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tommy
01-14-2012, 03:41 AM
I have the charts done on paper, but it's too late and I'm too tired to create them on the computer, but I should get to it tomorrow.

But in watching the game closely and charting it tonight, I watched one guy particularly closely on defense: Andre Dawkins. Why? Because I saw Coach K's comments after the game that this is the best Andre has ever played defensively at Duke and I wanted to zero in on what K was referring to, because I hadn't thought that when I first watched the game.

I know there sometimes may be small nuances that I'm not seeing. I'm not a professional. But I've played and watched a lot of ball over the last 30 years of my life. And I watched Andre closely, on-ball and off, and wrote down everything I saw of consequence, with a time stamp. Here's what I've got:

1st half:

1309 (time): UVA gets an offensive board, the rebounder has it on the left side maybe 10' from the hoop. Andre's man cuts into the lane from the weak side, to the hoop. Andre's head was turned, not watching his man, he saw the cut way too late, trailed his man into the lane where he caught the pass for an easy layup.

1000: Andre had Scott on a switch, loses sight of him as another UVA player has the ball in the corner. Scott cuts to the hoop, receives an easy pass in the lane, and misses the shot.

537: Good ball pressure from Andre, far outside, but his man keeps his dribble, and ultimately beats Dre into the lane. Mason's help comes, but the driver simply dishes to Scott, who Andre picks up, but Scott takes one dribble into the lane and shoots right over Andre (who did put a hand in his face at least) and scores.

513: On the very next play Andre is beaten for a back door dunk. Granted, Miles failed to help, but still.

445: Good job by Andre staying in front up high. Good pressure applied.

207: Mason helps on a Mitchell drive; Andre's man is in the opposite corner. Andre fails to slide over onto Mason's man (Mike Scott), who receives the pass from Mitchell in the lane and goes up for the jam over Andre. He missed the jam somehow, but Andre fouled him on the dunk attempt.

116: Andre is beaten off the dribble by Zeglinski in the left corner, which forces a couple of other guys to help and scramble, but we really never recover from the original "sin" and it leads ultimately to a wide open 3 in the right corner, which the UVA player nails.

2nd half:

1540: Dawkins is screened on the right side, doesn't get through it quickly enough, Harris takes the pass and Andre just trails him into the lane. Short jumper. Bucket.

1520: Good job by Andre fighting through a screen.

1244: Andre trails his man around a screen in the corner. Then he gets faked into the air, trails him into the lane, where the Wahoo misses a runner.

1143: Dre again trails Harris around a screen, this time in the left corner. Harris cans the 15 foot J before Ryan can get there to help.

1053: Harris catches on the right after Dawkins is lackadaisical in denying/getting out. Harris takes it to the rim, where he is blocked by Ryan and/or Miles - tough to tell who actually got it. Andre was beaten though.

1042: Excellent work by Andre staying in front of Evans on the drive, forces a nonthreatening kickout pass.

953: Andre kind of loses Harris in the corner, closes on him when he receives the pass, and contests the 3. Miss.

915: Andre is screened on an out of bounds play, closes on a wide open 3 point shooter, gets a hand in his face. Airball. Kinda looked like he fouled him to me, but not called. Which is nice.

205: Beaten backdoor by Zeglinski. Ryan's help at the rim stopped him. Andre did grab the board.


OK that's it. I gotta say, that's a heck of a lot more poor defensive play than it is solid play. If anyone has the time/desire to go to the DVR and tell me what I'm missing, I'd welcome it. But looking at this, K's comments baffle me. I know, he has 900 wins and I don't have any. Of course. But as I'm looking at Andre's defense in this game, not only does it not appear to be the best he's ever played in 2 1/2 years at Duke, it looked like some of the worst! It looked to me like he played terrible defense. He was primarily responsible for an awful lot of UVA hoops -- 7 by my count -- especially considering the low number of total possessions there were in this game. And he was beaten a number of other times that thanks to either the help of his teammates or UVA just missing the shot, could've easily made that number even higher.

