Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 410 Location: Near Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 12:51 pm Post subject:
Mark wrote:
At PF Battier, Jamison and Brand aren't that tall. Would you characterize them as quick? I don't know their pick n roll defense reputations but I would think the first two are sufficently capable.
When you play the 3 or the 2, what Lebron and Carmelo often play, you rarely are playing on the screener. Battier and Jamison play 3 and 4 in the NBA, so they see some action on the screener. I didn't notice whether Slovenia ran their screen-rolls with their 3 or if Lebron/Carmelo were matched up on a big (mainly because it can be hard to identify who is a 3 or a 4 for some Euros). Quickness is not as relevant as experience. If you don't typically play on the screener, you don't know where they can go or that they move so much, plus how to read the passer, how to step out and challenge the ball without losing your guy.
In general, though, a lot of these guys get spared defensive responsibility on pick-roll as much as their NBA teams can. The PGs have to deal with it, as do the biggest bigs, but these swing men who contribute a lot of offense are often spared that responsibility.
(It was funny watching Chris Paul play 6'7" Marko Milic in the post. That's not a normal activity for him.)
Mark wrote:
Slovenia won rebounding by 11. Brezec got 12, Nesterovic 7 Nachbar 7. Hinrich 7 and then no other Americans over 3? That should be brought to the bigs attention. It is the first inroad to the three sources of US advantage; team USA edges on free throws and steals continued.
This was an issue in this game, although a lot of our dreb probs were due to screen-roll and having to come over and help. We never had to worry about our offensive boards with our shooting so hot, so that part isn't relevant. _________________ Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com
There appears to be an error in the box I used at usabasketball.com- OR+DR= 28 not 26 shown- so the rebounding gap was just 9. +5 Slovenia on offensive glass, influenced by number of opportunites and +4 of defensive glass, perhaps affected by pick n roll action.
But thru 3 games, total rebounding Brand Jamison Bosh Miller all at 1.7 per game. Translates to different per 40 rates. Howard is cleaning up (close to 15 per 40 minutes) but Brand is pretty low rate (5 per 40), I guess Jamison and Bosh are ok for so far (6-7 per 40). Miller looks 2nd best rebounding rate per 40 on team (11 per 40). If they need more boards in a later game will these guys step up or will James do it (about 9 per 40)?
Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 410 Location: Near Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:40 pm Post subject:
Mark wrote:
There appears to be an error in the box (OR+DR= 28 not 26 shown) at usabasketball.com which I used- the rebounding gap was just 9, +5 Slovenia on offensive glass, influenced by number of opportunites and +4 of defensive glass, perhaps affected by pick n roll action.
Actually, it is 8+18=26 if you check the FIBA site or add the individual DRs.
And the way to look at it is 8/(8+24) = 25% offensive boards, 18/(18+13)= 58% defensive boards (they got 42% offensive boards). I don't worry about the OR% at all because of the nature of the game we played (hitting our shots, big lead, hammered their zone). The DR% is more troublesome because that was systemic (the screen-roll I mentioned before, plus the general pressure defense) and associated with size. There are very good ways to exploit our defense. I'll be curious if teams pick up on those things by the time they need to. I should go back and track how many of our own points are due to transition -- it seems quite high. But I apparently deleted the Puerto Rico game (not sure how), so I can't get that.
Ok, thanks for the clarification, the usabasketball box was off by 2 on DR. I hadnt been to the FIBA site but I am there now.
Spain and Germany seem the most likely to pose a 3 pt threat.
Lithuania Argentina France on the boards.
Is Angola good? They have good stats on both of these measures.
Serbia is pretty good on both and could be a decent threat.
Spain is very low on turnovers. France Germany and Argentina have also kept them under control so far.
Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 410 Location: Near Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject:
Mark wrote:
Ok, thanks for the clarification. I hadnt been to the FIBA site but I am there now.
Spain and Germany seem the most likely to pose a 3 pt threat.
Lithuania Argentina France on the boards.
Is Angola good? They have good stats on both of these measures.
Serbia is pretty good on both and could be a main threat.
Spain is very good. Germany, as usual, has Dirk and not much. Getting the ball out of Dirk's hands helps a lot against Germany.
Lithuania and Serbia are in serious danger of not moving on.
Angola plays its real games starting tomorrow. They've been good in this tournament, better than they had been before. Their schedule hasn't been strong, though. Spain and Germany await them. Beating Germany is possible. It'd be a major upset to beat Spain.
I don't know much more about Argentina and France than what's been reported. I haven't seen any games of theirs, nor have I done any analysis of their games. So Argentina is good, France is good but missing Parker.
