http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...trategy-forcing-coaches-rethink-their-offense Smashmouth on the Hard Court How the NBA's aggressive new defensive strategy — packing the paint — has forced coaches to reimagine scoring. Plus: the Cavs' pitiful D, in praise of pregame intros, and what happens when shooters get cranky. It's on almost every locker-room whiteboard, and it's shorthand slang among NBA players and coaches. But one of the wonkiest phrases in the league has yet to penetrate public discourse about the NBA: "to 2.9." Coaches want players away from the ball "to 2.9" on defense, and the meaning is simple: Stay in the paint for as long as possible without committing a defensive three-second violation. It's a tenet that has swept across the league during the last few seasons in the form of ultra-aggressive help defense, a sea change that has inspired a slower but perhaps more important evolution in the way NBA teams approach offense. In short: If defenses pack the lane to take away an offense's first option, that offense better be creative enough to adjust. "Getting to the hole is getting harder and harder," says Chicago's Carlos Boozer, who should know, considering the identity of his coach. "A lot of the defensive strategies you see now are a natural evolution from rule changes," says Houston GM Daryl Morey, in reference to the league's decision a decade ago to abandon illegal defense rules and essentially allow zone defenses. "First the defense evolved by overloading the strong side, and now the offenses are evolving to beat that." The Heat are the most obvious example of a team that has torn down and rebuilt its entire offense over 18 months to counter defenses committed to clogging the lane, sending an extra defender toward the ball, and forcing offenses into second, third, and fourth options. It's no coincidence Miami plays in the same conference as Boston and Chicago — the two teams most associated, via Tom Thibodeau, with that strangling defense. Thibodeau didn't invent this system, and he's loath to take any public credit for it, but coaches, scouts, and executives all over the league agree he was the first coach to stretch the limits of the NBA's newish defensive three-second rule and flood the strong side with hybrid man/zone defenses.1 Other coaches have copied that style, and smart offenses over the last two seasons — and especially this season — have had to adapt. The evolution will have long-lasting consequences on multiple fronts — on the league's entertainment value, the importance of smart coaching, and the sorts of players that GMs seek out in the draft and via free agency. "There are a whole bunch of new-wave things teams are doing to beat that 'Pack the paint' mentality," says Dwane Casey, who has tried to turn Toronto into one of the league's most aggressive help teams. "When I study all the things these coaches are doing, it's like calculus sometimes," Denver GM Masai Ujiri says of the lengths to which coaches are now going to deal with better NBA defenses. "You sit in those coaches meetings and just try to absorb." It's no longer accurate to reduce NBA offense to truisms like "Everybody runs the same stuff" and "The NBA is a pick-and-roll league." Offenses are more complex now than they were even at the start of last season. The NBA may still be a pick-and-roll league, but the pick-and-roll a team really wants to run might come after several different "fake" actions designed to confuse defenders or get their momentum moving in the wrong direction. Predictable offenses just aren't good enough anymore against elite competition; that's why Miami no longer runs simple LeBron James–Chris Bosh pick-and-rolls while the other three Heat players just stand around — something that happened a lot in the 2011 Finals against Dallas. Predictable offenses with otherworldly talent can still get a team far; the Clippers can win a lot of games with 45 Chris Paul–Blake Griffin pick-and-rolls and 45 Griffin post-ups. And no amount of X's-and-O's brilliance can make up for the absence of a top-15 overall player. Morey concedes the Rockets might have to add some spice to their simple high pick-and-roll system next season. "I do feel like in a playoff series, it might put us at a disadvantage," he says, "because we're a little less sophisticated."2 (The Rockets' high pick-and-roll offense ranks as one of the league's half-dozen most efficient, and Morey says the relatively simplistic style is mostly the result of the organization's focus on acquiring James Harden in a trade finalized just before the season.) The margin for error drops in the playoffs against elite defenses geared toward a single opponent; stagnant predictability in that context can cost an offense just enough points to swing a game, and then a series. "The bad teams in our league are the ones who don't pass the ball well," says Kelvin Sampson, the Rockets' lead assistant. "Teams that just play on one side of the floor are going to struggle against defenses that load up on that side." The league overall understands this, though some coaching staffs have been quicker than others in adjusting their systems. The percentage of offensive possessions that end with isolation plays and post-up shots has declined every season for the last five years, per Synergy Sports. In 2008-09, the year after the Celtics used a Thibodeau-designed system to create one of the stingiest defenses ever, 27 of the league's 30 teams still finished at least 9 percent of their offensive possessions via an isolation play, according to Synergy Sports. The Magic, at 7.4 percent, were the least isolation-prone team in the league that season.3 This season, 15 teams — half the league — are below that 9 percent isolation mark, and a whopping 11 have lower isolation shares than Milwaukee's league-low number from 2008-09. The drop in post-ups has been similar, and the numbers would seem to indicate an increase in ball movement. But those plays aren't really disappearing from the league at that rate, according to coaches and general managers. Teams instead are using them at the start of possessions, in order to suck that extra defender toward the ball, pass it to the other side, and get a defense scrambling until it cracks. Teams used to drive the strong side and post up there in order to score; now they're doing so in order to pass, knowing the lane will be too crowded on one side of the floor for that simpler attack. Posting up isn't a dying art; it's still enormously important, only now it's as a means to start a cascade of events all over the floor. "Players are penetrating now with no intention to score," Casey says. Post-up players, including James and Carmelo Anthony, have gotten better at reading help and skipping the ball immediately to the other side