on their
strengths and abilities.
1. Controller. Athletic, great anticipation, lots of
energy.
a. Influence ball handler to one side
(preferably left) and then never allow
the ball to be reversed to the other side.
b. Plays high in guard-to-guard passing
lane.
c. Feet facing sideline always.
d. Sells out for tips/steals/deflections.
e. Guards the high post when the ball is in the corner.
f. Weak-side rebounder on shots from wing or corner.
2. Runner. Smart player with lots of speed, lots of energy, willing to take a charge.
a. Primary job is to cover both baseline corners.
b. Front low post when the ball is on the wing.
c. Close-out pass to corner.
d. Must be a great communicator.
3. Left Interceptor.
a. On ball-side, defend the sideline.
i. When the ball is on the wing, keep it from going corner via pass or
dribble.
ii. When the ball is in the corner, keep it from being reversed out via pass
or dribble.
b. Opposite ball-side, help-side defense.
i. Help on lob entries to the post.
ii. Anticipate steal or deflect skip/quick-swing.
iii. Weak-side rebounding.
4. Right Interceptor.
a. On ball-side, defend the sideline.
i. When the ball is on the wing, keep it from going corner via pass or
dribble.
ii. When the ball is in the corner, keep it from being reversed out via pass
or dribble.
b. Opposite ball-side, help-side defense.
i. Help on lob entries to the post.
ii. Anticipate steal or deflect skip/quick-swing.
iii. Weak-side rebounding.
c. Interceptors are always opposite each other.
i. When the left Interceptor is up & out on the perimeter, the right
Interceptor is down & in the paint.
ii. When the right Interceptor is up & out on the perimeter, the left
Interceptor is down & in the paint.
5. Diamond. Play big. Battle for position.
a. Two Jobs:
i. Stay between the ball & the hoop at ALL times.
ii. Keep the ball out of the post.
b. ¾ front high post.
c. When the ball goes to the corner, full front the low post.
 Execution of 1-3-1 Zone Defense (34)
The Controller will pick up the point guard fairly early in
order to influence them to one side of the floor. They
do this by positioning and angling their body such that
the dribbler’s only choice is to go up the sideline.

How early this happens and how much pressure the

Controller should apply depends on the opponent and
our game plan.

Should the guard lob the ball over to another guard on

the opposite side of the floor, the Controller must turn
and sprint to pressure the other guard in the same
manner. We can NEVER allow the ball to be dribbled
down the middle of the court.

The Controller is very active with hands & feet, always

keeping the ball-handler afraid of them getting a tip on
a pass.

As the ball-handler crosses half-court, the ball-side

Interceptor will come up to set a “soft” trap a couple
feet off of the offensive player. (Based on scouting reports or gametime situations, there are
times when we will hard trap here.) A soft trap allows the defenders to react to passes and
attempts to split the trap. A good technique is to “stunt” or “bluff” at the ball to make the
ball-handler pick up their dribble. If the dribble is picked up, the Controller takes away the
guard-to-guard pass, the Interceptor comes up to put hard pressure on the ball, and the other
three players should be in full denial defense.

Regardless of whether the dribble is picked up or not, the point of the soft trap is to force a
lob pass over the top of the trap that we can steal or tip. We steal passes, we don’t pick
pockets! Most steals in this defense happen by picking passes or tipping passes out for other
teammates to recover. Reaching for steals is discouraged, especially in traps.

There are two critical points for the trapping Interceptor

to keep in mind:
1. No sideline. The Interceptor must close out at an
angle that takes away the sideline dribble.
2. Close out with high hands. If the ball-handler
wants to make a pass down the sideline, it’ll have to
be a lob which gives our Runner time to get out for
the steal.

The Diamond should be moving to stay between the ball &

the hoop while establishing defensive position at the
high-post area.
The Runner should be getting in front of the ball-side low post, and is ready to run out for a
steal or tip on a pass to the corner.
The weak-side Interceptor drops back to help side, ready to help on a lob to the paint and
excited to run out and steal any skip.
All 3 of these players are reading eyes/shoulders of the ball handler and are anticipating to
steal the lob or slow bounce pass.