And Greece surprised a lot of people at the Euro championships, mainly by playing very good defense and not making mistakes. I'm looking forward to seeing them again. _________________ Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com
France is overrated. They have the lowest basketball iq in this tournament. They have almost no outside shooting. They pass the ball horribly for a team with so much talent. Really there plenty close to the International version of the New York Knicks. The biggest problem with France is everyone tries to play like there a member of team USA. Like they have that kind of talent. Unfortunately they dont and if USA plays France they'll beat them by 30.
Serbia has no shot. I haven't been that impressed with any of the games I've seen from them.
Germany is a one man team. The second Dirk goes out of the game there not very good at all. It would be a huge accomplishment for them to even get in the bronze game.
Spain is really good. Only team that would really scare me with how much talent they have. They have the ability to beat the USA and beat them by double digits if USA doesn't play well. I don't know about Argentina. There playing better than they were prior to the championship. I think USA can handle them though. They just have to play well. Spain is pretty deep and has great shooters and NBA big men one being an allstar level player. I haven't seen Greece play but many people think there better than both Spain and Argentina.
In terms of the rebounding. I wish 82 games had stats on this but seems to me like Howard in the game USA good to great rebounding team. Bosh or Brand in the game they struggle to get every rebound. Howard is probably one of team USA most important players because no one else is grabbing rebounds. Against Slovenia Howard got in foul trouble and USA was smashed on the boards. Bosh right now is showing if he isn't the center of the offense he has almost no tools that seperate himself from even International Level big men.
I don't know if there defense is that bad. Teams haven't played enough quality opponents to figure out where they stand. Argentina has played France and Venezuela and I doubt either of those teams could score much more against USA than they did against Argentina. Either of them aren't that great from the outside. USA has played some pretty good shooting teams. Plus Slovenia and China were down big and then late starting making some 3s to get somewhat respectable. I would wonder what there points per 100 was the first 3 quarters.
Early in the tournament I did worry about USA half court offense. The last few games though off all the teams in the tournament they have played some of the best half court offense I've seen. They tore apart the Slovenian zone.
Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 410 Location: Near Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 9:50 am Post subject:
Today's game was different. Italy didn't run screen-roll as much but did ok with it when they did. Pin-downs hurt our D since Italy ran good screens, as did allowing offensive boards (which were a lot of just outworking us and us releasing for the break, as opposed to having to recover from help). We got beat in some isolations as we were far out on the court pressing (and we weren't helping much in the middle). That pressure was understandable given that Italy's guards weren't very good ball-handlers, so that trade made sense. They also isolated their big men against ours on the perimeter because their bigs were quite mobile - that helped them a little. It was mostly perimeter screens and offensive boards.
The success that Italy had on jumpers was pretty remarkable for a while, then Carmelo's success on jumpers was remarkable, so it offset.
One thing about our halfcourt O. We don't move well away from the ball in the halfcourt, especially after the ball gets inside. This limits the success of everyone as a primary offensive threat, but particularly our big men, whose primary option is to then shoot the ball. We tend to stand around, which is not always horrible if you're creating spacing. But Italy was very good at timing when they'd double so that the spacing wasn't helpful. I've found myself thinking that we should just run a Princeton offense - or a passing game or just some motion offense - in international ball to get movement off the ball and limiting double teams. Can't put it in now, though you could put in elements since we have the shooters at the big man spot.
I think this is showing pretty clearly, though, that talent can be offset quite a lot by tactics (and rules). _________________ Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com
Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 460 Location: Washington, DC
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:08 pm Post subject:
I finally got a chance to watch the US team play this morning (vs. Senegal), and I was not pleased by what I saw. Too much gambling on defense -- too many open looks and free runs into the paint. It was okay vs. Senegal because their guard play was fairly weak, but I can see how that kind of defense can be exploited by good ball handlers and competent finishers. _________________ If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 49 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject:
I just can't understand why Team USA's defense is so poor. Sure, they pressure and gamble on defense, giving up some points that way when they don't succeed in forcing the turnover. But even their halfcourt D doesn't seem very good. Whether it's allowing some no-name guard to drive into the paint, or giving up the open jumpshot, they just can't seem to stop their opponents from scoring. Even a team like China, which has very poor guards, was able to light them up when they didn't turn the ball over. What are they, like bottom 3 in FG% allowed?
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.
Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 413 Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:15 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.
If we win the championship, I think we likely have some evidence against the claim that "defense wins championships," because we likely will have won due to very efficient offense and mediocre defense. And I don't think accounting for the increased efficiency of our offense due to our high number of steals would change that story dramatically.
The 2 teams that have the best chance to beat the usa are on the other side of the bracket. So the USA can play only one of them and only in the finals. And the road that for example Spain must take to get to the finals is much more difficult than what the usa must do. Spain must beat Servië, probably Italië and probably ArgentinIë to get to the finals. The USA must beat Australia, probably one man teamGermany and probably Greece.
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