Kev's defensive breakdown: Raptors at Warriors (March 13, 2010)
by duaneok66 on Mar 16, 2010 12:56 PM PDT
28 comments
Defensively scoring the Raptors game
First: thanks for reading my fanpost. I apologize in advance for the length but I feel that background is necessary. This post details my defensive breakdown of the Raptors-Warriors game from last Saturday night. My system attempts to defensively “score” the game.
I came up with a defensive system about a year ago. I am a Thunder fan, and last year at this time the Thunder stunk. Badly. And they stunk on both sides of the ball. But I was tired of just reading about bad defense, or seeing the stat of defensive efficiency (they were about 20th at that time). Most of the stats in the boxscore are offensive related. Most conversation about any game is offensive related. Why? Because most of the numbers that we have relate to offense. We have steals and blocks for defense. Whoopee. That doesn’t tell us nearly enough about a person’s abilities on defense. So I started “charting” defensive possessions of Thunder games. I came up with a scoring system to “score each player defensively”. And after watching games, I was able to tell how each player did defensively and why. I usually do a defensive breakdown of each Thunder game on dailythunder.com. A sample of my work is included here in the comments section:
I admit UPFRONT that my system is somewhat subjective and crude – but it is better than what we have now. Plus minus ratings include offense AND teammates’ performances are inextricably linked. The thing I really can stand is the statement “Well so and so must be a good defender because he won a defensive award two years ago.” That’s basically all we have. There are sites with on/off floor ratings, but they really don’t tell us details about a player’s defensive abilities. So I came up with this system after many months of tinkering.
Points are awarded for:
- Blocks
- Steals
- Loose Balls
- Contesting a shot (that is missed)
- Forcing a turnover (knocking a ball off an opponent’s leg, for example)
- Drawing a charge
- Hedging (forcing a guard to stop or reverse direction on a pick)
- Blowing up a transition bucket when outnumbered
Points are deducted for:
- Giving up penetration
- Failure to contest
- Going under screens on a three point shooter
- Lazy transition defense
- Trailing on screens
- Shooting Foul
- Failing to Box Out (and giving up an offensive rebound)
- Getting Posted up and giving up a score
- Getting Posted up and needing a double team
Note – Points are deducted only when the opposing team scores. Also, I know it is subjective for many reasons. For example, if Player A thinks he can defend Chris Bosh and he doesn’t need help, but Coach orders a double team anyway, he is still out of luck if a shooter scores from a pass out of the double team.
Why am I here on a Warriors board? Well, ironically, I am a fan of the uptempo, so I have watch the Warriors play ball often over the last decade. The clincher was when they drafted Curry (bias alert). So needless to say, I have watched almost all the Warriors games this year on League Pass.
Anyway, so much for the background. As for Saturday night’s game. The Warriors did okay considering all the injuries. As you all know, Nelson has to play almost everyone out of position. So you have 6-5 Anthony Morrow guarding Andrea Bargnani. You have wingman Reggie Williams guarding 6-9 Amir Johnson in the post. And so on. The team total was zero. The average for a Thunder game is 25 (and remember right now they are ranked 6th in defensive efficiency). For my scale for individual players, +5 or over is good, +3 is average, and a negative score is well below average. For sake of comparison, Thabo Sefolosha has a season average of 4.7 (which is really 5.9 per 36 because he only averages 29 minutes a game. The Thunder’s worst defender is Russell Westbrook, whose average is -0.7 for the season.
Scoring the game was a little difficult because in the second quarter, Nelson went zone. So I did my best to award/penalize players based on where they should have been. Obviously, it’s a lot harder when a guy does not have a player assigned to him.
Steph Curry (+8)
Most people outside of Northern California think that Curry plays no defense. I have watched almost all the Warriors games this year, and along with most of you I know that is utter nonsense. This game showed off his versatility.
1st Quarter
· Steal on entry pass to Turkoglu (10:45)
· Loose ball (8:45)
· Contested Jarrett Jack in transition (3:30)
· Gave up penetration to Jack (2:40)
· Contested Jose Calderon (1:40)
· Gave up open three to Calderon (:15)
2nd Quarter
· No scoring – he was out most of the quarter
3rd Quarter
· Drew charge on Hedo (10:20)
· Went under screen – Calderon for three (3:40)
· Steal in transition (2:45)
· Went under again – Calderon for three (1:00)
4th Quarter
· Loose ball (8:30)
· Contested Antoine Wright (8:10)
· Stripped Demar Derozan (6:30)
· Steal and spectacular save to Corey Maggette (4:00)
· Contest Sonny Weems (2:20)
Curry did a great job keeping Jack and Calderon in front of him. I love the way Curry positions his body between the offensive player and the goal, especially at diagonal angles. Some guards give up when the offensive player gets a half a step – you never see Curry do this. He is also a good help defender.
