Nellie Pointing to Better Defense

by Fantasy Junkie on Oct 12, 2006 8:43 AM PDT in Interviews

Janny Hu recently wrote an article about how Nelson is making players accountable for their defense.

Beyond drilling defense in practice, Nelson says his coaching staff will tabulate defensive efforts -- mistake by mistake -- to make sure players are held accountable for their errors. "See those two white pieces of tape?" assistant coach Larry Riley said, pointing to a spot just outside the 3-point line. "If the guy takes the ball and goes around you, that's penetration. If that happens, then you get a mark... More than one negative can be had on a single possession, so if two players are out of place, that's two mistakes. If a possession lasts long enough for a player to get beat twice, that's another two mistakes. All those negatives are then added together and weighted against the number of possessions in a game to determine a final ratio of correct coverage. The higher the percentage, the more the Warriors have followed their defensive game plan.

What I like about this system is that it makes the players more aware their defense. When coaches start counting up how many times you screwed up, you definitely try harder not to be the guy with the most tallies. I bet Nellie will have a bulletin board ranking each player. That's really embarassing if you're always at the bottom. Accountability is the key here.

I'm sure the coaches also break it down versus team and versus a specific opponent player. Furthermore, I can see them looking at the marks by quarter. So if you play better D in the 4th quarter, you'll probably get serious crunch time minutes.

Of those players getting major minutes, who's going to get the most negative marks? And the least negative marks?

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It'll be Pietrus on both accounts

He'll get the least for allowing penetration, but the most for failing to rotate and not playing team defense.

Of course, if any of this matters, I'll be shocked. When has a Don Nelson team ever cared about defense? A defensive mindset isn't just something he can add on to his offensive philosophy. His goal is to get up and down and to maintain offensive rhythm. In exchange for that, the opponent gets the same opportunity. The hope is that we can outscore them.

by Carney04 on Oct 12, 2006 8:47 AM PDT reply actions

Nellie and defense

Early in his coaching career, Nelson had a rep for being restrictive, for emphasizing defense and running a controlled offense. It seems like with the Warriors, he turned around the other direction to a rather extreme degree.

I don't think it's fair to say that he doesn't care about defense. It's more that he places a greater emphasis on offense when it comes to his personnel. He's had some of the weakest defenders in the league playing for him (Nowitzki, Jamison, Mullin) and rarely had anyone on the inside as a defensive enforcer. Without a quality front-line, outscoring the opponents on an up and down has seemed in his mind the best option. It means that he's dictating the pace and that the opposition has to adjust to something rather than letting them dictate the pace and style.

On defense, he has used gimmicks like the almost illegal defense zone back in the Run-TMC days that is now actually legal. Never having the personnel to play suffocating man defense and wanting his best offensive players in the game, he's got to do something else.

by jae on Oct 12, 2006 10:01 AM PDT reply actions