A Defensive Breakdown: Part II

This is the second in a series of posts breaking down the defensive deficiencies of State’s men’s basketball team. If you missed part one, check it out here, then come back and dive into our next category of defensive failings:

Off-Ball Awareness

This next category is a sort of catch-all for our problems with off-ball complacency, lack of awareness, and help defense. It’s a bit of a grab bag, but it does all kind of tie together.

First, we’re going to start with something that’s driven me crazy about our defense for a long time, what I entitled in my notes as a “lazy switch”. What I mean by this is that often when opposing guards run dribble handoffs or even very simple cross cuts, our guards will switch their man even when there’s no real reason to do so. It happens a lot during each game, but I’ve picked out a couple examples:

Now, the first three examples seem pretty harmless, particularly the first. There’s no real reason to switch, but there’s no reason not to, right? Like I said before, State makes these switches all the time. Now look, having guards that can switch on defense is good, and if you get screened and have to switch, then fine. These switches aren’t that though, they’re switches that don’t need to happen. There are a few problems with this. One, it says that you don’t care which guards are matched up against which. In rare instances that might be true, but most of the time you should want your best defensive guard matched up with their best offensive guard. You want guys who match up well physically. It’s a marked disadvantage for Markell Johnson to be matched up against a big, physical wing like Malcolm Hill. If you have to switch, fine, but make the opponent work to get the mismatch. Two, it goes to what I talked about in the last post, it promotes passive defense instead of active defense. Third, sometimes you get what happens in the last clip, when you miscommunicate the unnecessary switch and give up a wide open layup.

Second, lets talk about off-ball help and awareness. I’ll tackle the first thing in pictures, not in video (you’ll see it in the later clips). Our wings tend to drop far too deep on defense for my liking. When opposing players are in the corners, our guys are often standing right in line between them and the basket. For example, look at Terry Henderson here:

TooLow1He’s covering his man, but he’s not doing any good to the rest of the team. He should be at least one big step higher on the court. If he’s there, he can still easily get to his man if the pass comes that way (and he’d even be in better position to intercept the pass), but he’s also going to deter penetration simply by being there. From his current position, he’s way too far away if that player decides to turn the corner and drive on Abu, he’s no help. I mean, look at where our wings are on this play:

TooLow2

The guy doesn’t end up driving to the hoop, but look at the ocean of space we’re leaving open. Nobody is within 15 feet of the rim. If he gets a good screen, there’s zero resistance. Those two defenders should be a lot closer to where I’ve put the green dots. Now, this play didn’t end up hurting us, but it could have, and we certainly have been hurt by it quite a bit. Defense requires a full team effort, and when you’re glued to your man like that, you’re hurting the whole team. You have to stick close to great shooters, sure, but even if Dorn was guarding Steph Curry, there’s no reason he can’t take one step towards the top of the key here. He still contests the pass, he can still easily get back to his man in time, and he’s actually in better position if the guy goes backdoor.

Now, lets get into some more concrete examples of poor help:

There are a few different things going on here, but lets go one by one. On the first play, we see something that has plagued us over the last few years, confusion over help responsibilities. The play starts with a pick-and-roll, and we’ll come back to the problems there at the point of attack in my next post, but for now the important thing is what happens after the pass. Dorn gets caught in no-man’s land here. Even if he’s supposed to cover for that pass (which I suspect he isn’t), he’s too late in getting there. What’s more, he and Abu both end up lunging to guard the same player. Whenever that happens, it’s a sure sign someone screwed up. If Dorn is supposed to cover that man, somebody else should be rotating to cover his man. If he’s not supposed to, he’s just unnecessarily left his man wide open. This is not an isolated occurrence either, it’s a thing that we generally do multiple times a game, where two guys will go to cover the same spot. It’s a failure of communication and a failure of preparation. Look, basketball is a hard game, and you have to make a lot of split-second decisions. I’m sure Dorn saw the ball going to an open man and just went to it, that’s understandable. But this is why you practice these things over and over, so that you start to make the correct reads by instinct, and so that you trust the defensive system to cover where it’s supposed to cover.

