THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Make It Twilight Time for the Zone Defense Rule

Remember the good old days when fans complained that nobody played defense in pro basketball?

Now NBA teams are barely averaging 100 points. The game has slowed to a crawl.

And this is the little rascal that did it:

Rule 12, Fouls and Penalties A Technical Foul Section I, Illegal Defenses Subsection 2, Defensive Coverage d. When an offensive player, with or without the ball, takes a position above the foul line, the defensive player may be no farther (toward the baseline) than the “middle defensive area.” Defensive player(s) may enter and re-enter the “lower defensive area” as many times as desired, so long as he does not exceed 2.9 seconds.

This is one of 18 paragraphs spelling out the famous zone defense rules. It’s not true that you have to be a lawyer to play this game, but even for a league run by law school graduates, it’s a beauty.

The problem isn’t understanding it, however. The problem is, it’s strangling the game.

The NBA, for those of you switching over from the NCAA tournament for a day, plays a form of basketball wherein a team’s two stars set up on one side of the floor while three teammates park themselves outside the three-point line on the other, obliging their defenders, according to the zone rules, to stand near them, clearing the middle for stars A and B.

A--someone like Shaquille O’Neal or Hakeem Olajuwon--gets the ball in the post, easily because defenders can’t double-team a player who doesn’t have the ball.

The rest proceeds mechanically.

The defense “doubles down” on A. A “kicks” it back to B--or C at the top of the key or D on the other wing or E in the far corner. The defense “rotates” to the man with the ball. He “swings” it before the defense can rotate again for an open jump shot.

By the time they’re done, they’ve run 20 seconds off the clock. This is the reason scores are dropping each year while shooting accuracy increases.

The answer? Bring the three-point line in six or nine inches, throw out the zone rules and let teams play any defense they want.

The pros are already shooting 33%, the equivalent of 50% for two-pointers, from the present distance, 23 feet 9 inches. Moving them in will force defenses to guard them, keeping the middle clear. The game will become fluid again.

“There is so much isolation,” grumbles Larry Brown, whose Indiana Pacers recently averaged 87 points over a 12-game stretch--while driving toward the franchise’s best record.

“The three-point line is too far. The lane is too narrow. We should go to international rules (with a conical lane and a 21-6 three-pointer) and let teams play. It’s becoming a bump-and-grind game. People are jamming it in, holding and grabbing. It’s hard to do anything, and then everybody ends up playing half-court.”

Says Pete Newell, who coached NCAA and Olympic champions and now scouts for the Cleveland Cavaliers, “I think it’s almost ludicrous. Here are the greatest players in the game and certainly the highest-paid coaches and they can’t play the same game the rest of the world plays.

“It would be the same thing in football if they said you couldn’t zone, which they do in all-star games. In the NBA, it’s like we’re always playing an all-star game. They take tactics and strategy out of it.

“They say if you do that, it’ll just be a jump-shooting game. What do they think they’ve got now with the double-down?

“They say, ‘It’s built on the star system. We’ve got to have the stars.’ There are still going to be stars. I don’t give a damn what you do, as long as you put a basket at one end and a basket at the other, Michael Jordan is going to dominate. But to contrive a game that takes away the tactics and strategy--that’s why a lot of people don’t like to go to NBA games. They prefer college because there’s an interesting aspect to it you don’t really find in the NBA game.

“Marketing is what the thing is. As long as you have a Jordan and a Magic Johnson, those kinds of players, you may have good arguments to change the rules, but nobody’s listening. Now there aren’t those kinds of attractions and they’re finding out it’s kind of an antiseptic game. Really, they’ve taken a good game and kind of cut an arm off it.

“Three years ago, I almost had enough support among the coaches to get it in and then the commissioner kind of kiboshed that. He doesn’t want the coaches to talk about any rules.”

They’re talking again. They’re right, too.

WIZARD OF WESTWOOD, INDY, L.A., S.A. . . .

If the Pacers win eight of their last 13, Brown will have pulled off the astounding feat of posting the franchise’s best record--for all six he has worked for.

He has also had two college jobs, taking UCLA to its last Final Four and winning Kansas’ last NCAA championship.

It’s even more remarkable at Indiana. As Brown arrived, the Pacers were obliged to melt themselves down, trading free-agent-to-be Detlef Schrempf and his 19-point, nine-rebound average for Derrick McKey’s 12-6.

By now, Brown will have been through his I-love-everyone-here phase and his trade-them-all phase and should be nearing his we’ve-gone-as-far-as-we-can with-this-nucleus phase in which he’ll work out a three-team trade involving nine players. However, he now works for an old friend, General Manager Donnie Walsh, who is in charge of mellowing him out.