of the floor instead of just hitting the closest player and starting a series of passes, Casey and other coaches say. "Guys like Andre Miller and Kevin Garnett — they're posting up hoping a second guy will run at them, so they can pass," Sampson says. "You're better just playing one-on-one in the post if you can." Teams are also better at disguising their true intentions. Ray Allen running across the foul line to the left side of the floor might be just a decoy designed to get the defense to bend to that side right as Miami runs something deadlier on the other side. And a pick-and-roll on the right side of the floor with 15 seconds on the shot clock might represent the first in a series of pick-and-rolls rather than a scoring attempt in its own right. Every coach has his own terminology for this kind of thing. Jim Boylan, the Bucks' coach, wants his offense to get the ball to the "third side" of the floor — to move the ball from the left side to the right side, and then back to the left side (that "third" side) before shooting.4 "The league has gotten so different today," Boylan says. "You just have to move the ball from one side to the other against the really good defensive teams." Smart defensive coaching has put a premium on smart offensive coaching. Several sources at all levels suggest the NBA is becoming more like the NFL — with more of an emphasis on trickery, scheming, and anticipating how teams will respond to particular actions. "There is a lot of misdirection, and it's a lot of fun to watch," Sampson says. "Coaches are getting a lot better, and a lot smarter, and they'll have to continue to do that." Coaches with stale offenses — think Utah, Brooklyn, the Clippers — are hurting their teams, even if those teams have enough talent to produce some solid overall scoring numbers. It has only been three years since Boozer left Utah, but from his perspective, the league in 2013 is almost unrecognizable from the one he left behind in Salt Lake City in 2010. "It's extremely different," he says. "In Utah, you were kind of on your own on defense. It was almost just one-on-one. There was no help concept. Here, there's a help concept, and it works." Boozer has watched offenses adjust to Thibodeau's trendsetting defense. "Teams try to set us up now," he says. "It's like football. You gotta give 'em one play that's like a decoy, when you really want something else on the other side. It's like a magic trick." Casey warns his Toronto players about the "fluff" in opposing offenses — all the decoy "plays" an offense will cycle through before arriving at the "real" play. Good defenders must be smart enough to separate the fake stuff from the real thing — to avoid taking the bait on the first pick-and-roll in a way that would get that defender out of position for the second and third pick-and-rolls that are coming soon. "You gotta be able to tell the fluff from the real," Casey says. (More at the link, but this bit is interesting) This would mark almost a selective reversal to the aggressive, Thibodeau-style help concepts that have troubled offenses over the last half-decade. • Shooting. The cat is out of the bag on this one. Players who can't shoot will find it harder and harder to get minutes, unless they bring an elite brand of defense or some other rarely found skill. There are lots of reasons that coaches place greater emphasis on shooting and spacing now, the simplest one being that three is greater than two. But those Thibodeau-style defenses are near the top of the list. Defenders can't stray quite as far off of knockdown shooters, or they might be afraid to do so, even when a team's defensive scheme suggests they should. "Players are sometimes afraid to leave their own guy," says Micah Nori, a longtime assistant with the Raptors.
Re: Packing the paint is the NBA defensive strategy forcing coaches to rethink offens Very interesting article. Thanks, Denny. I particularly found Boozer's comments about help defense interesting. I've always said that he's an OK on-ball defender, but one of the worst help defenders I've ever seen. I was surprised to hear him say that the defense in Utah was basically one-on-one. One side effect of the trend towards more and more help-dependent and switching-oriented defenses is that the early attempts to "statify" defense get blown up. 82games.com, for example, maintains an "Opponent PER" stat which gets more worthless with every passing NBA game. Unfortunately for the site, they use Opponent PER in the calculation of their all-encompassing signature stat "Simple Rating." These defensive trends even make it difficult to trust your eyes in evaluating defensive performance. We grew up understanding that great defense meant never letting "your man" get past you. We see this happen in an NBA game and say so-and-so just got beat. Sometimes it's true and sometimes it's not. In the Thibodeau defense, for example, all wing defenders are supposed to overplay their opponents, pushing them toward the sideline and then the baseline. If the baseline help defender isn't there on time, the true fault probably lies with the help defender, but unless our eyes have been re-trained, that's not what we see.
Re: Packing the paint is the NBA defensive strategy forcing coaches to rethink offens The article describes a glorified zone defense. The way you beat a zone is penetrate and kick or pass from side to side fast. "Thibodeau didn't invent this system, and he's loath to take any public credit for it, but coaches, scouts, and executives all over the league agree he was the first coach to stretch the limits of the NBA's newish defensive three-second rule and flood the strong side with hybrid man/zone defenses." I disagree about the 82games.com thing though. No matter what the defense, the opposing PF is ultimately scoring against Boozer, even if they're posting up Kirk. Speaking of Utah, when Boozer arrived there, they won 50+ (healthy Boozer) or upper 40s (Boozer missed games) in the tough West. That was with a defensive minded coach in Sloan and with Deron Williams who's not a good defensive player. Sloan was able to look past his philosophy and generate wins by getting the best value out of his players. They disappointed by making it past the 1st round but not making the finals. They did make the WCF.
Re: Packing the paint is the NBA defensive strategy forcing coaches to rethink offens Really? How so?
Re: Packing the paint is the NBA defensive strategy forcing coaches to rethink offens Why would anyone design defenses that don't have PFs trying to stop other PFs, ultimately? I mean, that's your best chance of getting a stop. They're playing a zone as much as they can cheat the rules. They don't play the C and PF in the zone at the top of the key, they play near the basket where PFs ultimately try to score.