I was watching for other stuff off the ball. Denials. Help. Being disruptive. Very little of any of that.

So: K's comments. What the hey?

bob blue devil
01-14-2012, 06:21 AM
i had the same impression as you detail here: this was not a great game for andre defensively. it stood out sufficiently that i was thinking maybe his back is still an issue and is handicapping him on D.

trying to figure out K's comments, my SWAG is that K has been preaching one particular part of of defense to andre and andre executed on that aspect in the game. rather than focus on what andre didn't do, K wanted to reinforce what he did. of course, i doubt i can really get inside K's head, but it's fun to try...

p.s. love the charting - it's awesome

duke09hms
01-14-2012, 09:02 AM
Exactly - thank you for your time in evaluating our team defense or lack thereof. I know what I was seeing from Andre, negative feedback be damned! Some people just can't take the truth.

Seems like Coach was trying to build up Andre's confidence with his words, and that "best defense he's played at Duke" does not necessarily mean good defense . . .

Of course our team defense overall is weak, possibly even historically weak (now #55 kenpom YEESH), so don't think I'm picking only on Andre here. Quinn was also another one that was getting beat like a drum on defense.

jv001
01-14-2012, 05:55 PM
It seems Coach K has decided at least for the present time, our best bet to be very good is with Andre, Seth and Austin on the perimeter. In order to do this he has to get Andre back to scoring in double figures. I said in a previous post that I believe Coach K was praising Andre for his defense in this particular game to give him confidence. Andre's defense has been sub-par since his arrival in Durham. Granted he seemed to have improved lately and was gaining steam with his defense. But in my eyes this was not one of those games. By Michael Gbinijie not playing at all in the last couple of games, it seems that Coach K for now is going "all in" with Andre. I think we'll see Andre step up and play much better. GoDuke!

_Gary
01-14-2012, 06:06 PM
Coach's post-game comments also had me scratching my head. I love Andre (as I do all Duke players), and my youngest daughter has had a major crush on him since he first arrived, so I'm not apt to pick on him. Having said all that, I remembering telling my daughters, over and over again during the game, that Dre was doing a poor job on the defensive end. Like others here, I'm not going to dispute Coach K. But I do have to admit I didn't see anything close to good defense from A.D. on Thursday night.

tommy
01-15-2012, 02:07 AM
The defensive charts for this game are below. Copy/pasting from my posts from earlier games, 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.

OK here's the first table:





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


Curry
56
8
3.5 (1)
1
1
0
2
1
1
0
4
2
0
0
1


Rivers
51
8
3.5 (2.5)
1.5(1)
1
0
0
1
3
0
3
1
0
1
4


Dawkins
50
9
3(2)
7(1)
0
0
1
0
0
0
2
3
0
1
6


Mason
55
15
4(1)
3
.5
0
2
0
1
1
0
2
10
1
0


Thornton
27
5
.5
.5
1
0
0
2
2
0
2
1
2
1
0


Kelly
52
21
5.5
4.5
3
0
0
0
0
2
0
0
5
0
0


Miles
29
11
7(1)
1
1.5
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
5
1
0


Cook
20
3
1
1.5
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
0
0
2


Gbinije
0
















Hairston
0













































The obvious concern here, to me, is the play of Andre Dawkins. See the post that I actually started this thread with for a detailed breakdown of his, well, breakdowns. I know I'm in disagreement with a guy with 900 more coaching wins than I have, but I thought (and this charting supports me) that Andre had a very poor game defensively.


What I like coming out of this chart is our bigs' defense, especially the Plumlees. All 3 bigs were very active, and provided outstanding help for the perimeter guys and for each other all night long. As was discussed in the "hedging" thread, UVA ran a lot of screens on the side of the floor that required the ballhandler to keep his dribble alive as he made reads as to which way to go with the dribble and to hit cutters with precision passes. This was difficult to defense, and required a lot of help, and our big guys rose to the challenge.

