APBRmetrics

[Dan Rosenbaum]

Through two games against Puerto Rico and China, I have team USA at a defensive efficiency of 113.5 points per 100 possessions. That would put them in the bottom 5 among NBA teams.

Now with the pressure defense we are playing, our defensive efficiency does not account for all of the easy offense we are getting directly from our defense. But I am always curious why Team USA seems to play this same pressure defense regardless of who the coach is. Outside of maybe Charlotte and Washington, no one in the NBA plays this style of defense. I think it gets Team USA in the mindset that any possession that ends in something other than a steal is a bad defensive possession. But given the relative ease teams have scoring against us, I think this mindset is couterproductive. And I think it hurts us when we play against better teams who can handle the pressure we apply. We don't get much practice playing the help defense that might be more effective against teams that are able to move the ball around against us.

Now maybe with the closer three-point line and other differences between the international and NBA game our really poor defensive efficiency is not really that poor. But it still makes me curious why this gambling defensive style is something that teams in the NBA shun, while we always seem to embrace it in international play.

[Mark]

I agree it can be overdone.

An average of 16 steals in 2 games (+11 per game compared to opponent) is though one of three main sources of advantage along with +10 rebound and +15 FTA edges per game. But the opponents are higher on eFG%. American shot defense seems to suffer from using that aggressive pressure style but it might not be superior anyways and the pressure is trying to avoid getting to that point of open shots, that maybe they aren't confident they can avoid otherwise. Two parts of the story, mixed impacts, good net results but still early. The stronger opponents will probably cut team USA steals and increase the amount of punishment off of it if it stays at same level. I assume they will probably adjust the amount of pressure used somewhat to opponent and the net results from playing that way during each game.

[deepak_e]

[Mark]

Nothing unusual. I started out saying adjusted overall shooting because on raw unadjusted FG% Americans look better but there is a huge difference on 3 point shooting %, and this is a case where the adjustment process of eFG% changes the surface message & I was thinking about and wanted to highlight that. I added the term eFG% later in editing to try to make it clear that is what I meant but I went from phrasing that wasn't standard to redundant and confusing.

[Dan Rosenbaum]

To put Team USA's defensive performance in perspective, Argentina has given up 95.6 points per 100 possessions, which would have led the NBA last season by a long shot. Even just looking at their game against France (who is probably better than either China or Puerto Rico), and their 105.8 points per 100 possessions would have placed them in the top 7 in the NBA last year.

[deepak_e]

If the US is allowing a "bad" 113.5 points per 100 possessions, that must mean they're scoring around 138.5 points per 100 possessions.

They're gambling a ton and purposely keeping the pace up as high as possible. Maybe it's a case of sacrificing some defensive efficiency for easy scores on the offensive end (and, consequentially, higher offensive efficiency). Is that such a bad strategy?

[Dan Rosenbaum]

[Mark]

I wonder if the coaches have done this in part to try to avoid NBA stars coasting on defense, thinking they can just outscore. That would be too far the other way- wasn't that was also a way they have lost some in the recent past?

It was a long time ago (1990) but what was the analysis on Coach K's last world championship outing, beyond Yugoslavia was very good and knew each other and the Americans were young? I found this summary
http://www.usabasketball.com/history/mwc_1990.html
Did his defensive strategy fail then? How has it changed?

Maybe they do take the pressure game too far. I certainly expect they will need to back off and win with a different style a few occasions. But I can see trying the pressure strategy early, read the results and move off it if not effective.

Got to be able to play strong regular defense. I assume the practices are balanced working on both? If not, and there is only one strategy, that would be a mistake waiting to show up at just the worst time. Again.

This article lays out the vision and has a hint or two of skepticism
http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2006/08/04/swallowing_the_kool_aid_egos/

[Carlos]

My guess is that the USA national team coaches quickly realize that they won't be able to implement a decent half court offense in such a short time, so they decide to gamble on a permanent pressure defense, hope to force a lot of turnovers for fastbreak points and wear down physically the opposition. I agree that it can backfire if they meet an opponent who can withstand the defensive pressure and make it into a half court game but I'm not sure if the coaches have much of a choice.