Once the ball has been pushed to a sideline, we want to do everything we can to keep it on
that side of the floor. This means the Controller must stay even with the basketball with 10
toes pointing toward the sideline and taking away the guard-to-guard swing. Remember to
keep hands high & active and feet bouncy. Make the ball handler scared to throw that pass.

Rotating to Ball Swings/Reversals

If the offense does get a guard-to-guard lob over the
Controller, the Controller must turn & sprint to the player
with the basketball. As usual, close out with high hands
and 10 toes towards the sideline, staying in that
guard-to-guard passing lane.

It’s now the other Interceptor’s responsibility to come out

and trap just as the other Interceptor did, but they can
NOT do this by sprinting a straight line at the ball. They
must get out to the passing lane to the corner and close
out along that lane. The 1-3-1 is vulnerable in the corners because of the Runner having so
much ground to cover. As such, we need to prevent any easy pass down the sideline. Forcing a
lob allows the extra time for our Runner to get where they need to be.

The Diamond must slide across the lane, staying between the ball & the hoop, taking a path in
front of the high post if there is one. This does two things:
1. Teases a high post entry that appears open, but gets stolen by the Diamond.
2. Puts the Diamond in position to discourage penetration and stop it if the offense does
decide to attack middle.

On a reversal, the Runner must sprint sides of the floor and establish front position on the
ball-side low block, anticipating the swing to the corner for a steal.

The Interceptor that was on ball will fall back to help-side defense.
Defending the Wing
First of all, we don’t like it when the ball is on the wing
close to the 3-point line. We want to push them off the
3-point line and closer to the half-court line. We can’t allow
the offensive player on the wing to be comfortable and
survey the floor. The Interceptor does this by pressuring
the offensive player’s baseline hip and forcing a retreat
dribble back toward half-court. This also effectively takes
away a straight-line pass to the corner.

The Controller should be setting a soft trap a couple feet

away, preventing that guard-to-guard reversal while also
being in a position to tip any pass made to the high post
that is away from the Diamond’s ¾ front defense.

The weak-side Interceptor should be sunk into the paint to

help, but ready to sprint out and steal a lob or skip to the
other side of the floor.

The Diamond should be taking away any high post while

maintaining their position between the ball & the hoop. If
there is no high post (as in this diagram to the right), the
Diamond can sink to front the low post, staying between
ball & basket.
Trapping the Corners
If the offense does make the pass to the corner, by rule, we will trap it there. Depending on
the opponents and personnel, we can hard trap the corner or soft trap the corner. One
technique will likely fit a team more than the other, so use what works! (There are other
adjustments that we can make depending on scouting reports where we might not trap the
corner, but those are exceptions.)

Hard Trap
The Runner will close out on ball, cutting off any possible
baseline penetration.
The ball-side Interceptor will turn and close out the corner
with high hands, not allowing anything easy back up the
sideline.
This trap is more aggressive than the trap at half-court, but
we are still NOT reaching for the ball. Remember, we do
NOT get steals directly from the traps. We WANT them to
throw a high lob pass that one of the other three players
will pick off. Pressure with lower body, keep palms up,
trace the ball.

With the ball trapped in the corner:

The Diamond dives down and fronts the low post. We can get sealed and give the trapped
player an easy out.
The Controller will sink down to take away high post, but also be ready to steal/tip a pass from
the corner up the sideline to the guard.
The weak-side Interceptor stays in help defense, ready to help on a lob to a post but hoping
for a skip pass for a steal. In this situation, many teams will flash one of their weak-side players
to the elbow. This Interceptor must communicate to the Controller if there is a cutter to the
high post area.

Soft Trap
The Runner still closes out on the ball, but not as worried
about the baseline dribble. In fact, they may even overplay
the high side and invite the baseline drive.

The Interceptor on the ball side doesn’t pressure the ball.

Instead, they are 100% committed to stealing any pass out
of the corner back up to the wing.

