Charting Our Defense: Temple

[tommy]

The defensive charts for this game are below. Copy/pasting from my post from the Western Michigan game, the "legend" for the chart goes like this:

1. Which players were on the floor? If you're on the floor for a given possession, it counts for you, if not, not. Obviously.
2. Were you engaged in the outcome of the possession in my judgment? Shows general level of activity, but also perhaps how involved in the opponent's offense your man was.
3. Forcing a missed FG attempt, either a 2 or a 3. I tracked 3's separately, but lumped them together in the table below.
4. FG's allowed, again both 2 and 3 pointers.
5. Forced turnover. Many of these are shared. Also, turnovers include charges taken, but not blocked shots, as the latter are forced FG misses.
6. "Creating" a missed free throw.
7. "Creating" a made free throw.
8. General catch-all for good defensive play that doesn't fit into other categories. I call it deflection/peskiness/disruptiveness. DPD. Might be able to capture some of the "intangibles" that have interested many on these boards lately.
9. Ball denial, both on the wing and in the post. Good denial gets you a plus. Failure to deny when you could've/should've gets you a minus.
10. "SIF" My shorthand for staying in front. These are only counted when your man makes a definitive move to the hoop. Stay with him, you get a plus, lose him you get a minus.
11. Help. Good help gets you a plus; failure to help when you could've/should've gets you a minus.
12. Catch-all for defensive lapses not otherwise covered, sort of the flip side of #8. I just call this "got beaten - other."

Then below I did one additional analysis: on what % of plays that a guy was on the floor did the team get a stop vs. what % of plays that he was on the floor did we give up points? How did guys measure up against each other and compared to the team as a whole? I thought this might address a little bit the issue of "intangibles" as well, as if you're doing things to help the team make stops, even if they don't show up in other areas of the charting -- like how you move, your talk, being in the right spot, getting other guys in the right spot, leadership, etc., that might show up in the team's success defensively while you're on the floor. So that's the second chart below.

Keep in mind these charts will not match the box score numbers exactly, for a number of reasons.

Here's the first for Temple:




On floor
Engaged
Forced miss (3's)
FG allowed (3's)
turnover
FT miss
FT made
DPD
Denial +
Denial -
SIF +
SIF -
Help+
Help-
Beat-other


Curry
59
9
0
3 (1)
3
0
1
2
1
1
4
0
0
0
0


Rivers
65
6
0
1
1/2
2
2
3
6
1
2
2
0
0
1


Dawkins
24
9
1 (1)
4 1/3 (2)
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
3
0
0
1


Mason
60
11
5 (1)
3 1/3 (1)
3 5/6
1
1
1
1
0
0
2
7
0
0


Thornton
51
6
2
0
2 1/3
1
3
1
2
0
3
2
0
0
0


Kelly
37
13
5 (1)
6
2
1
1
0
0
0
1
2
2
1
0


Miles
35
7
4
5/6
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
5
1
0


Cook
24
5
1
3
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
5
0
0
0


Gbinije
19
5
0
1
2 1/3
0
2
3
1
0
1
0
0
0
0


Hairston
14
3
0
1/2
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
3
0
0

























Here's what I see from the above.

The announcers' continued harping on our inability to "stop the ball" was partially, but not entirely true. In looking at SIF's, Seth Curry was excellent in that department; Ty was OK, and Quinn was terrible. He got beaten like a drum off the dribble. This was a significant step up in competition, and Temple had some strong perimeter performers who knew how to get into the lane, and Cook just couldn't stop them. Not good. Ty was better, like I said, in his SIF's, and he also forced turnovers and gave up no baskets.

Our substitution pattern seems to be in many respects driven directly by defensive performance. Dawkins had a very bad night on defense, giving up four (and partially responsible for a fifth) field goals, two of which were 3 pointers, in only 24 defensive possessions. He only forced one missed shot. He didn't play that much, and when he gave up consecutive 3 pointers in the second half, he was pulled, never to return.

Kelly wasn't much better, giving up six hoops in only 37 defensive possessions. He didn't play as much as he otherwise might've either.

I was happy with Miles and Mason defensively. There is no doubt in my mind that Miles is our most consistently solid defensive player. Tonight he was partially responsible for only two field goals in my judgment -- one of which he was only 1/3 responsible. His help defense was excellent, as it always is. Mason's was even better tonight -- I counted 7 instances of excellent help D, with no possessions where it seemed to me that he could've/should've helped but failed to. And he forced just less than four turnovers, which remember, do not even include his blocked shots.

