What's really wrong with our defense

[Kedsy]

We keep talking about how this year's team has the worst defensive efficiency in the Pomeroy era, so I thought it might be worthwhile to break it down and analyze the pieces.

According to Pomeroy, there are four factors that go into defensive efficiency: defensive rebounding percentage (what percentage of available defensive rebounds do you get); free throw rate (how often do you send your opponent to the free throw line); turnover percentage (what percentage of your opponents possessions end up in a turnover; and effective field goal percentage (shooting percentage counting made three-point shots as 1.5 and made two-point shots as 1.0).

Here's how this year's team stands up to the past dozen Duke teams:



Year DReb% ft rate to% eFG%
2012 65.7 30.1 20.0 48.0
2011 64.9 29.6 21.0 44.5
2010 59.4 34.0 21.4 43.6
2009 62.6 31.0 23.5 47.8
2008 66.0 31.9 24.7 47.5
2007 63.5 29.5 22.1 46.0
2006 69.1 27.6 22.5 46.1
2005 62.7 32.0 21.8 42.2
2004 60.7 31.9 24.4 44.7
2003 63.0 37.6 24.4 47.5
2002 65.5 32.1 25.6 46.0
2001 62.9 28.3 24.9 45.7


Our free throw rate is actually the 5th best of the 12 years, and our defensive rebound pct is the 3rd best. But the other two factors are the worst figures we've managed in the past dozen years. Having said that, our turnover pct is not all that different from several of the years, including last season and the 2010 national champs. But I think our defensive eFG% is historically bad (48%). Only three years I charted were even close to as bad (2009, 2008, and 2003), and in all of those years we had much better turnover rates.

So I broke it down further, looking at our D against threes, twos, and total overall. The last column in the table below is what percentage of our opponents' shots were three-pointers.



Year 3 made 3 att 3 pct 2 made 2 att 2 pct totmade tot att tot pct % threes
2012 88 269 0.327 405 849 0.477 493 1118 0.441 0.317
2011 176 543 0.324 720 1667 0.432 896 2210 0.405 0.326
2010 158 559 0.283 725 1643 0.441 883 2202 0.401 0.340
2009 183 542 0.338 722 1544 0.468 905 2086 0.434 0.351
2008 167 507 0.329 713 1518 0.470 880 2025 0.435 0.334
2007 139 441 0.315 626 1371 0.457 765 1812 0.422 0.322
2006 143 471 0.304 809 1744 0.464 952 2215 0.430 0.270
2005 128 420 0.305 655 1586 0.413 783 2006 0.390 0.265
2004 176 543 0.324 702 1614 0.435 878 2157 0.407 0.336
2003 164 474 0.346 675 1415 0.477 839 1889 0.444 0.335
2002 168 555 0.303 724 1559 0.464 892 2114 0.422 0.356
2001 207 602 0.344 821 1869 0.439 1028 2471 0.416 0.322
2000 197 551 0.358 737 1688 0.437 934 2239 0.417 0.326
1999 191 635 0.301 781 1849 0.422 972 2484 0.391 0.343
1998 156 512 0.305 685 1532 0.447 841 2044 0.411 0.334
1997 149 438 0.340 640 1433 0.447 789 1871 0.422 0.306


Our three-point defense seems OK. Six of the past 16 Duke teams were worse and two others were practically identical, so we're middle of the pack for a Duke team in defending the three. So far, so good. Except opponents try fewer threes against us this year than all but three of the past 16 seasons (2006, 2005, and 1997), which suggests the key lies in two-point shots. Where this year's team is tied for worst among the past 16 years in stopping the two-pointer.

I assume this means we're giving up a lot more dunks and layups than usual. Which I suppose I should have been able to guess without all the charts. Combine that with the low turnover rate, and it spells bad D, like we saw in the 2nd half against Florida State today.

How can we fix it? I don't know. Perhaps we should pack it in more, clog up the middle and force people to take more threes with people running at them, sort of like we saw from UVa. Maybe we need to take more chances and force more turnovers. Or possibly we just need to get better at rotating and/or stopping the penetration of opposing PGs.

Frankly, I was hoping for more illumination from the numbers, but you can't force the data. Since I did the work, I'm posting the charts, and maybe someone else will have a better idea.

[loldevilz]

We keep talking about how this year's team has the worst defensive efficiency in the Pomeroy era, so I thought it might be worthwhile to break it down and analyze the pieces.

According to Pomeroy, there are four factors that go into defensive efficiency: defensive rebounding percentage (what percentage of available defensive rebounds do you get); free throw rate (how often do you send your opponent to the free throw line); turnover percentage (what percentage of your opponents possessions end up in a turnover; and effective field goal percentage (shooting percentage counting made three-point shots as 1.5 and made two-point shots as 1.0).

