Defensive Analytics by John Mietus
Here are the seven defensive analytics principles that can be applied to every basketball team and that make your team tougher to score on.
1. Force teams away from the rim.
2. Play high pressure, clean defense.
3. Prize defensive rebounds
4. Apply full-court, non-gambling pressure for the entirety of every game.
5. Contest every possible shot with a hand up, closeout short rather than long.
6. Force teams to beat you via the dribble, not the pass.
7. Do not switch unless forced to switch, but if necessary… switch!
Breaking it down by defensive analytics category:
1. Force teams away from the rim.
On defense, players must always stay between a man and the basket. Help and team defense are secondary concerns unless this standard is met, because anybody who gets beat on cuts or off the dribble is putting everybody else on their team at a massive disadvantage. In the event that a player is screened and cannot recover in time to seal off his assignment from getting to the basket, a switch should be called and executed immediately in order to prevent the direct rim attack, regardless of the size or quickness mismatch it creates. Re-switching can occur later but the primary concern is always to cut off the rim.
Guards should be encouraged to know that most professional level forwards average shooting about 41-45% (0.82-0.90 PPS) on back to the basket type moves (no angle to the rim) even if they are defended by a shorter player. Conversely, if a forward switches and must defend a smaller, quicker player on the perimeter, simply forcing a contested jump shot in a one on one situation is a huge victory for the defense. Offensive players will still make shots at times, but the math says to stick with forcing teams away from the rim and making them score against a defender.
2. Play tough but clean.
Fouling gives teams a chance at easy points and the fewer fouls a team commits the less likely they are to be in the Bonus. Foul shooting is one of the highest points per possession (PPP) averages available in the sport, where a 58% free throw shooter gets you the same amount of value as contested rim attacks. Even a terrible foul shooter is worth about 0.90 PPP by shooting free throws at 45%, higher than all nearly mid-range jump shooting PPP averages. If a team can keep players away from the rim while avoiding fouls, they have put themselves in a position to win basketball games.
3. Get aggressive on defensive rebounding.
Coaches who want to win must instill in their players an intense desire to go after and claim the ball. Giving up offensive rebounds works against a team on two levels. It turns bad shooting teams into dangerous opponents if they continually get more shots at the basket than their opponent, and maybe more importantly, the psychological frustration of having played a possession of hard defense, only to see your efforts go unrewarded by not securing the basketball and instead watching an opponent casually catch the offensive rebound and flip the ball back in the hoop is devastating. The math is simple: the team that gets more shots doesn’t have to shoot as well to win.
4. Full court press for the entirety of every game.
Every single foot of court you concede on defense is an extra foot the offense did not have to work for. Given the percentage of court which is actually an offensive attack zone (roughly 25%), there is no reason to cede the remaining 75% of the court without applying pressure. When coaches tell me they “do not have the talent to press” I respond, “Then you really do not have the talent to not press”. No need to gamble, no need to force steals by aggression, simply allow offenses a chance to make mistakes over a larger distance and before they have a chance to even shoot the ball.
5. Contest every shot, closeout short.
Commentator and former coach Mark Jackson is fond of saying “Hand down, man down”, implying that if you do not contest a shot you deserve for somebody to make a jump shot over you. Once the offensive team reaches the attack zone (operational areas within 25 feet of the basket the defense needs to recognize that threats are now immediate and players can and will attempt to score. Contesting shots with a hand up is a hotly debated topic because coaches differ on where the hand should go. Some say it should block the vision of the shooting player while others suggest it should challenge the shooting arm. I believe challenging the shooting arm is a better tactic, albeit riskier in terms of potential fouls. One truism in basketball is, “Never foul a jump shooter,” and that should be a primary focus of any defense. There is no shot from the field other than uncontested layups with a higher PPP than foul shots, so there should be absolutely no incentive to ever foul a jump shooter. However, contesting the shooting arm is important because ideally it affects the mechanics of the jump shot and forces an offensive player to shoot at a higher, less comfortable angle than they would like. Math does state that up to a point, the higher the arc on the jump shot, the more likely the ball will go through the hoop, but it also shows that the odds decrease rapidly with an overly exaggerated arc. Challenging the eyes of the shooter does very little to alter the shot because the shooter’s brain has already made calculations on distance and trajectory, the eyes have given the necessary information, and the ball is already being released.
When forced to close out on a shooter on the perimeter, it is most likely better to have them shoot than to get beat by the dribble. Because the defender’s momentum is going outward, past the offensive player, he is at a distinct disadvantage mechanically in trying to stop dribble penetration. Getting beat by a dribbler is one of the worst things that can happen to a defense in basketball because it opens up the middle of the floor where the attack occurs. Once a ball handler has dribbled past his man the rest of the defense is at his mercy. If he attacks the rim he may score or draw a foul, both bad options for the defense. Or he may draw enough help attention that he finds 2-3 wide open shooters on either side of the perimeter attack zone (usually beyond the 3 point line) for high value shots. Defenses simply cannot afford to allow this situation repeatedly if they hope to win a basketball game. However much space a defender must cede in the attack zone in order to not get beat off the dribble, that is how much cushion they must give. It differs depending on who is dribbling and who is defending, but the defender’s brain needs to be doing those calculations constantly. An even slightly contested jump shot always has a lower PPP value than a rim attack or open 3-pointer.
7. Do not let the ball move to attacking areas via the pass.
The best defense in basketball is to force the offense to play one on one (essentially, one on five) in a half court set. In order to create this scenario, a defense wants to disrupt the offense’s ball movement to ensure they cannot create cracks in the defense simply by passing the ball. The fewer incisive passes the defense must react to, the better. This does not mean that the defense must shut down all offensive passing. If the offensive guards want to stand around at 30 feet and pass the ball back and forth while the shot clock ticks away, fantastic. Incisive passing occurs when the pass leads to repeated quick ball movement, a rim attack, or staking a valuable spot on the court. The more the defense can keep the ball stationary and out of key areas, the less chance the offense has to create open shots or shots at the rim. No matter how great the opposing team’s one-on-one ability might be, an organized half court defense of five well positioned players will always be tougher to beat than a scrambling defense on its heels.
8. Try hard to not switch, particularly when there are size mismatches involved. But if no other option is available, switch on defense.
It is more important to have a human being between the offensive player with the ball and the basket than it is to have the perfect matchup defensively. In pick and roll defense the primary goal should be to maintain the defenders on who they originally were guarding. The next best option might be a pure switch, even if it means giving up a quickness advantage on the perimeter with a size advantage inside. Hedging or trapping creates either time or numbers mismatches that a decent offensive team will exploit repeatedly. Neither of the shots conceded in the case of a pure switch (a post up back to the basket type move against a smaller player, or a contested perimeter jumper over a larger player) are terrible options for the defense. They aren’t ideal, but they aren’t terrible either. Where coaches and players get into trouble is hedging screens and allowing a slip to the rim by a forward for an easy dunk or layup, or by trailing a screen with no help at all and giving up an uncontested 3-point shot. These are both high PPS values for the offense and will cause a team to lose. Post-to-post screens and guard-to-guard screens can and should be switched any time the defender being screened is caught on the screen and would require brief help regardless. There is no need to panic, simply switching here gives relative size and quickness similarities without sacrificing positioning. In dealing with screens there is no perfect solution, but the best options are always to contest shots and keep offensive players away from the basket as much as possible.
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