Of our perimeter guys, I thought Tyler had the best overall game at the defensive end. In relatively limited minutes he was disruptive, did better at staying in front of his man, helped where needed, denied passes, and was just pretty solid.

And here's the second table:





Stops
Scores
Stop %


Curry
27
21
56%


Rivers
27
19
59%


Dawkins
27
18
60%


Mason
26
22
54%


Thornton
15
9
63%


Kelly
26
19
58%


Miles
18
9
67%


Cook
9
8
53%


Gbinije
0
0



Hairston
0
0



TEAM
35
25
58%



























Miles. Again.

Only one that's all that surprising is Dawkins. Considering how many hoops he gave up, it's can only follow that when he was on the floor but not involved in the play, we stopped them at a very high rate. Hope opponents aren't seeing these numbers or they may be likely to really target Andre and make him play defensively, to an even greater degree than they already are.

Soon I'll have the time/energy to start aggregating the data from the games I've charted to give us a better look with a bigger sample size, as to both charts. Hard to keep up though when the games keep coming so quickly!

Look forward to your comments.

Fish80
01-15-2012, 10:32 AM
Lots of good analysis here. But I look at the same game film and the same statistics and come away with a different perspective. Andre's defense was good.

Look at the chart of stop percentages again. Andre, Seth, and Austin all put up very similar numbers. Andre's defense was on a par with Seth's and with Austin's.

Andre's energy and activity on defense was very high. If you put an effort meter on him and tracked it, this was one of his best efforts.

No surprise here, but I agree with Coach K.

JMarley50
01-15-2012, 11:37 AM
Lots of good analysis here. But I look at the same game film and the same statistics and come away with a different perspective. Andre's defense was good.

Look at the chart of stop percentages again. Andre, Seth, and Austin all put up very similar numbers. Andre's defense was on a par with Seth's and with Austin's.

Andre's energy and activity on defense was very high. If you put an effort meter on him and tracked it, this was one of his best efforts.

No surprise here, but I agree with Coach K.

I didn't DVR the game so I haven't gone back and watched it again since seeing it live. But I agree with you. I remember thinking throughout the game that Andre was a lot better than usual on D. His intensity was very good. I thought he did a great job getting back on D for one. A lot of times he tends to procrastinate when it comes to transitioning back into defense. It almost appears as if he dreads going back to play D, but I didn't see that against UVA.

I also thought he did a great job of not letting his man go where he wanted to go, or at least made him take a different route to get there. I could be wrong as I didn't go back and re-watch it but I also thought he did a good job of getting in the passing lanes and denying his man the ball, whether it was one or two passes away.

My wife was even commenting on how much better Andre looked on defense. So when I combine that with Coach K's comments, it confirms my thoughts! Lord knows those two are never wrong!! ;)

Ultrarunner
01-15-2012, 12:16 PM
The obvious concern here, to me, is the play of Andre Dawkins. See the post that I actually started this thread with for a detailed breakdown of his, well, breakdowns. I know I'm in disagreement with a guy with 900 more coaching wins than I have, but I thought (and this charting supports me) that Andre had a very poor game defensively.


And here's the second table:


Only one that's all that surprising is Dawkins. Considering how many hoops he gave up, it's can only follow that when he was on the floor but not involved in the play, we stopped them at a very high rate. Hope opponents aren't seeing these numbers or they may be likely to really target Andre and make him play defensively, to an even greater degree than they already are.

Since your first table and your second table reach opposing conclusions regarding Andre, might I suggest that there is a flaw in your methodology?