In Boston last week, someone asked if Brown was interested in the Bruins’ assistant GM post after Mike Milbury went to Boston College.

Said Brown, smiling, “How much does it pay?”

THE MACE IS BACK IN YOUR FACE

If you accept what your players think is their best, you will lose.

If you can’t accept their limits, you will lose.

If you allow them to tolerate any goal but victory, you will lose.

If you can do them all at the same time, you are Pat Riley.

Despite appearances, it wasn’t his day trip to Reno or his new lineup that changed the Knicks from klutzes who lost four in a row without shooting 40% to winners of 15 in a row.

It was his greatest gift, his ability to keep them playing their hearts out. When you play for Riley, you always fight back, because the alternative is unthinkable.

They won the first nine on sheer defense, holding everyone under 90 points. Their swagger returned. Team president Dave Checketts said the league’s new anti-mayhem rules had spooked them, but Charles Oakley is now one flagrant foul from the first suspension on points. Anthony Mason, who inspired that “Mace in Yo Face” banner, has dropped his new Mr. Nice Guy act.

Last week’s victory over Charlotte was a vintage near-brawl. Mason squared off with Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson. The Hornets were reduced to beating their chests in the dressing room to show they were tough, too.

“We lost fair and square,” Coach Alan Bristow said in a rare concession. “But some of these referees have to learn how to call Knick games.”

Said Kenny Gattison: “You can’t call every hold and grab. That’s what they do. They grab, hold and talk crap the whole game.”

Said Mourning: “They’ve got to come back to Charlotte and they know it. That’s definitely a win in our pocket.”

Ask Riley if that isn’t the sweetest music he has heard all season.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

These updates from the NCAA tournament:

Yinka Dare--Coming out and headed for the lottery, simply for his awesome 7-foot-1, 265-pound body. “I don’t like him,” a personnel director says. “He’s not ready. He’ll go No. 5 to 10.”

Juwan Howard--Says he is staying, but jumped from the low teens to the 5-7 range.

Glenn Robinson--Big Dog says he is staying. Someone might offer him one of those Magic Johnson pieces of ownership to come out.

Cliff Rozier--Real Dog was in the lottery, but showed little and didn’t try hard, either. No word if he is coming out, but, on the other hand, who cares?

Jalen Rose--Hard to get a handle on. Fine handler for 6-8, tough kid, step ups, but makes bad decisions. Probably in the lottery.

Khalid Reeves--He was in the 20s when the tournament started. He might make the lottery now.

Donyell Marshall--Disappointing in tournament games, but scouts still like him. No. 4 if he comes out.

Grant Hill--To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him.

FACES AND FIGURES

Home is where(ever) the heart is: It’s great that Dominique Wilkins is so enthusiastic about staying with the Clippers, talking Ron Harper into signing, and all. Of course, Wilkins’ agent recently told the Clippers that if Wilkins doesn’t get his price--$21 million for three years--he might try the Lakers. In New York on the last trip, Wilkins suggested ‘Nique the Knick.

“I’m perfect for the Knicks,” he said. “We could be scary. Right now they rotate the ball, Patrick (Ewing) out to (John) Starks. There’s nobody else to hit the shot. . . . I might take less money. It just depends on the situation. I just want to play for a team that has a chance.” No, the Knicks have no cap room, either. Like the Lakers, they could give him only a one-year deal at half his present $3.5-million salary.

You know you are in trouble when you are following someone named Mad Max: Olajuwon recently told Houston teammate Vernon Maxwell he was the team’s emotional leader and urged him to assert himself. After that, Max was arrested for carrying a gun in his car. Then he was thrown out of a game in Sacramento, refused to leave, threw his gum at referee Joe Forte, tossed ice on the floor, was fined $10,000 by the league and forced Coach Rudy Tomjanovich to put in a rule against post-ejection tantrums. “We’ve worked too hard to make this a respectable basketball team,” Tomjanovich said. “I don’t want something like this to ever happen again.” Comment: Obviously, the operative word was emotional, not leader .

Who’s teaching whom what? Orlando Coach Brian Hill urged O’Neal to stop telling everyone how wonderful he was every time someone criticized him. Said Hill, “Shaq and I have talked about it. It’s like, let’s just work on winning basketball games and forget all the personal woofing.” A few days before, noting O’Neal’s faint MVP support, Hill had said, “The only thing I can point to is jealousy.” After their talk, O’Neal warmed up for the Knick game by saying of Ewing: “He claims he’s the man, but he knows the deal.”