The other guy whose defensive effort continues to be undervalued is Austin Rivers. Dude is working hard out there and because of his high school rep, the media for the most part is ignoring his work at the defensive end of the floor. Tonight's numbers bear this out again. I noted six occasions on which he fought to deny Temple the ability to pass to his man when they obviously were trying to. That requires effort, pure and simple, and he made it. I didn't note how many were in what areas of the court, and while most of his good ball denial was naturally on the wing, some of it was down low as well. He also only gave up one hoop in 65 defensive possessions. I like what I'm seeing here.

Mike Gbinije also had good night defensively. I know everyone wants him to be a defensive stopper out there because the team appears to need it, and so far the numbers are encouraging though far from definitive. Tonight he forced two-plus turnovers in only 19 possessions, gave up one hoop and some free throws, was very disruptive otherwise, and didn't get beaten. He's green, but promising. The second chart below is somewhat puzzling, then, but there may be some reasons for those more team-based numbers.





Stops
Scores
% Stops


Curry
25
30
45%


Rivers
27
33
45%


Dawkins
8
13
38%


Mason
24
33
42%


Thornton
20
27
43%


Kelly
18
17
51%


Miles
12
17
41%


Cook
10
11
48%


Gbinije
4
13
24%


Hairston
6
6
50%


TEAM
31
40
43.7%


























Obviously, as a team, this is terrible. We only got stops on 43.7% of Temple's possessions. Yes, this gets skewed at the end of a losing game, when you're scrambling and fouling and most possessions result in scores, particularly at the line. But our numbers in this department were dismal even before we reached that phase of the game.

The numbers here are a little odd though, as Kelly's look the best even though as suggested by the upper chart he did not at all have a good game individually on the defensive end. Gbinije is the reverse -- he looks like he played pretty well when looking at his individual numbers, but the team got torched when he was on the floor. I do think Mike's numbers here are explainable by the fact that he was on the floor in the endgame, when we were fouling and Temple was scoring either a basket or free throws just about every time. It's just that Mike's man in particular wasn't doing much of the damage.

So it was not in any respects a good defensive performance, despite the fact that there were rays of sunlight that poked through the rainclouds. When the other team scores on over 56% of its possessions, you are not winning many basketball games. That's a team thing. I do think that the enthusiasm over Quinn Cook (and I've wanted to see his role increase too) and what he can do offensively has to be tempered given how he got worked over defensively tonight. He's a freshman and just may not be ready to handle these kinds of physical backcourt players just yet. Or maybe it's just one bad night.

Looking forward to you guys's thoughts.

[Saratoga2]

The defensive charts for this game are below. Copy/pasting from my post from the Western Michigan game, the "legend" for the chart goes like this:

1. Which players were on the floor? If you're on the floor for a given possession, it counts for you, if not, not. Obviously.
2. Were you engaged in the outcome of the possession in my judgment? Shows general level of activity, but also perhaps how involved in the opponent's offense your man was.
3. Forcing a missed FG attempt, either a 2 or a 3. I tracked 3's separately, but lumped them together in the table below.
4. FG's allowed, again both 2 and 3 pointers.
5. Forced turnover. Many of these are shared. Also, turnovers include charges taken, but not blocked shots, as the latter are forced FG misses.
6. "Creating" a missed free throw.
7. "Creating" a made free throw.
8. General catch-all for good defensive play that doesn't fit into other categories. I call it deflection/peskiness/disruptiveness. DPD. Might be able to capture some of the "intangibles" that have interested many on these boards lately.
9. Ball denial, both on the wing and in the post. Good denial gets you a plus. Failure to deny when you could've/should've gets you a minus.
10. "SIF" My shorthand for staying in front. These are only counted when your man makes a definitive move to the hoop. Stay with him, you get a plus, lose him you get a minus.
11. Help. Good help gets you a plus; failure to help when you could've/should've gets you a minus.
12. Catch-all for defensive lapses not otherwise covered, sort of the flip side of #8. I just call this "got beaten - other."

Then below I did one additional analysis: on what % of plays that a guy was on the floor did the team get a stop vs. what % of plays that he was on the floor did we give up points? How did guys measure up against each other and compared to the team as a whole? I thought this might address a little bit the issue of "intangibles" as well, as if you're doing things to help the team make stops, even if they don't show up in other areas of the charting -- like how you move, your talk, being in the right spot, getting other guys in the right spot, leadership, etc., that might show up in the team's success defensively while you're on the floor. So that's the second chart below.