At least a couple of the items that you had in the first breakdown where Andre was "at fault" were occasions where he rotated and got beat by post players in the paint. In other words, he was in the right spot, doing the correct thing but he is a 6'4" guard going against a 6'8" all-conference post player. Still, he was contesting things even there. And that may be what is coloring the subjective part of the analysis with Andre. Because he is rotating correctly (a la Miles last year and Zoubs the year before), he is in position to provide defense at the point of attack on a given play. This leads to mis-matches but he (to my eyeballs and I can't dvr so I'm unable to use a second by second refutation) is contesting them with vigor and a good deal of smarts given his relatively low foul rate. As with Miles, who has been our best defender this year and one of the better ones last year, Andre doesn't get the respect he deserves because of breakdowns elsewhere. Last year, I was joking about the "Zoubec Effect" where a player has been performing very well in areas not recognized who "suddenly" gets it. They were getting it sooner than we, the fans, recognized. Last year I applied the "Zoubec Effect" to Miles. This year, it's Andre. He's doing a lot of little things really well. His defense is probably going to win us a game this year.

Also, I would guess that the guards were instructed to force UVA players to drive - close out the shooters and rely on the help inside which is a pretty traditional Duke process defensively. There is a reason that the UVA guards shot atrociously. They had defenders closing out aggressively at the 3-pt line and, even when driving past the defender, had to worry about the defender trailing him in addition to whichever 6'10" shotblocker was in front of him.

I guess the other problem that I have is that we seem to be focusing on a single player with intent to prove our pet theory on why the team's defense has been so porous this year. Yet the numbers in the second chart indicate the opposite of the theory and it's "surprising". I suspect that there may be an issue with confirmation bias - we expect to find Andre deficient, so we look for examples of the same and if an event can be interpreted in more than one manner, we are selecting the one that assigns fault to Andre.

I don't think it is coincidence that this type of post has been done in this season. Duke fans have expectations regarding the team, high expectations, and can count of several things every year. The team will always play hard. The team will play smart. The team will be well-coached. The team will play tough man-to-man defense. But on this last point, we have been disappointed this year. And as fans, frankly, we're not handling it as well as we should.

Son of Jarhead
01-15-2012, 04:18 PM
Since your first table and your second table reach opposing conclusions regarding Andre, might I suggest that there is a flaw in your methodology?

At least a couple of the items that you had in the first breakdown where Andre was "at fault" were occasions where he rotated and got beat by post players in the paint. In other words, he was in the right spot, doing the correct thing but he is a 6'4" guard going against a 6'8" all-conference post player. Still, he was contesting things even there. And that may be what is coloring the subjective part of the analysis with Andre. Because he is rotating correctly (a la Miles last year and Zoubs the year before), he is in position to provide defense at the point of attack on a given play. This leads to mis-matches but he (to my eyeballs and I can't dvr so I'm unable to use a second by second refutation) is contesting them with vigor and a good deal of smarts given his relatively low foul rate. As with Miles, who has been our best defender this year and one of the better ones last year, Andre doesn't get the respect he deserves because of breakdowns elsewhere. Last year, I was joking about the "Zoubec Effect" where a player has been performing very well in areas not recognized who "suddenly" gets it. They were getting it sooner than we, the fans, recognized. Last year I applied the "Zoubec Effect" to Miles. This year, it's Andre. He's doing a lot of little things really well. His defense is probably going to win us a game this year.

Also, I would guess that the guards were instructed to force UVA players to drive - close out the shooters and rely on the help inside which is a pretty traditional Duke process defensively. There is a reason that the UVA guards shot atrociously. They had defenders closing out aggressively at the 3-pt line and, even when driving past the defender, had to worry about the defender trailing him in addition to whichever 6'10" shotblocker was in front of him.

I guess the other problem that I have is that we seem to be focusing on a single player with intent to prove our pet theory on why the team's defense has been so porous this year. Yet the numbers in the second chart indicate the opposite of the theory and it's "surprising". I suspect that there may be an issue with confirmation bias - we expect to find Andre deficient, so we look for examples of the same and if an event can be interpreted in more than one manner, we are selecting the one that assigns fault to Andre.