The next 3 plays are all displays of varying degrees of laziness or inattentiveness that lead to open drives down the lane. The first one is actually pretty good help defense on the back side. Smith does a great job of reading the play, and he’s able to save a layup by stripping the ball. The problem here is Dorn, who stays glued to his man the whole time. Like I noted before, he’s too close to the baseline, and if he steps up in help defense there, he frees Kapita to stay closer to his man. If he were guarding a shooter, that’s one thing, cause he’s one pass away he should probably stay at home, but he’s guarding Leron Black, who has taken 9 three pointers in his career and made none of them. You have to know personnel, who you can sag off of and who you have to shadow. Take advantage of his weakness to clog up driving lanes. The second and third plays are simple, nobody steps up to stop the ball. Dorn gets a pass on this one because he’s guarding Malcolm Hill, who he should not help off of in this instance. The one who should be helping in both these plays is Abu. He’s in position to help both times, and both times he gives up open layups. The first he don’t even attempt to contest, choosing instead to box out for a rebound that’s never coming. The entire time #2 is driving down the lane, Abu does not take a single step towards him. The second happens not at the rim but at the elbow, and it’s inexplicable. Instead of taking a step into the lane and sealing it off, Abu actually slides away from the ball-handler who is driving past him. Seriously, it looks like he’s allergic to defense on that play. Again, he’s not guarding a shooter. We do not care if #12 gets the ball 20 feet from the rim. We care about keeping the guy with the ball out of the paint. It’s incredibly frustrating to watch.

The last play of the video is another example of being too focused on your man at the expense of the team, and it also features Abu. Watch what happens as #13 gets the ball on the dribble handoff. He starts curling towards the lane as Abu is recovering back to his man on the perimeter. They are about to pass like ships in the night. Look at this:

AbuHelp

If Abu simply lifts his head up, sees the man driving, and stops where he is, he will be in perfect help position. He will wall off that drive. #13 can then pass to the wide open non-shooter Leron Black, and nothing bad will happen. Instead, Abu continues on his way, and he’s got a foot on the three point line as #13 is taking his layup.

The overarching theme of these problems is just a lack of awareness. We have players who are so focused on their man that they’re out of position to help, and when they are in position, they don’t help anyway. Now, even great defenses have breakdowns, but I’m not pulling these examples out because they’re unique, I’m highlighting them because they happen far too often in our games. These kinds of breakdowns in help are systemic. These same problems also overflow into our next section…

Boxing Out

I’m not going to spend nearly as much time on boxing out because there’s really only so much you can say, and the video is pretty self-explanatory. One thing that you’ll see pretty consistently is players simply turning towards the rim when the shot goes up instead of finding their man and putting a body on him.

I’m not going to go through each one, as its pretty apparent what’s going on. It’s a lot of our guys just not recognizing Illinois players running to the rim, so no one puts a body on them. It’s a particularly rough lowlight reel for Torin Dorn, but I’m not going to bag on him as much based on one game of footage. His rebound numbers are excellent for his position, so it may just be a case of him having one poor game. That aside, it’s an issue that shows up with the rest of our players as well, and it’s an extension of the complacency and lack of awareness that we’ve been talking about in other areas. You cannot be glued to your man the whole possession, then totally disregard him as soon as the shot goes up.

We should focus on that first play a little more, because boy is it a disaster. At the time the shot goes up, one Illinois player is completely out of frame because he’s already jogged down court. Another player is sitting on the ground.

boxout

Look at that picture. We do not get that rebound. How? Also, if that ball had bounced off the other side of the rim, we still wouldn’t have gotten it because #43 had inside position on Abu. So what happens? Abu is unable to get around the guy sitting on the floor. Beejay doesn’t so much box out as he does deliver a forearm to the throat. Dennis Smith does not box out his man but lets him run untouched to get the ball. Dorn doesn’t help either of his bigs box out, he just stands under the rim waiting for the ball to fall in his lap. This is about as badly as a team can box out.