Keep in mind these charts will not match the box score numbers exactly, for a number of reasons.

Here's the first for Temple:




On floor
Engaged
Forced miss (3's)
FG allowed (3's)
turnover
FT miss
FT made
DPD
Denial +
Denial -
SIF +
SIF -
Help+
Help-
Beat-other


Curry
59
9
0
3 (1)
3
0
1
2
1
1
4
0
0
0
0


Rivers
65
6
0
1
1/2
2
2
3
6
1
2
2
0
0
1


Dawkins
24
9
1 (1)
4 1/3 (2)
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
3
0
0
1


Mason
60
11
5 (1)
3 1/3 (1)
3 5/6
1
1
1
1
0
0
2
7
0
0


Thornton
51
6
2
0
2 1/3
1
3
1
2
0
3
2
0
0
0


Kelly
37
13
5 (1)
6
2
1
1
0
0
0
1
2
2
1
0


Miles
35
7
4
5/6
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
5
1
0


Cook
24
5
1
3
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
5
0
0
0


Gbinije
19
5
0
1
2 1/3
0
2
3
1
0
1
0
0
0
0


Hairston
14
3
0
1/2
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
3
0
0



There was one play near the top of the key in which Quinn was putting defensive pressure on his man who went left and then rolled back right and became open inside the key for a shot. I noted that both Plumlees were about 6 feet from the basket, and only one Temple player was inside. I counted that as a play where one of the Plumlees should have come up and given help but instead hung back and gave up a wide open look.

Question: It seems to me that the bigger and stronger guards can see over our smallish guards and make passes that result in scores, even if our guard manages to stay in front. Do you take into account situations where a player does stay in front but the person they are guarding gets an assist? The same could be said for the behind the back passes leading directly to a score.

After the display of poor ball handling and turnovers by Seth, Tyler and even Austin for a different reason, it is refreshing to see someone like Quinn come in and make the offense run more effectively. The defenders have to honor his ability to get by them and back off a little. He did get a wide open 3 that way, but unfortunately shot an air ball. It still was the right decision to take the shot. I like his decision making, court vision, ball security and selflessness on offense. Too bad the defense didn't score out better.























Here's what I see from the above.

The announcers' continued harping on our inability to "stop the ball" was partially, but not entirely true. In looking at SIF's, Seth Curry was excellent in that department; Ty was OK, and Quinn was terrible. He got beaten like a drum off the dribble. This was a significant step up in competition, and Temple had some strong perimeter performers who knew how to get into the lane, and Cook just couldn't stop them. Not good. Ty was better, like I said, in his SIF's, and he also forced turnovers and gave up no baskets.

Our substitution pattern seems to be in many respects driven directly by defensive performance. Dawkins had a very bad night on defense, giving up four (and partially responsible for a fifth) field goals, two of which were 3 pointers, in only 24 defensive possessions. He only forced one missed shot. He didn't play that much, and when he gave up consecutive 3 pointers in the second half, he was pulled, never to return.

Kelly wasn't much better, giving up six hoops in only 37 defensive possessions. He didn't play as much as he otherwise might've either.

I was happy with Miles and Mason defensively. There is no doubt in my mind that Miles is our most consistently solid defensive player. Tonight he was partially responsible for only two field goals in my judgment -- one of which he was only 1/3 responsible. His help defense was excellent, as it always is. Mason's was even better tonight -- I counted 7 instances of excellent help D, with no possessions where it seemed to me that he could've/should've helped but failed to. And he forced just less than four turnovers, which remember, do not even include his blocked shots.

The other guy whose defensive effort continues to be undervalued is Austin Rivers. Dude is working hard out there and because of his high school rep, the media for the most part is ignoring his work at the defensive end of the floor. Tonight's numbers bear this out again. I noted six occasions on which he fought to deny Temple the ability to pass to his man when they obviously were trying to. That requires effort, pure and simple, and he made it. I didn't note how many were in what areas of the court, and while most of his good ball denial was naturally on the wing, some of it was down low as well. He also only gave up one hoop in 65 defensive possessions. I like what I'm seeing here.

Mike Gbinije also had good night defensively. I know everyone wants him to be a defensive stopper out there because the team appears to need it, and so far the numbers are encouraging though far from definitive. Tonight he forced two-plus turnovers in only 19 possessions, gave up one hoop and some free throws, was very disruptive otherwise, and didn't get beaten. He's green, but promising. The second chart below is somewhat puzzling, then, but there may be some reasons for those more team-based numbers.





