The Nets’ only salvation this season will be their defense, and their approach to defense might have just changed.

Wait, wait, don’t say it: The zone is boring. Granted, everyone knows that already. It’s a contrivance of bored coaches for bad players, and if you want to take it to its logical extreme, the zone is an act of desperation for teams that consider defense an inconvenience rather than a necessity.

Norm Sloan, the legendary college coach, once said, “I hate it. It looks like a stickup at the 7-Eleven — five guys standing there with their hands in the air.”

Charles Barkley loved it, because he thought the legalization of the zone four years ago represented equal opportunity for all. “This is great!” the defense-challenged legend said. “They just made the world safe for crappy defensive players.”

Which brings us to the Nets. For the better part of two months, you had to peel Lawrence Frank off the ceiling over the infuriating, consternating defense his team has played. But he might have stumbled upon something in Friday night’s victory at Miami.

“Sixteen possessions, 12 stops,” the Nets coach said of the zone’s success rate against the Heat. “Pretty good.”

Good enough to explore it further? Probably. Undoubtedly, all teams nowadays must use a mix of man-to-man and zone, but using a zone is usually the result of one thing: You do it to cover up for weaknesses. And all season long, the Nets have been fairly lousy at guarding the dribble.

“Well, there’s that, but if you do it because you can’t guard, you probably won’t guard in a zone, either,” said Frank, whose team played host to Minnesota last night. “We have to have the mentality that we’ll guard; that’s always the most important thing. But we’ll throw in the zone just to give teams a different look, and take them out of rhythm or disrupt them a bit. But I’ll agree that if teams go all zone, it’s not exactly a sign of strength. And we don’t want to be a team like that.”

Typically, the Nets have set up in a 2-3 matchup (most often after free-throw conversions). Among those who study such things, it’s primarily what Roy Williams uses: The North Carolina point zone, it is called in those parts. Occasionally — such as the case against Detroit — Frank will throw in a few wrinkles (”Just call it hybrid,” he says) to counteract cutting action.

But the goal is always the same: to get stops. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s an adventure. For example, against Houston on Wednesday night, Frank put his fist in the air only seven times — that’s the zone call — and the Nets got only two stops out of it.

Of course, that’s not much of a sample, and Frank was reluctant to use it because Houston (at least without Yao Ming) is a perimeter-oriented team. You’re more likely to use the zone against post-oriented teams.

“Or if you’re being hurt by pick-and-rolls, or if you’re getting beat in a certain matchup,” the coach added. “Like if they’re using the same pick-and-roll to force a switch, the zone can help you take them out of that play easier. Then teams have to find different ways to get their shots.

“We’re not a great steal or block team. So this is a way to change the rhythm of the game.”

It should also be noted that despite the Nets’ success Friday night, they were going up against a Miami team without Dwyane Wade, James Posey and Shaquille O’Neal.

“You’re talking about three individuals that can really break down zones,” Richard Jefferson agreed. “Wade can find seams, Posey always killed us on 3s, and Shaq is Shaq. So they were undermanned.

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t use it. And it’s more than just covering up mistakes — there are teams that really struggle with it, because you don’t get to practice against it much, and you don’t have a wide variety of plays to deal with it. If you break it down, we have 100 man plays and five zone plays. Everybody’s pretty much the same way.”

http://www.nj.com/nets/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1167544419308920.xml&coll=1

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