[Analyze This]

[hpanic7342]

There are a lot of interesting thoughts on this thread. I wanted to chime in with this: Dan is right that pressing better ballhandlers is really tough, and that's a big reason that NBA coaches don't do it (China's ballhandlers were really, really atrocious). It's also my understanding, though, that playing pressure defense is also very, very tiring, which would be a terrible thing for a team like say, Brazil, but is great for the USA, because the Americans go 12 deep. Since the Americans are demons in transition, I think that this defense makes a lot of sense against teams without handlers.

Our halfcourt defense looks OK to me, even with the trapping. To my naked eye (if anyone has statistical information about this, I'm all ears), an awful lot of China's threes were in transition, because when the Americans were playing transition defense, everyone would cluster to the middle of the floor and leave the shooters open. Krzyzewski needs to get the Americans out of this habit.

It'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow morning. Slovenia has Beno Udrih, who is very good at taking care of the ball (2005 finals notwithstanding), so I'll be curious to see if we try to pull these same shenanigans against a more solid handling team. If we can't get transition buckets, I hope that we rely on penetration and quick post ups for Howard instead of long jumpers. We don't seem to be too good at those.

[HoopStudies]

I am not sure that I'd put in such pressure defense, but there are things going for it:

- Coach K uses it at Duke extensively
- Putting in a defensive system in the half court to handle a variety of sets can be challenging. I'd still lean toward doing this, I think.
- When you have a lot of guys that you want to play, getting them playing hard through a lot of pressure ensures that they get tired and a deep rotation is easy.
- Ballhandlers for a fair number of international teams aren't that good. What offsets this for me, though, is that we beat those teams anyway and the best teams have good ballhandlers.
- We again don't have great half court shooters or off the ball cutters. We have a lot of transition players on the team. It is better than in 2004, at least. But I wonder about our ability to play a half court O.
- We aren't particularly comfortable with international referees and transition basketball takes some of the guesswork out of what they'll do.

I personally like what I've seen of our straight man defense (which has a lot of pressure), though I haven't seen anything but the warmup games. I have the 2 WC games recorded, but haven't yet been able to watch. My sense from reading write ups is that we're helping a lot and leaving shooters open for good shots. If we are, then we should probably stop. You can do that on a playground or against teams that don't know each other well, but double-teams and excessive help D are dangerous against legit teams. The thought may be that we're undersized down low. Not sure.

Again, I haven't looked, but I assume that eFG is the big component of the D problem. I know dreb% was bad against Brazil, but didn't read about it since.

But also, I don't read too much into the DRtg yet. 2 games, one of which was an extreme blowout, can lead to stats that are a bit distorted.

Finally, note that the FIBA site is actually posting play-by-play and shot charts. Could be interesting insight there. Sheesh, I'm just going to watch the games for now...
_________________
Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com

[FFSBasketball]

Well, Henry Abbott over at TrueHoop has taken up the cause, and sparked a discussion.

His first post was here, and then David Thorpe responded. It's interesting to see what they had to say.
_________________
"Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." - Evan Esar

[HoopStudies]

In watching the Slovenia game, it is clear that the US has a hard time defending screen-roll. Nearly all of Slovenia's Q1 points were either off screen-roll or transition. There was poor communication and guards got to the basket constantly. In Q2, the staff changed up how they were defending it by trapping the ball-handler and that helped a lot. There were still some clear problems in handling it (usually because the Slovenia big was so versatile) and that's going to be important to do better as the tournament goes on. It wasn't just our big's problem handling it either because occasional switches left their big open.

Given that defending screen-roll is very much a team communication exercise, it's not surprising that we have some problem doing that. We also have guys having to defend the screen-roll who aren't used to it. Carmelo and Lebron aren't usually defending the screener, but have had to do it some.

(I hate how commentators say "guard penetration" is the problem when it's almost always due to screen-roll. Different problems with different solutions.)
_________________
Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com

[Mark]

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.

At center Bosh, Howard and lesser minutes to Miller seems pretty quick by NBA center standards. But compared to current opponents? Later round opponents bigger on interior or will they need to matchup smaller? 7 foot Miller not needed much yet.


Hinrich stats look like he is playing SG at 1.3 assists a game. I guess Wade and James do the playmaking when Paul doesnt.

USA opponents shooting 47% from 3 pt line but have gotten 5 less total attempts. A team that can get a lot of 3s will likely be the biggest threat. Slovenia didnt get enough. Does the pressure up high help prevent the walk up 3 and the routine pass for a quick release 3?

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.