Stops
Scores
% Stops


Curry
25
30
45%


Rivers
27
33
45%


Dawkins
8
13
38%


Mason
24
33
42%


Thornton
20
27
43%


Kelly
18
17
51%


Miles
12
17
41%


Cook
10
11
48%


Gbinije
4
13
24%


Hairston
6
6
50%


TEAM
31
40
43.7%


























Obviously, as a team, this is terrible. We only got stops on 43.7% of Temple's possessions. Yes, this gets skewed at the end of a losing game, when you're scrambling and fouling and most possessions result in scores, particularly at the line. But our numbers in this department were dismal even before we reached that phase of the game.

The numbers here are a little odd though, as Kelly's look the best even though as suggested by the upper chart he did not at all have a good game individually on the defensive end. Gbinije is the reverse -- he looks like he played pretty well when looking at his individual numbers, but the team got torched when he was on the floor. I do think Mike's numbers here are explainable by the fact that he was on the floor in the endgame, when we were fouling and Temple was scoring either a basket or free throws just about every time. It's just that Mike's man in particular wasn't doing much of the damage.

So it was not in any respects a good defensive performance, despite the fact that there were rays of sunlight that poked through the rainclouds. When the other team scores on over 56% of its possessions, you are not winning many basketball games. That's a team thing. I do think that the enthusiasm over Quinn Cook (and I've wanted to see his role increase too) and what he can do offensively has to be tempered given how he got worked over defensively tonight. He's a freshman and just may not be ready to handle these kinds of physical backcourt players just yet. Or maybe it's just one bad night.

Looking forward to you guys's thoughts.


There was one play near the top of the key in which Quinn was putting defensive pressure on his man who went left and then rolled back right and became open inside the key for a shot. I noted that both Plumlees were about 6 feet from the basket, and only one Temple player was inside. I counted that as a play where one of the Plumlees should have come up and given help but instead hung back and gave up a wide open look.

Question: It seems to me that the bigger and stronger guards can see over our smallish guards and make passes that result in scores, even if our guard manages to stay in front. Do you take into account situations where a player does stay in front but the person they are guarding gets an assist? The same could be said for the behind the back passes leading directly to a score.

After the display of poor ball handling and turnovers by Seth, Tyler and even Austin for a different reason, it is refreshing to see someone like Quinn come in and make the offense run more effectively. The defenders have to honor his ability to get by them and back off a little. He did get a wide open 3 that way, but unfortunately shot an air ball. It still was the right decision to take the shot. I like his decision making, court vision, ball security and selflessness on offense. Too bad the defense didn't score out better.

[ACCBBallFan]

Not a lot of good news in the +/- stats for the gamer either.

The guys with the best metrics were reserves, but nobody on Duke had good stats since Quinn hit the meaningless 3 when he entered game with 12 seconds to go or he and Tyler would have also had negative +/-. Michael Gbinije was also lucky to bank in that 3 near the end.

Duke Temple +/- Duke

12 (10) +2 Josh Hairston, F (8 min)

22 (21) +1 Quinn Cook, G (12 min)

51 (51) 00 Tyler Thornton, G (25 min)

21 (22) (1) Michael Gbinije, G-F (8 min)

29 (31) (2) Ryan Kelly, F (19 min)

61 (64) (3) Austin Rivers, G (33 min)
25 (28) (3) Andre Dawkins, G (14 min)

53 (58) (5) Seth Curry, G (30 min)

59 (66) (7) Mason Plumlee, F (32 min)
32 (39) (7) Miles Plumlee, F (19 min)

Temple was able to leverge its quickness and toughness and height advantage at guard spots, over Duke's height advantage in post.

The two lineups that played the most minutes had the worst +/- results, and the three combos that dd achieve a +3 all played a minute or less:

Min Duke Temple +/-

10.2 15 19 (4) Seth-Austin-Mason-Ryan-Tyler *4

7.1 11 15 (4) Austin-Dre-Mason-Miles-Quinn *2

2.9 04 04 00 Seth-Austin-Mason-Tyler-Josh

2.6 11 10 01 Seth-Austin-Mason-Tyler-Mike

2.3 3 6 (3) Seth-Austin-Dre-Mason-Miles

2.1 4 4 0 Seth-Ryan-Miles-Tyler-Mike

1.8 6 4 2 Seth-Austin-Mason-Miles-Quinn *2
1.8 1 4 (3) Seth-Mason-Ryan-Tyler-Mike
1.7 2 4 (2) Austin-Miles-Tyler-Josh-Mile
1.6 0 0 0 Seth-Austin-Mason-Ryan-Quinn
1.2 2 4 (2) Seth-Dre-Mason-Miles-Tyler
1.1 2 0 2 Seth-Austin-Miles-Tyler-Josh
1.1 2 2 0 Seth-Dre-Ryan-Miles-Quinn
1.0 4 1 3 Austin-Dre-Ryan-Tyler-Josh

