I have to admit that I don't believe that our defense can actually be as good as it is. How is this possible? We have two smallish, poor-defending guards. We have no shot-blockers. I don't get it. Stotts is doing some Jedi Voodoo shit. If it can last, I will eat serious crow.
Team defense, individually we aren't strong but collectively we communicate and hustle very well and we get back on defense about as good as anyone.
Shot blocking doesn't matter as much as fans think. We have one of the better opponent fg%s at the rim. Big key to our defense lately, and I think top nba defenses in general is flexibility. Plumlee isn't stiff, and is very intelligent/high bbiq which helps the back line, even if he isn't a prototypical "rim protector". Vonleh, Davis, aminu and harkless are all very capable at moving laterally as well to drop and slide on pick and roll coverage, as well as play capably on switches. The ability to switch a 2-4, 2-5, 3-4, 3-5 pick n roll with ease is huge. Off the bench, crabbe and Henderson have been very active, and big show a good ability to move their feet/stay in front. Finally, our backcourt isn't great defensively, but both guys are very strong for their size, which is a big help when being posted up. There was a thread in preseason that mentioned an article talking about how everyone wanted to emulate GS, and neil went opposite of that. And people mocked neil for it. But maybe he viewed their roster differently than article was giving credit (imagine that, an nba gm knowing more about roster constriction than a columnist). Maybe he saw the importance was in their defensive ability to switch everything, match up all over the court, and not be in positions to get taken advantage of in mismatches. People always focus specifically on building to beat the current champ for some reason. More importantly is matching up with any team.
Steals are the most valuable defensive act, when you account for how often they turn into points via fast breaks versus a normal miss or blocked shot. I'll dig up the article but it said a steal is worth the equivalent of 9 points because it stops the opponent AND gives you a very high percentage opportunity on the other end. Anyway, we have a lot of pesky guys who get steals even though we don't have a big guy who blocks a lot of shots.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-hidden-value-of-the-nba-steal/ I misremembered the thrust of the article but I got it basically right. Steals are a great, underrated indicator of a player's ability to help his team. We've gone from 7.1 steals per game in January to 9.7 steals per game in February. blocks are up a little, but steals is the one area we drastically improved. http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/2016/splits/
Yeah; it's odd we're still well below average in steals for an NBA team. Previous years we had the lowest steal rate in the league though. The impressive part of our steals is we can do it without gambling. Russell Westbrook gets a lot of steals but gets way out of position. Dame and CJ are underrated defenders. I don't mean their great but they aren't terrible as many critics say. It doesn't matter if a SG is 6'2" in today's NBA. In some ways it's an advantage to have that quickness defensively. Our schemes expose our guards but allow teammates to be in great positions. I think the main reason for our defense is depth and Mo Harkless at PF. Other reasons are so many home games, no travel, no back to backs. I'll be very curious how the defense continues to perform.
I'll put it this way: if we played an entire season like February, we'd be fourth in the league in steals. Our 9.7 steals per game in Feb is well above the league average of 7.9.
AKA everything that was absent, and drove me nuts, from last years team. Particularly the anaemic play of LMA and Batum. This is why I love this team so much - Their all-out, balls to the wall, never say die attitude!
I agree with the article that a steal has more value than a block. But how does a block have more value than a rebound? The result of a team stealing the ball is they retake possession of the ball 100% of the time, (or it is not a steal) and they have the next opportunity to score. The result if a team rebounding the ball is they retake possession of the ball 100% of the time, (or it is not a rebound) and they have the next opportunity to score. However, when a team blocks a shot, either team has about the same chance of gaining possession of the ball. A blocked shot can go to either team, and still be counted as a block stat. There have been times a player has blocked a shot twice in a row, and the other team still scored next on the third try. The team that blocked both shots did not. Which team has a better chance to win, the team with two blocks, or, the team with two points?
I think it's because blocks are more rare than rebounds. Not everyone can do it, many come near the rim where FG% is very high, whereas a rebound is already a symptom of a missed shot which happens more than half the time. Basically, a block REVERSES a score whereas a rebound comes because a shot was already missed. The article is mostly about how underrated some stats are as indicators of quality. A player who score 6 points a game but averages 3 blocks a game is as valuable to his team as the player who scores 24 points a game but doesn't do anything else.
Absolutely agree about the possession, but a steal or rebound is not as intimidating as a blocked shot. There's a psychological level at play when a defender can block shots multiple times. It can get into a teams head, make for a more intimidating defense, and make the player second guess the type of shot or whether to drive into the paint or not.
Using large sample sizes build in the psychology into the values of the numbers since you'll get an average of everyone who is affected and everyone who isn't.
Doesn't matter; the numbers take the human part of the game into account. It happens and is recorded, and becomes part of the data.
I agree that a big shot blocking center will alter more shots than they block. But some players will attack a big blocking center with the goal to draw a foul. Others players will shoot from further distance and remove the center’s shot block skills from the game. The bottom line is, every player on the floor has the same opportunity to alter his opponent’s shots. Rim shot blockers depend on height and jumping ability. Wings depend on speed and athleticism. All depend on timing. With the game changing to more of a 3pt shot game. I believe a case can now be made that a player that can alter the shot of a 3pr shooter makes a greater impact on wining the game that a rim protecting center that alters shots in the paint.
LOL! You don't have to measure a player's brain to measure every player's aggregate tendencies. All you have to do is record normal game action. Like let's say we have an amazing shot blocker. The mental game is that he intimidates; this should translate to more opponent mid- and long-range jumpers than the league average, and hopefully to a lower than average FG% up close. These are things that go on in a player's head turning into things that happened in a game turning into numbers reflecting those things.