The Diamond, Controller, and weak-side Interceptor have

the same jobs as in a hard trap.
When the corner does try to attack the baseline, we will
trap it.
As soon as the offensive player puts the ball on the
ground, the Runner needs to shout “HELP HELP HELP” to
make sure everyone is on the same page and rotates
properly.
The Diamond reacts immediately and closes out to cut off
baseline.
The Runner slides and does not allow the trap to be split. A
retreat dribble we can handle, but we can’t get split.
The Controller dives down in front of the low post.
The weak-side Interceptor steps up into a passing lane to
the high post, but is still in a position to help on a lob pass to the low post and a lobbed skip
pass to the opposite guard can still be tipped/stolen
The ball-side Interceptor continues to deny the pass back out, moving with the wing as
necessary.

Alternatives to Corner Traps

No Corner Trap
We can also decide to not trap the ball and have the
Interceptor sink back toward the paint. This cuts off any
threat of penetration from the corner, but allows an easy
pass back out of the corner up to the guard. This is fine if
you’re playing a team that you want to keep on the
perimeter and out of the hands of a dominant post player.

Depending on the game plan, you could make other

adjustments as well. The Interceptor could sink into the
mid-post area and allow the Controller more freedom to
steal passes out of the corner. The Interceptor could sink
to front the low post and allow the Diamond to play
behind, making entry passes difficult and allowing the
back-side Interceptor more freedom to cheat out on skip
passes.
Defending Dribble Penetration
Middle Penetration
Since the strength of the 1-3-1 relies on playing in passing
lanes and forcing lob passes, it can leave gaps that are
susceptible to dribble attacks. By knowing this, we can
control where that penetration may happen, plan for it,
and drill how to stop it.

If players are properly rotating, the only real threat of

penetration comes from the wings attacking the middle. It
then becomes the Diamond’s job to step out with high
hands and moving feet to pressure and stop ball.
The Interceptor maintains pressure on the hip closest to
the baseline to keep the attack angle flat.
The Runner pinches down on the ball-side block, fronting
any post that might be there or cut there.
If there is a high post, the Controller must pinch down and
take it away. If there is no high post or if the high post
dives to the basket, the Controller plays the passing lane
to the opposite guard.
The weak-side Interceptor plays great help-side defense,
picking up any backside post flash or helping on a lob to
the high post diving.

Baseline Penetration
If we are hard-trapping the corners, we don’t want to allow
baseline penetration. If it happens anyway, though, we will
react to it just like we would if we were soft-trapping the
corners.
Defending the Post Entries (High & Low)
High Post Entry
If we must give up a shot, a mid-range jumpshot with
pressure is the one we want to give up. Most teams shoot
this shot with the same (or often worse) percentage as a
3-pointer, but since it’s only worth 2 points it makes it less
efficient. Unless we have a scouting report that a particular
player is especially proficient at this skill, we will defend
the dribble & swings/skips first and get a hand up on the
shot. The only pass we will allow is the one back out to the
guard on the ball side.

The Diamond jumps to their normal position between the ball and the basket. The Diamond’s
feet should be angled with the inside foot higher forcing the high post on a path toward the
baseline corner. They should be in a great on-ball defensive stance ready to cut off
penetration with hands high & active to tip any pass with one hand tracing ball and the other
hand near the face of the offensive player. On shot, do not attempt to block the shot. Simply
put a hand in the face and be ready to box out immediately upon landing. While a mid-range
jumper isn’t very dangerous, a good post will be adept at getting their own rebound for a
put-back.

The ball-side Interceptor jumps to soft trap the low side of the post, taking away the passing
lane to the corner. This also will discourage a dribble attack toward the block. On a shot, the
Interceptor will box out any perimeter players crashing the boards from the ball side or help
box out the shooter if nobody crashes.

The Runner pinches down on the ball-side block and fronts if there is a low post, taking away
the high-low pass option. This also discourages the high post from attacking toward the block.

The weak-side Interceptor plays great help defense. If there is a back-side post, the
Interceptor will front to take away the high-low game. If there is no low post to worry about,
the Interceptor plays passing lanes and reads eyes, reading to sprint out and steal any
cross-court pass.