So what can we say about this? There are times when poor rebounding is a symptom of something else, maybe you’re giving up too many drives to the rim and the help rotations are necessarily leaving the glass open. There are times when you can be in good position and the ball just happens to bounce wrong, or you have it and it just bounces off your hands and you can’t secure it (that happened twice this game). These things all do happen to us, but far too often we see plays like that first one, where by all accounts we should get the rebound, and through carelessness we give it up. That’s less a matter of talking about technique (though we could certainly talk to Beejay about his stiffarm boxout move), and more about effort and mentality. Take pride in your rebounding as much as you do your dunking. That sounds like I’m an old curmudgeon, but it’s true. Especially when you’re trotting out 4 guard lineups like State is, you have to make an emphasis to put a body on someone. That’s on players, but it’s also on the coaching staff to drill that into them. If guys who space out on defense or don’t box out ride the bench, then you create a culture that this is important. Based on years of evidence, we do not have that culture here at State.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a clip of one play that kind of encompasses everything we’ve talked about in this post. Note the time and score, how important the moment is. 7 points in 4:30 is hard, but certainly doable. This is a crucial possession if we wanted to stay in this game. Now, watch Abu, particularly from the 12 second mark onward.

For 8 seconds straight, he does not look at his man. He has no idea where he is. As a result of that, he does not call out either of the screens set (which is what frees up Smith’s man to take the shot), nor does he box out on the rebound. He then compounds the error by weakly fouling for the and-1. It is a crucial moment, and player in his third year plays the worst defensive possession of the game. He is pulled because it’s his fourth foul. Two minutes later he’s back in the game. When there are no consequences, there is no motivation to improve.

The last part of this series will take a closer look at a more technical subject, our pick-and-roll coverage.

NCS Basketball

Home Forums A Defensive Breakdown: Part II

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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  • #112043
    xphoenix87
    Moderator

    This is the second in a series of posts breaking down the defensive deficiencies of State’s men’s basketball team. If you missed part one, check it ou
    [See the full post at: A Defensive Breakdown: Part II]

    #112045
    Whiteshoes67
    Participant

    Well done! We should rename ourselves the Matadors. Don’t Mr. and Mrs. Wolf wear capes? Can we have a half-time bullfight skit? Something Shakespearean…

    #112047
    1.21 Jigawatts
    Keymaster

    It’s clear Gottfried either has never heard of the Shell Drill or refuses to teach it. 1-2 passes away = Up the Line, Off the Line. Be in a position to deflect the pass or drop down for help defense and still be able to recover if the pass makes it to your man. When you’re 2 passes away you should be in the lane.

    One other thing is we close out on the ball poorly, too many times State either doesn’t close out on the ball aggressively enough or out of position to allow the dribble drive (which there is no help defense because they are finding out what flavor bubble gum their man is chewing).

    #112049
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    I can’t wait for tomorrow so I can get pissed off in a MUCH more informed way now. THANKS!

    /old crumudgeon who took WAY too much pride in his rebounding and foul-giving as a low-post guy in pickup ball once I grew out of being a PG my junior and senior year of HS

    #112050
    PackerInRussia
    Participant

    The most anticipated sequel this December. Well done.

    #112060
    travelwolf
    Participant

    Awesome analysis… now can we get Gott and team to read it and fix the defense?

    #112062
    brqan925
    Participant

    Enjoyed this and looking forward to Part III.

    Also would love it if you would consider grading defense after each game going forward.

    #112243
    Rick
    Keymaster

    Great analysis.

    #112363
    ryebread
    Participant

    Great read! Very nicely done. Hopefully part 3 goes into a look at fouls, and what causes us to foul so much. Yes, there are “tendencies” in officiating, but there are “tendencies” in the way we play our man to man.

    This is the quality we used to regularly have at this site. Now it’s kind of turned into game threads and off topic musings. I understand that the moderators can’t carry all the content and have lives, so it’s nice to see some other contributors.