0.6 3 0 3 Austin-Dre-Mason-Ryan-Tyler
0.6 0 0 0 Seth-Austin-Tyler-Josh-Mike
0.3 0 1 (1) Seth-Austin-Ryan-Tyler-Josh
0.2 3 0 3 Seth-Mason-Ryan-Tyler-Quinn

40 73 78 (5)

[Steve68]

I know it is blasphemy to even suggest it, but this team seems much better suited to a zone defense. Our best on-ball defender is Thornton, and he is not a true stopper. Gbinije looks to be the next best on-ball defender, but that is probably because he is the about the only true small forward sized defender we have and thus looks better defending 6'6" to 6"8" opponents who can handle the ball. Our bigs, while athletic, can't handle defending the ball off the dribble. Combine that with our guards who are not particularly big nor quick (especially on defense) and that spells zone to me. I know it won't happen, at least not for more than several possessions per game, but it is a thought.

[jv001]

I know it is blasphemy to even suggest it, but this team seems much better suited to a zone defense. Our best on-ball defender is Thornton, and he is not a true stopper. Gbinije looks to be the next best on-ball defender, but that is probably because he is the about the only true small forward sized defender we have and thus looks better defending 6'6" to 6"8" opponents who can handle the ball. Our bigs, while athletic, can't handle defending the ball off the dribble. Combine that with our guards who are not particularly big nor quick (especially on defense) and that spells zone to me. I know it won't happen, at least not for more than several possessions per game, but it is a thought.

To play a good zone defense, you need length and quickness. I just don't see our perimeter guys having either. If we play guys with length, we don't have enough fire power on offense. When we've tried it(not much), we have not done a good job. Another thing about zone is that it's harder to rebound out of it and that takes away from one of our strengths. Last but not least, Coach K isn't going to a zone no matter what posters on a board think. GoDuke!

[Kedsy]

Gbinije is the reverse -- he looks like he played pretty well when looking at his individual numbers, but the team got torched when he was on the floor. I do think Mike's numbers here are explainable by the fact that he was on the floor in the endgame, when we were fouling and Temple was scoring either a basket or free throws just about every time.

I just went through the box score, and Temple scored 6 times against 1 stop in the end game while Michael was in. Two layups and four free throw opportunities. But he played 5 or 6 more minutes, and subtracting the end game from your numbers that leaves the team with 3 stops and 7 scores in Michael's non-endgame time, which only brings his "stop percentage" up to 30%. So, I don't think his poor numbers are completely explained by his presence during the endgame. No idea what would explain them, however, if his individual defense was as good as you say. Perhaps his help D or rotation isn't up to snuff yet? Or quite possibly the small sample size and many extraneous factors beyond Michael's control leads to anomalies, in the same way they do in plus/minus.

Either way, thanks for doing this analysis. It seems odd that most of our team (all but Ryan, Quinn and Andre, really, and neither Quinn nor Andre were out there all that much) seem to have good individual defensive stats, but the team as a whole was so terrible on the defensive side. Not sure what's missing.

[Kedsy]

I just checked your thread on the Western Michigan game (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?27034-Charting-our-Defense-Western-Michigan), and Michael had our lowest stop percentage in that game, too. Still not enough data points to draw a conclusion, but probably worth watching going forward.

[superdave]

I know it is blasphemy to even suggest it, but this team seems much better suited to a zone defense. Our best on-ball defender is Thornton, and he is not a true stopper. Gbinije looks to be the next best on-ball defender, but that is probably because he is the about the only true small forward sized defender we have and thus looks better defending 6'6" to 6"8" opponents who can handle the ball. Our bigs, while athletic, can't handle defending the ball off the dribble. Combine that with our guards who are not particularly big nor quick (especially on defense) and that spells zone to me. I know it won't happen, at least not for more than several possessions per game, but it is a thought.


To play a good zone defense, you need length and quickness. I just don't see our perimeter guys having either. If we play guys with length, we don't have enough fire power on offense. When we've tried it(not much), we have not done a good job. Another thing about zone is that it's harder to rebound out of it and that takes away from one of our strengths. Last but not least, Coach K isn't going to a zone no matter what posters on a board think. GoDuke!