Low Post Entry

If we’re running this right, we should never have to defend
the ball at the low post and, if a team does get the ball
there, a shot is probably going up quickly. Still, if our
Diamond gets sealed and there’s a post entry, the Runner
and ball-side Interceptor will dig at the ball, ready to close
out on shooters if it gets passed back out. The Controller
drops down under the high post to not only defend, but to
be in rebounding position. The weak-side Interceptor will
dive down to the backside block in position to deny a
post-to-post pass and to be in rebounding position.
Rotating on Skip Passes
As with any zone, skip passes are difficult to defend. Skip passes are supposed to be tipped
and stolen in this defense, so if we’re doing that we don’t have to worry about rotating on a
skip! Regardless, skip passes will be completed and we need to react accordingly.

For the purposes of this defense, there are 3 kinds of skip passes:
1. Skip passes caught at the top.
2. Skip passes caught on the wing.
3. Skip passes caught in the corner.

Skips to the Top of the Key

A skip pass caught at the top of the key are rare. For one,
most teams run a 2-guard front against the 1-3-1. A second
reason is that the only play a skip to the top can come from
is the corner, and that’s a tough pass to make...and one we
ought to be getting our hands on. If it does happen, it gets
closed out on by the Controller. The Controller’s main job is
to keep the ball to one side of the floor and that doesn’t
change, so the closeout should be out to the weak side to
force the ball back to the side it just came from. The rest of
the defense balances up with Diamond ¾ fronting the high
post, Runner fronting any low post and Interceptors in passing lanes.

Skips to the Wing

The other two skip passes will always be closed out by the
weak-side Interceptor. It’s worth mentioning again--steals
would be far better. This should be another really difficult
pass for the offense to make if we’re doing things right,
because this pass also has to come from the corner. It is
also, however, a very dangerous pass if it gets completed.
Most teams would be looking for that “one more” pass to
the corner where we are vulnerable, so we play it in a
manner that anticipates that action.
The first answer to prevent this is the closeout path of the
Interceptor. They must position themselves in that passing lane to cut off that option and
have hands ready to tip any pass that way while still closing out to influence any shot from the
wing. We’re not too worried about middle penetration because they would be dribbling right
into the traffic of the defense rotating over.
As soon as the pass is made, the Runner must sprint the baseline and get to the corner as
quickly as possible. If a pass does get made there, they must contest the shot.
The Diamond sprints over the top of any posts to get to the front of the ball-side low post.
The Interceptor gets to help-side defense.
Skips to the Corner
Skips to the corner are also closed out by the Interceptor
on that side. The Runner will get there as quickly as
possible, but has too far to go to stop a shot or anything.
The Interceptor should apply lots of ball pressure and make
the pass back out of the corner difficult. This does make
the baseline drive appear open for a moment, but if the
offensive player tries that, they’ll be met and trapped by
the Runner.
The Controller need to get between the ball and the high
post, but is ready to continue their path out to steal a pass
from the corner up to the wing.
The Diamond, staying true to the rule, gets between the ball and the hoop, fronting any low
post that might be there.
The other Interceptor sprints to help-side.

Rebounding
Rebounding should be a major point of emphasis and drilled often. One of the weaknesses of
running zone is rebounding since after a shot goes up, we have to find someone to box out.
Let’s revisit rule #5 of our 1-3-1 defense:
Crash boards. Rebounding is a team effort. When a shot goes up, every player must
crash the boards and get the rebound.
Seriously...everyone. We can’t have players leaking out for fastbreak chances. If you want to
fastbreak (which we do), don’t let them get shots...get steals!
When a shot goes up, the weak-side Interceptor and the Controller are in charge of
rebounding the weak side.
Since the Center is fronting, they’re in a position where they have to really battle. The goal is
to get at least shoulder-to-shoulder with the offensive post’s high side. Failing to do that, they
can get low and work the offensive post under the basket as much as possible (NO pushing).
The player on shooter needs to box out the shooter, the other player needs to crash in to help
out, too.
Since the Controller is always going to the weak-side, this player usually (and should) ends up
leading the team in defensive rebounds.

Adjustments for 33 (no ½ court trap)

In 33, we are playing a bit more conservative and taking off the trap. The Controller will still
be in the passing lane to prevent the ball reversing sides of the floor. The Interceptor won’t
come up and trap, though. Instead, they will sag back to take away the pass to the corner. As
the ball gets closer to the 3-point line, the Interceptor will come up and play it without anyone
trapping.