Right now they're 11th (out of 24) in defensive efficiency. A lot of this is due to the fact that they force turnovers like it's going out of style. So our defense really isn't that bad. I can't see us not continuing to force turnovers, especially after what we did to Slovenia.
How are you calculating defensive efficiency for all the teams in the tournament? Did you pull the data from all the boxscores? I can't find cumalitive opponent stats anywhere on the FIBA website.
Curious thing: When I estimated the teams' true winning percentages using a normal curve (and not the Pythagorean), our TW% went DOWN after the Senegal game. Dean alluded to this effect in his book when he looked at the '97 Bulls...the mean winning margin went up, but the variance went WAY up. Like Dean, I'm not sure that I believe it, but maybe it does pay to be really consistent, even if you're ridiculously good.
Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 49 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:21 pm Post subject:
hpanic7342 wrote:
Right now they're 11th (out of 24) in defensive efficiency. A lot of this is due to the fact that they force turnovers like it's going out of style. So our defense really isn't that bad. I can't see us not continuing to force turnovers, especially after what we did to Slovenia.
OK, comparing Team USA to the other teams in the tournament makes things seem a lot better. Compared to the opposition, America's D is middle of the road. Still, someone pointed out earlier that this kind of defensive efficiency would be one of the worst in the NBA. I guess it's a lot easier to score for everyone going by FIBA rules.
Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Posts: 54 Location: Durham, North Carolina
Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 5:33 pm Post subject:
Now I realize individual defensive numbers are still uncertain predictors, but I thought I would go ahead and look at what Team USA did as individuals last NBA season. The low man was Elton Brand with a DRtg of 100 (pts/100possesions), and the high was Joe Johnson with a DRtg of 114. The whole roster averaged out to have a DRtg of 105.5. I understand that much of what defines a player's individual defensive numbers for any specific season will be the team context in which he played (here Joe Johnson may be a good example of that). However the mere fact that so many of these players could a make good contributions to their NBA teams, seems suggests to me that Team USA's defensive woes are largely the result of the system. So where is the breakdown occuring? Is this an overly simplistic view of team defense? Is it that all these stars who primarily play O are used to being help defenders? Could the problem be that Team USA lacks those lock down defenders around which to shape an alternative strategy? What alternatives could they take? _________________ Throw it down big man!
More expansive basketball babble at a slower pace The Captain of History
Better, way better. Everyone other than Senegal in group D was in the top ten in offensive efficiency (and even they were 19th). Whether that's good offense or bad defense, I leave to the Xs and Os people in this group to decide. But our defense was average in pool play for the tournament and the best in our group.
I don't think too many surprises here - the US offense is potent, and although Coach K's pressure D has helped, it hasn't been an overwhelming force of nature type of D. After watching this morning's game against Germany (the second half of it anyway, I didn't wake up in time for the first half), I was impressed, but I don't think the US will necessarily be able to handle Argentina. Not doubling Dirk was curious to me, as was a lot of the poaching done by the US PGs (mostly Paul, sometimes Hinrich). Against a team with more threats (ie, Argentina), I think the risk will be much greater. _________________ Statistics are like a woman's bikini. What it reveals can be fascinating, but what it conceals is ultimately critical!
Wow, awesome deepak I was hoping someone would post these.
Be interesting to see how USA/Greece and Arg/Spain matchup. Considering they played different teams the stats might not be as illuminating as NBA's are between two teams that have played 82 games. But interesting nonethless.
Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 410 Location: Near Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2006 8:44 am Post subject:
gabefarkas wrote:
I don't think too many surprises here - the US offense is potent, and although Coach K's pressure D has helped, it hasn't been an overwhelming force of nature type of D. After watching this morning's game against Germany (the second half of it anyway, I didn't wake up in time for the first half), I was impressed, but I don't think the US will necessarily be able to handle Argentina. Not doubling Dirk was curious to me, as was a lot of the poaching done by the US PGs (mostly Paul, sometimes Hinrich). Against a team with more threats (ie, Argentina), I think the risk will be much greater.
The US played reasonably well today. The first half was tight but mainly because we were missing a lot of easy shots. We were doing all the other things. We had taken away Dirk and their other guys were playing better than normal -- but that's not how Germany beats you. I felt as comfortable as I have at halftime, with the exception of games like Senegal and China.
The holes are still there, though. We couldn't get much transition offense today and had to rely on half court O. Most of that was pretty stagnant, but forcing double-teams or collapsing a zone helped get a lot of open shots; we do look more comfortable taking those open 3s. Our screen-roll D struggles. If Germany had Jason Terry running that mid screen-roll with Dirk, we'd have been in trouble. They just didn't have the personnel after Dirk to run a lot of plays. My sense was that Germany generally played into our NBA tendencies pretty well, too, unlike some other teams. They still move better away from the ball than the average NBA team, but ran more isos and didn't have either the outside shooting or interior passing.
Greece is next and they could very well beat us. All the remaining teams aren't easily beaten by just taking away one player. Tougher game-planning in general. No sleep for the coaches for a couple days. _________________ Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com
Looking at the next game for the USA through the prism of deepak's stats (though I am not sure what the definitions of the various categories are) I am drawn to two defensive categories where Greece shows relative excellence: forcing turnovers (#1 vs. #3 for the USA - though numerically, the advantage for Greece is quite large) and freethrows allowed (#1 vs. #12). Now, it stands to reason (splitting differences for the purposes of extrapolation) that Greece should expect a relative advantage in these same categories, but I ask myself if that is reasonable. My gut (having watched no games whatsoever) is that the turnover advantage should be in favor of the USA, and as to freethrows allowed, given the USAs superior shooting and offensive rebounding, I would be surprised if they faced a deficit in that category either. Maybe I'm just being a homer.
The formulas I used for the four factors are the same as described here, with the exception of turnovers. I replaced [FGA + 0.44*FTA - ORB + TO] in the denominator with [ FGA + 0.4*FTA - 1.07*(ORB / (ORB + Opp DRB))*(FGA - FG) + TO ] (formula for team possessions).
schtevie wrote:
My gut (having watched no games whatsoever) is that the turnover advantage should be in favor of the USA, and as to freethrows allowed, given the USAs superior shooting and offensive rebounding, I would be surprised if they faced a deficit in that category either. Maybe I'm just being a homer.
Just looking at the rankings for each of the categories, I agree with you that the US will win the turnover battle. But Greece ranks much higher both on offense and defense in free throws, so I guess I'd have to give them the edge there.
Last edited by deepak_e on Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
I've been keeping track of PER. I haven't adusted for pace yet, but Gasol is #1 by a lot (think around 35), followed by Anthony, Wade, Schortsianitis, and Yao in a cluster, and Brezec, Mancinelli, Ginobili, Bosh, and Scola round out the top ten. Dirk is 12th. LeBron is 13th. People looking forward to this year's draft will be happy to know that Splitter has been a stud.
When the tourney's done, I'll finalize my spreadsheet and post PER for everyone.
I've been keeping track of PER. I haven't adusted for pace yet, but Gasol is #1 by a lot (think around 35), followed by Anthony, Wade, Schortsianitis, and Yao in a cluster, and Brezec, Mancinelli, Ginobili, Bosh, and Scola round out the top ten. Dirk is 12th. LeBron is 13th. People looking forward to this year's draft will be happy to know that Splitter has been a stud.
When the tourney's done, I'll finalize my spreadsheet and post PER for everyone.
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