When Coach K has played zone the past few years, it's usually as a curveball for a possession or maybe even 2-3 possessions. But it's not typically a full-game strategy and will never be with him. I did expect to see it once or twice last night, just as I'd expected to see Duke pick up Temple full-court earlier last night. Anything to throw off their rhythm after their first few tough jumpers fell.

[tommy]

There was one play near the top of the key in which Quinn was putting defensive pressure on his man who went left and then rolled back right and became open inside the key for a shot. I noted that both Plumlees were about 6 feet from the basket, and only one Temple player was inside. I counted that as a play where one of the Plumlees should have come up and given help but instead hung back and gave up a wide open look.

Question: It seems to me that the bigger and stronger guards can see over our smallish guards and make passes that result in scores, even if our guard manages to stay in front. Do you take into account situations where a player does stay in front but the person they are guarding gets an assist? The same could be said for the behind the back passes leading directly to a score.


I can't really take into account where an offensive player gets an assist through no fault of his defender. If our defender stays in front of his man on a drive or some other meaningful move, I give him credit for it, even if he passes to a man who then hits a shot. That may count "against" the defender who allowed the catch and the shot, however.

But if an offensive players beats our man into the lane, say, and someone comes over and helps, because he has to, and the offensive player then drops of an easy bounce pass to the help defender's man for a layup, well that basket is really attributable to our original on-ball defender. Had he not lost his man and required help from his teammate, that basket doesn't happen. The help defender can't be expected to cover two men.

Does that make sense?

[NSDukeFan]

The defensive charts for this game are below.
[chart with great effort]
Here's what I see from the above.

The announcers' continued harping on our inability to "stop the ball" was partially, but not entirely true. In looking at SIF's, Seth Curry was excellent in that department; Ty was OK, and Quinn was terrible. He got beaten like a drum off the dribble. This was a significant step up in competition, and Temple had some strong perimeter performers who knew how to get into the lane, and Cook just couldn't stop them. Not good. Ty was better, like I said, in his SIF's, and he also forced turnovers and gave up no baskets.


Looking forward to you guys's thoughts.

Thanks again for your effort in doing this. I was under the impression that Seth was doing a bit better than Cook and Thornton staying in front of his man in this game and your numbers analysis showed this as well. I don't know if this is a consistent thing, but I feel like Curry gets a bit underrated by some of Duke's fan base as just a shooter when he is one of the team's better defensive players, and was missed agains Arizona last year. I was interested to hear you mention that Austin seems to be working very hard defensively as well. I am not surprised. Hopefully, the team will see some continued improvement at the defensive end and that this game was just an aberration.

[tommy]

I just went through the box score, and Temple scored 6 times against 1 stop in the end game while Michael was in. Two layups and four free throw opportunities. But he played 5 or 6 more minutes, and subtracting the end game from your numbers that leaves the team with 3 stops and 7 scores in Michael's non-endgame time, which only brings his "stop percentage" up to 30%. So, I don't think his poor numbers are completely explained by his presence during the endgame. No idea what would explain them, however, if his individual defense was as good as you say. Perhaps his help D or rotation isn't up to snuff yet? Or quite possibly the small sample size and many extraneous factors beyond Michael's control leads to anomalies, in the same way they do in plus/minus.

Either way, thanks for doing this analysis. It seems odd that most of our team (all but Ryan, Quinn and Andre, really, and neither Quinn nor Andre were out there all that much) seem to have good individual defensive stats, but the team as a whole was so terrible on the defensive side. Not sure what's missing.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Couple of responses, I guess. One is that there are certain plays, sometimes in a given game a number of plays, that are most fairly attributable to "team" rather than to a particular player or players. Example: turnover leads to a run-out, we're trying to get back, but the bucket occurs in the context of transition and it's really nobody's (defensive) fault that they converted a break. Another example: one of our guys gets beaten off the dribble, somebody helps. Dribbler moves the ball to a teammate. We rotate to help again. They continue to swing the ball, with or without a dribble or two in there. We continue to rotate/help. This can go on for several moves of the ball, as we continue to rotate, help, and recover -- scrambling, essentially. Sure, sometimes it's appropriate to assess the resulting hoop to the defender who originally lost his man and who therefore made the whole scrambling thing necessary, but at a certain point they're all involved, they're all covering for each other, or at least trying to, and it's just a bucket that I attribute to "team."