I don't think it is coincidence that this type of post has been done in this season. Duke fans have expectations regarding the team, high expectations, and can count of several things every year. The team will always play hard. The team will play smart. The team will be well-coached. The team will play tough man-to-man defense. But on this last point, we have been disappointed this year. And as fans, frankly, we're not handling it as well as we should.

I think what people are remembering regarding Andre's defense against UVA is a couple of times his man went back-door on him (which the TV guys pointed out). But it is important to also remember that Andre is not out there alone. Our defense relies on over-plays, help-side defense, and ball pressure. If we had better ball pressure on those particular plays, the player making the back-door pass would find that pass more difficult to make. With better help defense on that one play where UVA's freshman wing got a dunk, he may have had a harder time scoring. What I am seeing from Andre is a better commitment to defense, better effort. He is communicating better out there than at any time in the past two years, and helping off better, too (his biggest problem there is one nobody can change, he is under-sized at the 3). In my humble opinion, Andre's defense is improving. Apparently Coach K thinks so, too.

dcar1985
01-15-2012, 04:54 PM
Since your first table and your second table reach opposing conclusions regarding Andre, might I suggest that there is a flaw in your methodology?

At least a couple of the items that you had in the first breakdown where Andre was "at fault" were occasions where he rotated and got beat by post players in the paint. In other words, he was in the right spot, doing the correct thing but he is a 6'4" guard going against a 6'8" all-conference post player. Still, he was contesting things even there. And that may be what is coloring the subjective part of the analysis with Andre. Because he is rotating correctly (a la Miles last year and Zoubs the year before), he is in position to provide defense at the point of attack on a given play. This leads to mis-matches but he (to my eyeballs and I can't dvr so I'm unable to use a second by second refutation) is contesting them with vigor and a good deal of smarts given his relatively low foul rate. As with Miles, who has been our best defender this year and one of the better ones last year, Andre doesn't get the respect he deserves because of breakdowns elsewhere. Last year, I was joking about the "Zoubec Effect" where a player has been performing very well in areas not recognized who "suddenly" gets it. They were getting it sooner than we, the fans, recognized. Last year I applied the "Zoubec Effect" to Miles. This year, it's Andre. He's doing a lot of little things really well. His defense is probably going to win us a game this year.

Also, I would guess that the guards were instructed to force UVA players to drive - close out the shooters and rely on the help inside which is a pretty traditional Duke process defensively. There is a reason that the UVA guards shot atrociously. They had defenders closing out aggressively at the 3-pt line and, even when driving past the defender, had to worry about the defender trailing him in addition to whichever 6'10" shotblocker was in front of him.

I guess the other problem that I have is that we seem to be focusing on a single player with intent to prove our pet theory on why the team's defense has been so porous this year. Yet the numbers in the second chart indicate the opposite of the theory and it's "surprising". I suspect that there may be an issue with confirmation bias - we expect to find Andre deficient, so we look for examples of the same and if an event can be interpreted in more than one manner, we are selecting the one that assigns fault to Andre.

I don't think it is coincidence that this type of post has been done in this season. Duke fans have expectations regarding the team, high expectations, and can count of several things every year. The team will always play hard. The team will play smart. The team will be well-coached. The team will play tough man-to-man defense. But on this last point, we have been disappointed this year. And as fans, frankly, we're not handling it as well as we should.


Watch a replay of the game and some of the plays Tommy mentioned.....

dcar1985
01-15-2012, 04:56 PM
Lots of good analysis here. But I look at the same game film and the same statistics and come away with a different perspective. Andre's defense was good.

Look at the chart of stop percentages again. Andre, Seth, and Austin all put up very similar numbers. Andre's defense was on a par with Seth's and with Austin's.

Andre's energy and activity on defense was very high. If you put an effort meter on him and tracked it, this was one of his best efforts.

No surprise here, but I agree with Coach K.