Curry gets into trouble when he tries to do too much. He is in foul trouble frequently – a lot of the time that can be avoided if he reins it in after getting his first foul. Obviously he’s a rookie, so he will probably improve there. Also, in this game, he got burned by Calderon on several occasions. Going under the screens gave Calderon open looks, and he made Curry pay. Still, overall he had a very good defensive game.
Monta Ellis (+3)
Ellis is even better than Curry at stealing the ball (you already know this), but Ellis tends to fall asleep off the ball. Derozan burned him a couple of times because of this. Also, (not his fault), Ellis was posted up several times by bigger defenders. That’s the by-product of playing the two guard at 6-3. Overall, he had an average game.
CJ Watson (+3)
Watson played fourteen minutes, but he managed to get a steal in that timeframe. His only “mistake” was a shooting foul on Bargnani.
Anthony Morrow (+1)
I actually charted several Warrior games months ago, and I found Morrow to be a mediocre defender. He seems to be doing better now. He is contesting more shots, and he’s more active. Of course, when you have to guard the opposing teams center for a stretch, your overall score won’t look too good.
Corey Maggette (-1)
Again, he was playing out of position, but he did okay against the bigs of Toronto.
Anthony Tolliver (-4)
He collected two steals and forced a turnover, but he had to guard Bosh for a lot of the game. Also, Tolliver got docked for points when a guard scored out of a double team on Bosh (when he was defending).
Chris Hunter (-4)
Another bad score for an outmanned Warrior. I actually expected his score to be worse.
Reggie Williams (-6)
He was used up early by Amir Johnson.
SO there you have it – let me know what you think. If there is enough interest – I will score the Lakers game from Monday night and a few others coming up this week (I am a teacher out on spring break). If there is no interest, I understand.
This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!
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I’m sure this system has a long way to go, but this is a great first step in the right direction. It’s people stepping forward and putting in the effort like you are that leads to big advancements in our knowledge, so keep it up!
One thing I’ll note is it seems to me that when you’re basing your system on whether the guy makes or misses it – which seems like a good idea to me for a whole season – you might get tons of variability from game to game, because of matchups and because guys just have off nights, a shooter who normally shooots 45% might go 0-8 and make his defender look good one game, for instance. Like I said, I like the concept over time, though, as sample size makes these issues go away and I think there’s a lot of vague and difficult to quantify stuff that goes on defensively that a results oriented approach like that will capture.
Question – are all those events scored equally, if not, how’d you figure out how much to weight them?
I switched to the “results oriented approach several months ago”. For example, we know Curry an shoot – but he has off nights. He’s still a great shooter even when he goes 4 for 15. Same with the defensive player. Sometimes he plays good defense, but the offensive player scores anyway. Also, this takes care of “well leave that guy open because he can’t shoot” syndrome. It was a tough call – but I decided to do it this way. I have done the Thunder scores all year – the scores vary from game to game, but overall they show that Nick Collison and Thabo Sefolosha are the team’s best defenders.
Thanks for the kind words . . .
as to the wieghts there are different scores – if I do the laker game I will go into more detail . . .
I switched to the "results oriented approach several months ago". For example, we know Curry an shoot – but he has off nights. He’s still a great shooter even when he goes 4 for 15. Same with the defensive player. Sometimes he plays good defense, but the offensive player scores anyway. Also, this takes care of "well leave that guy open because he can’t shoot" syndrome. It was a tough call – but I decided to do it this way. I have done the Thunder scores all year – the scores vary from game to game, but overall they show that Nick Collison and Thabo Sefolosha are the team’s best defenders.
Thanks for the kind words . . .
as to the wieghts there are different scores – if I do the laker game I will go into more detail . . .
Yeah, this makes sense. Kind of like how a missed shot can also be a good shot because it was taken in a good position, squared up, etc.
But, offensive stats are much more abundant than defensive stats, both in category and quantity. I think counting these stats regardless of it having an impact on the other player might be a good idea, especially since, as you say, there aren’t enough of these stats. Why make them contingent on such a variable thing?
Blocked shots often go out of bounds or into the offense’s hands for the score…but they’re still counted as blocked shots. That’s what we have scoring for, to keep track of that. I think these defensive stats should be isolated to themselves for the time being until they get more recognition for being a legitimate stat.
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
by Doctor Kajita on Mar 16, 2010 2:53 PM PDT up reply actions
typo
*offensive stats are much more abundant than defensive stats, both in category and instances.
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
by Doctor Kajita on Mar 16, 2010 2:54 PM PDT up reply actions
I like the concept of this system. One glaring omission, in my opinion, is failure to rotate on shooters (CJs extreme problem). Calderon torched the Ws, Watson and Curry mostly, on threes.
Not all were contributed to missed rotations. Some of those were contributed to just sagging off of him, which I guess could be some other aspect.