The other thing is that this type of charting requires a lot of judgment calls. No way around it. On another thread the guys are debating a particular play where Mason hedged hard far from the hoop, Temple split the doubleteam and therefore had a 5 on 3. Some blame Mason. Some blame Austin for his positioning off the ball while the screen/hedge movement was happening, feeling like had he been positioned in or near the lane instead of close to his own man on the other side of the floor, he could've/would've dissuaded Temple's man from going into the lane with the ball and caused the whole play to be re-directed. Some hold Ryan Kelly partially to blame for not providing better help.

Charting a play like this is tough. I see all those things too. But how to account for it, especially when we don't know what the coaches are telling any of our guys to do, really? Had Austin shaded more towards the lane, what would I count that as? Would it depend on what Temple did or didn't do with the ball? How would I know if what happened actually resulted from Austin's positioning or not? I wouldn't. What if Austin had shaded towards the middle, leaving his own man a lot more room, and after splitting the doubleteam, the Temple player stopped at the free throw line and hit Austin's man with an easy pass and he then drains the uncovered 3. Would that be Austin's fault too? See what I mean? On a play like that -- and I haven't gone back to my raw notes to check -- I probably simply noted it as Mason and Ryan both being involved in the outcome of the possession, and Mason giving up a field goal, as not only did he not recover from the hedge in time to re-establish position against his man, but his man actually scored the hoop. I just can't fairly quantify anything else that Austin and Ryan did.

These kinds of plays may be illustrative of some of the limitations inherent in charting defense. Much more nuanced in many ways than is offense, and like I said earlier, more judgment calls are required. And some of it is just not all that susceptible to quantification. I still think it's helpful to see these numbers (thought not too many others on the board seem to care so much!) but they should be used to supplement -- and sometimes they can really confirm or contradict -- what our eyeballs are telling us, but not to entirely replace it.

[Kedsy]

These kinds of plays may be illustrative of some of the limitations inherent in charting defense. Much more nuanced in many ways than is offense, and like I said earlier, more judgment calls are required. And some of it is just not all that susceptible to quantification. I still think it's helpful to see these numbers (thought not too many others on the board seem to care so much!) but they should be used to supplement -- and sometimes they can really confirm or contradict -- what our eyeballs are telling us, but not to entirely replace it.

I completely agree and enjoy your charting. Eventually, patterns may emerge that will enable us to see all this stuff more clearly.

[jv001]

These kinds of plays may be illustrative of some of the limitations inherent in charting defense. Much more nuanced in many ways than is offense, and like I said earlier, more judgment calls are required. And some of it is just not all that susceptible to quantification. I still think it's helpful to see these numbers (thought not too many others on the board seem to care so much!) but they should be used to supplement -- and sometimes they can really confirm or contradict -- what our eyeballs are telling us, but not to entirely replace it.

I like your charting of these plays. When viewing the posts, I see different opinions on certain plays and certain players. I appreciate you taking the time to watch the games and charting the play. This gives me an idea if I'm correct in my judgment of how a player played in that particular game. Keep up the good work. GoDuke!

[Devilsfan]

You just spent time on charting something that was practically non-existent.

[Devilsfan]

M.G. seems like our best athlete when he's on the court by just merely watching us play without going through all this.

[Newton_14]

I just went through the box score, and Temple scored 6 times against 1 stop in the end game while Michael was in. Two layups and four free throw opportunities. But he played 5 or 6 more minutes, and subtracting the end game from your numbers that leaves the team with 3 stops and 7 scores in Michael's non-endgame time, which only brings his "stop percentage" up to 30%. So, I don't think his poor numbers are completely explained by his presence during the endgame. No idea what would explain them, however, if his individual defense was as good as you say. Perhaps his help D or rotation isn't up to snuff yet? Or quite possibly the small sample size and many extraneous factors beyond Michael's control leads to anomalies, in the same way they do in plus/minus.

Either way, thanks for doing this analysis. It seems odd that most of our team (all but Ryan, Quinn and Andre, really, and neither Quinn nor Andre were out there all that much) seem to have good individual defensive stats, but the team as a whole was so terrible on the defensive side. Not sure what's missing.

I think part of that if not most of that is explained by Temple hitting a lot of mid-range shots with a hand in their face. That happened a lot in my view. There were breakdowns for sure, but the contested shots, combined with runouts on turnovers and missed shots, may explain the bulk of it?

[tommy]

You just spent time on charting something that was practically non-existent.

Thanks for your appreciation and your support. Feels good.