Energy and being active doesn't necessarily mean you played good defense....

Kedsy
01-15-2012, 05:32 PM
Only one that's all that surprising is Dawkins. Considering how many hoops he gave up, it's can only follow that when he was on the floor but not involved in the play, we stopped them at a very high rate.

Could it be that the apparent discrepancy has to do with the complicated nature of Coach K's defense? Is it possible that Coach K has a key, perhaps positioning, perhaps activity, perhaps something I don't understand, and what makes our defense great (in most seasons) is all five guys positioning themselves (or whatever) exactly the way he wants, leading to group stops even though we may have individual failures?

If any of that stuff is true, then it must be that Andre did *that* (positioning, activity, whatever) better against Virginia than he's ever done before, and that might explain both K's post-game praise of his defense and the high stop percentage.

Or it could just be coincidence...

theAlaskanBear
01-15-2012, 05:41 PM
Could it be that the apparent discrepancy has to do with the complicated nature of Coach K's defense? Is it possible that Coach K has a key, perhaps positioning, perhaps activity, perhaps something I don't understand, and what makes our defense great (in most seasons) is all five guys positioning themselves (or whatever) exactly the way he wants, leading to group stops even though we may have individual failures?

If any of that stuff is true, then it must be that Andre did *that* (positioning, activity, whatever) better against Virginia than he's ever done before, and that might explain both K's post-game praise of his defense and the high stop percentage.

Or it could just be coincidence...

The type of pressure defense K likes to play has always been susceptible to back door cuts. The reason Duke looks so weak defensively this year is that we also don't have great pressure defenders with strong athletic guards like we have in past. So we are less effective at pressuring than we have been in the past -- that makes the backdoor buckets look a lot worse when we aren't getting the turnovers from pressure D to make up for them.

But a lot of the losses Duke takes in my mind tend to be teams that have great cutting and utilize motion/princeton flavored offense.

tommy
01-16-2012, 03:05 PM
At least a couple of the items that you had in the first breakdown where Andre was "at fault" were occasions where he rotated and got beat by post players in the paint. In other words, he was in the right spot, doing the correct thing but he is a 6'4" guard going against a 6'8" all-conference post player. Still, he was contesting things even there. And that may be what is coloring the subjective part of the analysis with Andre. Because he is rotating correctly (a la Miles last year and Zoubs the year before), he is in position to provide defense at the point of attack on a given play. This leads to mis-matches but he (to my eyeballs and I can't dvr so I'm unable to use a second by second refutation) is contesting them with vigor and a good deal of smarts given his relatively low foul rate.

While that may be true in other games, it wasn't in this one. If you look at the plays I described at the beginning of this thread involving Andre, only three really involved Mike Scott. On one of them, that at 207 of the first half, you're correct, in looking at it again Andre really shouldn't be blamed for this one. Mason had left Scott in an attempt to help on a UVA man who had originally set a screen and Austin and Ryan had both gone to the dribbler, leaving the screener alone. He went to the hoop, Mason helped off of Scott on the driver, and Andre tried to help on Scott in the lane, but he was too late and Scott was too strong. The dunk attempt did bounce up in the air and go through, plus Andre's foul.

But the other two in which Scott was involved were not good defense by Andre. At 1000 of the first half, Andre had Scott on a switch. Scott was around the free throw line. Andre turned his head, lost sight of Scott, and Scott just cut behind him into the lane and received the pass for the 5 footer, which he should've made but didn't. This was not a case of the smaller Andre being physically overmatched by Scott. He turned his head and lost sight of his man, and result was an easy shot that we were fortunate that Scott missed. Andre was 5 feet behind him at the time he released the shot.