Oh, I forgot to say, I also found it curious that Westbrook didn’t rate higher than he does – I was under the impression he’s a very good defensive player.
trust me, I got killed on the Thunder board for awhile – everyone assumed he was a great offensive player – most have come around now, but it took alot of detailed analysis to convince them . . .
Did you mean defensive? What are his strengths and weaknesses? I always think it’s really interesting when someone actually tries looking harder at an issue and comes up with results that challenge the collective wisdom, so anything you can elaborate on would be great!
by Missing Barry on Mar 16, 2010 6:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Good work
I like how it takes into account more than just the tangible stats of steals and blocks, and looks more at a players overall performance. Bring on more analysis, it surely can’t hurt anything.
It's true Monta loses focus on defense
When he’s more locked in though he’s fantastic, just look at him on Kobe. Also Steph is a very solid defender against other PG’s. He may not be very quick but he’s incredibly smart and seems to know what the other PG wants to do. Also Reggie was owned by Amir but Reggie is a combo guard, he seems like a good defender when guarding his spot, Amir has over 30 lbs on him
We all love the Warriors..
We all hate Cohan as an owner of this franchise…
That’s an interesting observation, that he seems to know what the oppositions wants to do. I never thought about that much, but I imagine that would make a big different. He is probably quite a nuisance to opposing PG’s.
Welcome to the Pit of Despair! Don't even think about trying to escape.
Yeah...
That’s something that Battier has talked about in the past. He says it’s very valuable to understand tendencies of the man he’s guarding, and he plays the percentages. He tries to know what a player wants to do in any position on the court, and he tries to play the percentages.
For instance, it would be incredibly useful to know and understand that when Player A catches the ball at the elbow extended for an iso that, in situations where he takes a shot, he uses triple threat 80% of the time, and of that 80% he will take the jumper 75% of the time shooting .423, drive right 20% of the time shooting .512, and drive left 5% of the time shooting .402. Those are all made up #‘s obviously, but if you had access to the actual data you could see how it would be incredibly valuable when you are coming up with a game plan for a player. I’m not sure if all the teams keep track of this stuff, but if you have stat guys on the payroll you should be making that info available to your players.
"I could be chasing an untamed ornithoid without cause."
by olympicmike on Mar 18, 2010 12:14 PM PDT up reply actions
I’m not sure if all the teams keep track of this stuff, but if you have stat guys on the payroll you should be making that info available to your players.
I know at least a lot of teams have been doing this stuff for a long time. It might be getting more advanced and just overall better over time how they chart this stuff and what stuff they focus on and such, but they’ve had advance scouts looking at tendencies for a long time.
by Missing Barry on Mar 18, 2010 12:43 PM PDT up reply actions
Yeah...
I’d be pretty interested to see how the data is handled and what degree of consistency there is around the league. I know if I was running a franchise I would make sure that all of this info was at least in the hands of the coaching staff at any time if not fed directly to the players. I’m sure everyone prepares differently, but I know I would love to have all of that information before I stepped out on the court to guard someone.
I remember when reading Seven Seconds or Less I was surprised how casual many of the players were (reported to be) about the pregame strategy meetings where they went over tendencies and things like that. IIRC he gave the impression that there was tons of info on the board but no one seemed to really pay much attention to it. Maybe they know all that stuff already, or maybe the NBA season is too much of a grind to prepare in that much detail night in and night out.
"I could be chasing an untamed ornithoid without cause."
Good Stuff
Repped, thanks. Would love to see the Laker game details.
"versatility" is a fitting word for Curry
….
I was LMAO about this:
Trevor Ariza made nine straight shots at one point in the first half, including five 3s
Proof that all the people who, at the beginning of the season called me a fool for saying Ariza’s % would go down with increased shots, were actually right?. I stand humbly corrected.
Quit making the theiving Wall Street Fat-Cat Bankers even richer.
moveyourmoney.info
by cybermaldonado on Mar 16, 2010 6:44 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
Note – Points are deducted only when the opposing team scores
You need to deduct more for fouls, there’s no way Curr-bury can be called a good defender when he has to sit out a quarter in foul trouble. Same for Montay, his steals come at a big price.
Lights please, lights please, turn off the lights.
by Skeptic con Urquell on Mar 16, 2010 7:37 PM PDT reply actions
I don't care if it's good yet or not
it an incredible idea, and an amazing body of work. Like Missing Barry said, we need people doing these kinds of things to push our stat-keeping and objectivity in the right direction.
so, mad props for putting in a ton of time and effort to this. I hope you continue to tweek it as you see fit! keep up the great work!
Well done. Although I think you will need to continue tweaking this, it is an excellent first step towards having better measurables on defense. On thing though, in the case of the Warriors, all metrics are going to be incredibly unreliable in terms of telling you anything about an individual player because 1. we don’t have a full roster, and 2. even when we do, our coach doesn’t believe in positions. Same story with APM and other metrics that have been discussed around here.
Sittin in my scraper watchin Oakland goin wild, ta-dow!
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