    The actual analysis is why I think we should play nothing but zone. At least in zone, we have guys roughly in the right positions with their backs to the basket and facing the ball. Given we switch poorly, don’t help, don’t close out and routinely aren’t aware of what is going on, at least we’ll sort of stay in the right positions. We’re also tall, so if we just keep our hands up and active, things can be made more difficult. We play man to man so poorly, and have for years, that I think it actually hurts us.

    Rebounding isn’t going to get any worse. As mentioned here, that’s not a symptom of man defense vs zone defense. It’s a lack of commitment to rebounding or knowing how to do it. They need to bring Howell in to run rebounding drills. He’s still young enough to get out there and show the guys how to do it.

    Part of this also comes down to developing a bit of a mean streak. Teams that typically rebound and defend well aren’t necessarily the nicest teams (think Michigan State, Pitt under Dixon, Kansas under Self, Howland’s teams, UVA). We need to get a little bit nasty and treat it like our pride is on the line. I saw that from BJ last game, and I have seen it from DSJ, but it’s an entire team mentality.

    #112376
    SqlWolf
    Participant

    xphoenix87, you have managed to verbalize all the frustrations I have felt as I watched our teams under Gottfried. I wondered over the years if it was the nature of the modern players coming up from AAU ball to no longer care about defense or if it was the system (or lack thereof) that didn’t stress good defense. I now believe it’s the coaches who are not pushing the defensive skills development. All that ultimately falls at the feet of the head coach. I have found myself having a hard time watching these games lately. I keep hoping they get better by the time conference games roll around. I still shake my head at the prospect of just squeaking into the NCAA tourney. It seems to be the path that Gottfried’s teams follow each year.

    #112380
    xphoenix87
    Moderator

    Great read! Very nicely done. Hopefully part 3 goes into a look at fouls, and what causes us to foul so much. Yes, there are “tendencies” in officiating, but there are “tendencies” in the way we play our man to man.

    I won’t be talking much about fouls. For one, I don’t think we’re decidedly more foul prone than most teams, and even if we are this year, it hasn’t been a consistent theme among Gottfried’s squads. In fact, if you look at the chart from part 1 of the series, you’ll see that the rate at which we send teams to the free throw line has usually been very good. That’s not a 1-to-1 correlation with fouls committed, but it’s a pretty strong indicator that we’re not fouling at an abnormal rate. I think it’s looked worse than it is the last few years because we’ve had very shallow benches, so the effect of foul trouble is exacerbated.

    Also, I think the issues that I’ve already talked about give some indication as to why we sometimes do struggle with fouls. I mentioned in the first section that consistently allowing easy entry passes puts your big men in the tough position of having to continuously defending one on one in the post, which will lead to fouls. Also, giving up offensive rebounds at the rate we do is bound to lead to more fouls. You’re much more likely to foul someone on a rebound putback, because you’re out of position and scrambling to contest shots.

    Life kind of got in the way of me getting the next post out as soon as I wanted, but it should hopefully be up tomorrow.

    #112391
    Primewolf
    Participant

    Well done! Great analysis.

    It has been clear to me for some time Gott either didn’ t coach defense or didn’t demand it from his players. It has turned me off so much, to be incompetent at defense that it is hard to wTch the team.

    What I don’t understand is why he hasn’t tried to fix it. Surely he knows he doesn’t coach it very well. Surely he knows you are not going anywhere without a good defense. Is it an ego problem.

    It is clear to me Gott is not a discplininarian. I have just assumed he is hard headed and determine to coach his way regardless of what is obvious to everyone watching his teams play.

    Any thoughts as to why we are where we are.

    #112394
    McCallum
    Participant
    #112395
    Primewolf
    Participant

    My other theory is that coaches like this are not really analytical thinkers. They just aren’t able to see all the details, logic, geometry, really see what drives winners And losers.

    Well you can probably tell I am an engineer.

    #112397
    McCallum
    Participant

    Are you an introverted engineer or an extroverted engineer?

    I know the difference BTW.

    McCallum

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