Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 13,182
You can play zone defense in the NBA now. When I was a kid, zone was illegal. I tried to figure out the exact rules referees would use to determine illegal defense, but it was not that easy to grok.
Now in the NBA, rather than outlaw zone outright, they have a defensive three second violation (unlike high school and college) which says you can't be in the lane for three seconds unless you are actively guarding an offensive player. So you can't just have a couple of players set up shop in the lane. But other than that I think you can have players physically located on the court anywhere.