And on the merits, as the charts show, you're wrong. There was plenty of good defensive play in this game. Maybe not what you or others would've expected, and not enough to offset the poor defensive plays and our struggles in other aspects of the game, but our defense was very far from non-existent.

[tommy]

M.G. seems like our best athlete when he's on the court by just merely watching us play without going through all this.

You must be confused. "All this" is not an attempt to determine who our best athlete is. Hence the name of the thread: "Charting our Defense."

And Gbinije, while apparently a fine athlete, is nowhere close in that department to either Plumlee, in particular Mason.

[COYS]

Charting a play like this is tough. I see all those things too. But how to account for it, especially when we don't know what the coaches are telling any of our guys to do, really? Had Austin shaded more towards the lane, what would I count that as? Would it depend on what Temple did or didn't do with the ball? How would I know if what happened actually resulted from Austin's positioning or not? I wouldn't. What if Austin had shaded towards the middle, leaving his own man a lot more room, and after splitting the doubleteam, the Temple player stopped at the free throw line and hit Austin's man with an easy pass and he then drains the uncovered 3. Would that be Austin's fault too? See what I mean? On a play like that -- and I haven't gone back to my raw notes to check -- I probably simply noted it as Mason and Ryan both being involved in the outcome of the possession, and Mason giving up a field goal, as not only did he not recover from the hedge in time to re-establish position against his man, but his man actually scored the hoop. I just can't fairly quantify anything else that Austin and Ryan did.
.

Tommy, thanks again for this really wonderful work. I think you do an excellent job on making judgement calls, too. One thing I noticed in terms of the lack of "bad" individual defensive stats is that Temple scored a pretty good number of fast break points that came off of errors on the offensive end and totaled 21 points off of Duke turnovers. I can't find a stat for fast break points right off (I apologize for not being as thorough as you are with every one of your posts), but if we gave up about 10 fast break points, that's 5 whole possessions and 10 points that Temple scores without any defensive mistakes.

I actually thought our offense was the worst enemy in this particular game and a number of rushed shots when the game was close that weren't turnovers but might as well have been (Austin was guilty of a few and Miles had the strange missed alley oop from Austin where he probably should have caught the ball, landed, and gone back up for the easy slam instead of airballing the dunk attempt and throwing the ball right back to Temple). Turnovers are one thing, but we had a lot of bad passes in the back court which led to easy runouts and a lot of rushed shots which undid a lot of the good, deliberate work we did to get within 2 or 4 points a number of times in the second half. I counted 4 times when that happened. One of these forced layups from Austin directly led to an open Temple 3 as Austin fell under the basket after missing his wild shot and couldn't recover in time to guard his man on the other end (although this might have happened in the first half). Anyway, if we had enough bad turnovers that led to scores that weren't the fault of any one person on defense, it could explain why some individuals had good performances while the team performed poorly.

Also, I think Mason and Ryan's biggest issue on defense is poor job hedging. You cited the time the Temple guard split a Mason/Austin double team when I thought Mason went too far up the court to hedge, but there was another instance where Mason inexplicably didn't hedge at all at the top of the key. Ryan sometimes has a hard time not fouling when he hedges and other times isn't quite quick enough to step out. Miles has really turned a corner in this area, but I really believe that if Ryan and Mason can become more consistent with their hedges, our perimeter defense will suddenly start to look a TON better.

[loldevilz]

You must be confused. "All this" is not an attempt to determine who our best athlete is. Hence the name of the thread: "Charting our Defense."

And Gbinije, while apparently a fine athlete, is nowhere close in that department to either Plumlee, in particular Mason.

I would disagree with this. Gbinije has much more lateral quickness. I think as a one-on-one defender he is also better. Mason gets backed down too easily and I think he tends to go for the pump fake too much. Also, as another poster said he gets caught on hedges way too much. Miles in my opinion is the only other that can be really considered an elite defender because he can defend bigger guys and I think he's a better shot blocker also.

[dcar1985]

I would disagree with this. Gbinije has much more lateral quickness. I think as a one-on-one defender he is also better. Mason gets backed down too easily and I think he tends to go for the pump fake too much. Also, as another poster said he gets caught on hedges way too much. Miles in my opinion is the only other that can be really considered an elite defender because he can defend bigger guys and I think he's a better shot blocker also.


None of this has much to do with athleticism as much as it does with basketball IQ and pure strength in the case of getting backed down....Mike does look like a heck of an athlete, at 6'7 hes quicker laterally then all our guards except maybe Austin, He runs the court very well too. Mike also has very sneaky hops even though Miles likely has him beat in the vertical dept....