As a team, most definitely, especially if you have shooters.For as tough as the zone appears to be its also the easiest defense to take down.
But to stop the superstar, it's incredibly effective...Detroit in 2004, Phoenix in 2006 and 2007, Houston when they had both Battier and Artest, Boston in 2008 and 2010...just a few instances where the zone defense has put Kobe in quicksand. Didn't necessarily stop him, because he's the greatest scorer we've ever seen (sorry, Wilt), but it was scary effective.
And Detroit really didn't need to play a zone, but the way Larry Brown put together his defense, they mixed some zone in with individual man...really hard to explain how that came into play, because it was only crystal clear in certain triangle sets, but it closed off that passing lane between Kobe and Shaq, and forced Gary Payton to become an offensive threat...which he couldn't do, because he was too busy being dominated by Billups.















