So I purchased Chris Ballard's excellent NBA book, The Art of a Beautiful Game, yesterday and I've gotten through about 2/3 of it. I highly recommend it to all NBA fans. Great chapters on Kobe, Nash, Shaq/Yao, LeBron, and more. But I want to talk about the chapter focusing on defensive specialists, and in particular Shane Battier. Here are some things I learned: Battier is so familiar with the playbook of every other team, he says he could easily step in for any team and know how to run their offense On Battier transitioning from "all-around" player to defensive specialist: "I don't have an offensive mind. Some people are brilliantly creative offensively. I'm not that way. I can't see how plays develop on offense, but I can see how plays develop defensively and what the rotation should be, two or three pasess from the current point during that play." Battier is very open about how he defends players, compared to Bruce Bowen. Battier doesn't look at defending as a mano-a-mano contest. His goal is to do whatever he needs to to limit the other team's field goal percentage. The overwhelming bulk of his preparation is spent studying the opposition and memorizing what he needs to do on defense. The only time on game day he prepares offensively is with the pregame shooting routine. He professes that his main goal on offense is to be a 40/50/80 guy -- still elusive. Battier sits down before most every game with Sam Hinkie to go over defensive strategy. According to Battier, defense is much more than effort. It's about playing smart. It is observed that just looking at him play defense, one may get the impression that he isn't doing a whole lot (he doesn't wave his arms, slap the floor, gamble for steals, etc.). But in actuality, he's constantly thinking about what he needs to do to limit the other team's scoring. Battier believes having good defenders behind him is crucial to what he, or any great perimeter defender, does. This part was very interesting to me: Battier pauses. "I'm lucky to have a guy like Yao. He's not the best shot blocker, not the fastest, but he's there. Chuck Hayes is an unbelievable help-side defender. It wasn't until I got better help behind and better interior defenders that all of a sudden my reputation as a defender grew. Is it a coincidence? I don't think so." He laughs. "Not to take away from the great perimeter defenders in this league, he continues,. "I think Ron's one of the best, I think Bruce Bowen's one of the best, I think Tayshaun Prince is one of the best, I think Kobe is one of the best. But they usually have guys behind them that make their job a heck of a lot easier." Battier's view on this is very different from, say, Nick Anderson, who claimed that he always looked at it like his help wasn't there. He said that his job is not to rely on help, but to stop the other guy by himself. Battier disagrees: "I think the opposite. I don't want to be on Kobe Island, I've been on Kobe Island enough in my career -- it's not a fun place to be. I'm trying to get off Kobe Island." There truly is an art to how Battier contests shots. His goal is to distract and frustrate with the hand-in-face stuff. On occasion, he says he'll tap them on the face and maybe take a foul just to keep his man's attention off making the basket. There is also an art to how Battier contests shots in transition. I've always thought that Battier was especially good in these moments. He doesn't try to go for the highlight block shots, like LeBron, but instead he'll shadow the ball with his hand and make the offensive player think he's going to foul. Often times, this ends up in a missed layup. A funny quote from Battier, comparing playing defense with Artest (who'll sometimes insist on defending the best offensive player) versus McGrady: "It's better than Tracy McGrady," he says. "I'd be on one side of the court and he'd be pointing, 'Pick him up! Pick him up!' So I'd have to run all the way acros the court to guard a guy like Kobe. It's gone from one extreme to another." Post-game, after the media leaves, Battier goes over what worked and what didn't with Sam Hinkie. They both believe Roy to be one of his toughest covers. According to Battier, his five toughest covers are Roy, Wade, Bryant, Ginobili, and LeBron (honorable mention to Paul Pierce and Kevin Martin). Interestingly enough, Battier says he doesn't watch film of his performance. "You just put in your work. I do the scouting report before the game, I play to that scouting report and I play as hard as I can and I live with the results." Against the Cleveland, the strategy is to make James into a jump shooter. Artest takes the assignment primarily, because physically he matches up with James better. Sam Hinkie, though, says he'd prefer Battier on James because he feels he's better at forcing players into low-percentage shots. Hinkie really likes Battier. Battier believes that a good defensive possession is forcing the opponent into a contested 2-point jump shot. He says he thinks there are only maybe 10 guys in the league where a 2-point jumper is as good as the league efficiency at other spots on the floor. (e.g., Deron Williams, Nowitzki, Hamilton). On one play, Battier gets beat by Szcerbiak on a drive, to his astonishment. "He usually doesn't drive," Battier says, incredulous. "Only 31 times all season in the half-court. Thirty-one!" He pauses, shakes his head. "That's an example of the scouting report not translating to the actual game."Thought that was interesting. After the game, there's a fun exchange between Battier and Hayes on how well the defensive strategy worked against James. Battier insists it was a success, as they were able to limit him to jump shots and he missed most of them. Hayes argues that too many of those jump shots were uncontested, which means the Rockets just got lucky. Here's the exchange: ... Ten minutes later, as the players are preparing to leave, Battier turns to Hayes, the power forward and his good friend (and something of a defensive nerd himself), who sits two lockers down. "So, Chuck," says Battier, "do you acquiesce to our game plan" Hayes looks up, frowns. "No, no. I think he just missed shots tonight." Battier is incredulous. "Those were the shots we wanted him to take." "No, those were open looks. When you were on him, you contested, but Ron didn't contest all night. Those are rhythm jump shots, a guy like that, you can't let him shoot those. Those are high-percentage shots!" Battier opens his eyes wide. "That's the point. They aren't high percentage. He shoots 38 percent on two-point jumpers." Hayes looks up from buttoning his shirt; he is having none of it. "These were different. He was open. They were rhythm jump shots." "You'd rather have him go to the basket?" "Yeah." "In the lane where he shoots 67 percent?" Von Wafer, the young Houston guard dressing nearby, hears this and pipes up, "No way! You're dead! Dead!" "Fuck that," says Hayes. "So you're saying", says Battier, lacing his voice with sarcasm, "that you'd rather have him do what he did in Cleveland, where he went 11 of 23 and got to the basket? We want him taking those jump shots." Hayes remains steadfast. "He's the second-best player on the planet, and we all know who's Number 1, and you're going to give him open jump shots?" Battier looks at Hayes in disbelief, then looks at me and shrugs his shoulders. There is only so much one man can do. There was a bunch of other stuff on this chapter I didn't touch on. Just a great read. There's also a chapter entitled "Superbigs" which focuses largely on Yao Ming. I'm looking forward to that one.
Interesting summary. On somewhat of a tangent I still find it interesting thinking about the hard work that a guy like Battier puts in on defense, it would be interesting to watch how a game would turn out without the star calls. Without star calls one could see the true effectiveness of the Battiers, Bowens, Bells, etc. (weird their names all start with B) Because obviously everyone knows about star calls, but hearing it from the perspective of a ref is better, albeit one that is tainted due to his gambling complications.
