Asked whether he preferred to play against man-to-man defense or zone defense, DeAndre Liggins had an interesting answer.

“I prefer zones,” Liggins said. “We have a lot of shooters. I can penetrate and kick. It doesn’t really matter to me, but I prefer zone.”

UK faced LSU’s 2-3 zone the majority of the night, and the Cats made 50 percent of their three point attempts. Assistant coach John Robic said that for all the talk about the effectiveness of the dribble-drive against man defense, he wondered why people didn’t talk more about UK’s offense against zones.

“Our zone offense looks are terrific,” Robic said. “It is tough to zone us because we can spread you out. We have four guys that can make shots and we did that tonight.”

Having multiple shooters was what made it difficult to guard UK, said LSU coach Trent Johnson.

“Our zone has been effective versus lesser competition, lesser skilled teams, where you can shoot off of one guy,” Johnson said. “But there’s no guy on this team you can shoot off of.”

Let’s take a look at one UK possession, early in the first half and UK with 16-6 lead, where the Cats attacked the zone and created an open shot for Doron Lamb.

UK pushed the ball in transition off an LSU miss, with Knight passing ahead to Doron Lamb in the corner. LSU has set up the 2-3 zone. Jones is currently running through the court toward the left block, but the Tigers have everything spaced out properly.

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This is where the defensive breakdown starts. Lamb swung the ball to Knight, who quickly passed to DeAndre Liggins on the weak side. The LSU defender on the bottom left, who was previously on Harrellson, starts to come out toward Liggins, as does the central LSU defender. That leaves space for Harrellson to curl toward the baseline, as the other defender is stuck on Jones.

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UK clearly has LSU out of position here, as two players are right on Liggins. Harrellson is wide open on the left side, but the defender on Jones is already making his way over toward Harrellson to help. At this point, UK has the advantage, partly due to their own ball movement and partly because of a defensive breakdown. Regardless, it’s now up to UK to take the opportunity and get points.

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Harrellson has the ball now, and the defender that previously made the mistake has retreated to Harrellson. However, his one miscommunication took everybody out of position. The defender on Lamb slid down to guard Jones, and the defender on Knight is scrambling to help on Jones as well, although he is caught in the middle of nowhere. This leaves Lamb and Knight open on the weakside, so Harrellson passes out of the double team to Knight.

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This is the part I love. Knight saw everything going on and anticipated Lamb being open. You can’t exactly see it in this screenshot, but Knight was immediate in passing to Lamb when he received Harrellson’s pass. There was no waiting, no pump fake, no dribble; he knew what would get the shot and got it to Lamb quick. A heady play from Knight, setting up Lamb with a wide open shot.

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Lamb rises to shoot the three, and as you can see, two LSU defenders are way too late closing in on him to disrupt the shot. Lamb buried the three.

This play was just one example of UK’s solid ball movement against a zone defense, and the Cats have the shooting to exploit zones well. While the open three was partly due to LSU’s defensive lapse, give credit to UK for proper spacing, ball movement, and knowing when (and to who) to pass.

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Attacking a zone is a dual performance; you have to create open looks, and then convert the open looks. Robic said head coach John Calipari’s offensive schemes against zones are underestimated.

“That is one thing that I certainly give Cal credit for, is our zone offense is great. We have seen every type of zone and yeah you have to make shots, but we are getting good looks. When we know what type of zone they are in, we can attack it.”