The play at 537 of the first half was also rooted in Andre's losing his man. While he initially did a good job staying in front of the dribbler and bodying him up far from the hoop, ultimately he was beaten by that dribbler 1-on-1 into the lane. Mason helped off of Scott, the pass then went to Scott, Mason quickly jumped back out onto Scott, but because Mason was moving towards him, Scott naturally was able to go by him into the lane. Andre was still there, put his hands up and contested well, but Scott shot over him. This never would've happened had he not been beaten by the original dribbler into the lane, requiring Mason to help, and distorting our defense.


I guess the other problem that I have is that we seem to be focusing on a single player with intent to prove our pet theory on why the team's defense has been so porous this year. Yet the numbers in the second chart indicate the opposite of the theory and it's "surprising". I suspect that there may be an issue with confirmation bias - we expect to find Andre deficient, so we look for examples of the same and if an event can be interpreted in more than one manner, we are selecting the one that assigns fault to Andre.

Actually, it was just the opposite. Having heard K's comments, I was looking for every example of good defense by Andre I could find, in order to see what K was seeing. I saw a few, but just not very many, and in fact saw many more examples of poor defense that easily outnumbered the solid defensive play by Dawkins.


Since your first table and your second table reach opposing conclusions regarding Andre, might I suggest that there is a flaw in your methodology?

I don't think they're irreconcilable at all. Several possible explanations, really. But I'm always open to suggestions for improvement. I'm just watching this very closely, including the action off the ball, and rewinding it, sometimes 4 and 5 times, to make sure I'm seeing everything, and then writing it down. Any specific ideas for improving?


I think what people are remembering regarding Andre's defense against UVA is a couple of times his man went back-door on him (which the TV guys pointed out). But it is important to also remember that Andre is not out there alone. Our defense relies on over-plays, help-side defense, and ball pressure. If we had better ball pressure on those particular plays, the player making the back-door pass would find that pass more difficult to make. With better help defense on that one play where UVA's freshman wing got a dunk, he may have had a harder time scoring.

While ball pressure is important in our overall scheme -- very important -- and it often has been subpar, nevertheless the only one who was beaten backdoor in this game (and it was twice) was Andre. Our other wings were still able to have their heads on a swivel, keeping their own men in front while remaining aware of what the man with the ball was doing and where he was looking. Dawkins, at least on the two occasions -- but it was actually more than that -- did not.


Could it be that the apparent discrepancy has to do with the complicated nature of Coach K's defense? Is it possible that Coach K has a key, perhaps positioning, perhaps activity, perhaps something I don't understand, and what makes our defense great (in most seasons) is all five guys positioning themselves (or whatever) exactly the way he wants, leading to group stops even though we may have individual failures?

If any of that stuff is true, then it must be that Andre did *that* (positioning, activity, whatever) better against Virginia than he's ever done before, and that might explain both K's post-game praise of his defense and the high stop percentage.

Or it could just be coincidence...

Maybe, but is it a fact that Coach K's defense is so unusually complicated? I've been watching the defense very closely, as well has having watched it for the last 25 years or so, as I'm sure you have as well, and while our defense is usually very, very good, I'm not sure that the source of that quality is its complexity really. In most years, what we try to do is pressure the ball first and foremost, causing the opponent difficulty in even initiating their offense. Then we deny hard on the wings, further throwing them off. We do overplay, and therefore get burned sometimes on backdoors, though less of that in recent years. We do have our bigs help and recover, we obviously focus a lot on weakside help and drawing charges. But is any of that so complex?

It seems to me that one of the key components in Duke's success over the years is how frickin hard we play, just about every single night. Opponents and opposing coaches have said it over and over again. Duke doesn't take a night off. Duke doesn't take a play off. They just work so hard and play so hard that they come up with plays you don't expect them to and then they just wear you down with all that defensive intensity. Nothing easy.

But that's just my take.

Kedsy
01-16-2012, 04:57 PM
But is any of that so complex?

I don't know. I do know it seems to take our players a lot longer time to learn our defense than you'd expect if it was simple. So I've always assumed it contains complexities that I can't see when I watch.