Here's how this year's team stands up to the past dozen Duke teams:



Year DReb% ft rate to% eFG%
2012 65.7 30.1 20.0 48.0
2011 64.9 29.6 21.0 44.5
2010 59.4 34.0 21.4 43.6
2009 62.6 31.0 23.5 47.8
2008 66.0 31.9 24.7 47.5
2007 63.5 29.5 22.1 46.0
2006 69.1 27.6 22.5 46.1
2005 62.7 32.0 21.8 42.2
2004 60.7 31.9 24.4 44.7
2003 63.0 37.6 24.4 47.5
2002 65.5 32.1 25.6 46.0
2001 62.9 28.3 24.9 45.7


Our free throw rate is actually the 5th best of the 12 years, and our defensive rebound pct is the 3rd best. But the other two factors are the worst figures we've managed in the past dozen years. Having said that, our turnover pct is not all that different from several of the years, including last season and the 2010 national champs. But I think our defensive eFG% is historically bad (48%). Only three years I charted were even close to as bad (2009, 2008, and 2003), and in all of those years we had much better turnover rates.

So I broke it down further, looking at our D against threes, twos, and total overall. The last column in the table below is what percentage of our opponents' shots were three-pointers.



Year 3 made 3 att 3 pct 2 made 2 att 2 pct totmade tot att tot pct % threes
2012 88 269 0.327 405 849 0.477 493 1118 0.441 0.317
2011 176 543 0.324 720 1667 0.432 896 2210 0.405 0.326
2010 158 559 0.283 725 1643 0.441 883 2202 0.401 0.340
2009 183 542 0.338 722 1544 0.468 905 2086 0.434 0.351
2008 167 507 0.329 713 1518 0.470 880 2025 0.435 0.334
2007 139 441 0.315 626 1371 0.457 765 1812 0.422 0.322
2006 143 471 0.304 809 1744 0.464 952 2215 0.430 0.270
2005 128 420 0.305 655 1586 0.413 783 2006 0.390 0.265
2004 176 543 0.324 702 1614 0.435 878 2157 0.407 0.336
2003 164 474 0.346 675 1415 0.477 839 1889 0.444 0.335
2002 168 555 0.303 724 1559 0.464 892 2114 0.422 0.356
2001 207 602 0.344 821 1869 0.439 1028 2471 0.416 0.322
2000 197 551 0.358 737 1688 0.437 934 2239 0.417 0.326
1999 191 635 0.301 781 1849 0.422 972 2484 0.391 0.343
1998 156 512 0.305 685 1532 0.447 841 2044 0.411 0.334
1997 149 438 0.340 640 1433 0.447 789 1871 0.422 0.306


Our three-point defense seems OK. Six of the past 16 Duke teams were worse and two others were practically identical, so we're middle of the pack for a Duke team in defending the three. So far, so good. Except opponents try fewer threes against us this year than all but three of the past 16 seasons (2006, 2005, and 1997), which suggests the key lies in two-point shots. Where this year's team is tied for worst among the past 16 years in stopping the two-pointer.

I assume this means we're giving up a lot more dunks and layups than usual. Which I suppose I should have been able to guess without all the charts. Combine that with the low turnover rate, and it spells bad D, like we saw in the 2nd half against Florida State today.

How can we fix it? I don't know. Perhaps we should pack it in more, clog up the middle and force people to take more threes with people running at them, sort of like we saw from UVa. Maybe we need to take more chances and force more turnovers. Or possibly we just need to get better at rotating and/or stopping the penetration of opposing PGs.

Frankly, I was hoping for more illumination from the numbers, but you can't force the data. Since I did the work, I'm posting the charts, and maybe someone else will have a better idea.

Great work. The one thing I would say that really angers me is when I see Mason for instance just give up a lay up without trying to foul the guy. He does some lazy late shot block where he has absolutely no chance at preventing the layup. I think there should be a policy on the team that the #1 priority is that the other team does not get layups. If you have to foul them to put them on the line, do it. Frankly I'd like to see our bigs give a few hard fouls to the other team to let them know that you will get punished if you go to the rim. Duke has 4 bigs that can play. There is no reason why our bigs should be worrying about foul trouble.

[tommy]

Good stuff Kedsy. Thanks.

Good to see the eyeballs validated that it's our 2 point D as opposed to 3 point D, rebounding, etc. that is the problem. But then the question becomes: what aspect of our 2 point D is the real problem, because most shots taken are 2 pointers. Is it failure to stop dribble penetration, is it failure to recover/close onto shooters by our perimeter guys, poor play against screen/roll, is it failure by our bigs to stop post moves? My eyeballs tell me that it really has been a combination of things, different problems on different nights, different guys having better and worse nights, without a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it. I bet that is a source of frustration for the staff if they perceive what I do.

To me, our inability to stay in front on the perimeter has probably been a more glaring problem than some of the others, but I can't say that it has been the direct result of more baskets surrendered than any other particular problem. The numbers I have compiled in the charting threads shed some light, but they, like the Pomeroy numbers (though much less sophisticated than KenPom obviously) don't tell the whole story.

The best way to tell the real story is to go play-by-play and attribute each hoop to a particular problem and to a particular player(s) who caused the problem. I did that for our game earlier this year vs. Washington, and there is a thread on that, but it would need to be done over a series of games, or even better, the whole year, and it's just too time-consuming for anyone unless it would be their paying job to break it down like that. I guess that's why teams hire video coordinators -- that's what it takes to really drill down into this stuff. If I have time I may do it for this game, since everyone is so upset about the D we played, and I'm curious myself.

[Kedsy]

How can we fix it? I don't know. Perhaps we should pack it in more, clog up the middle and force people to take more threes with people running at them, sort of like we saw from UVa. Maybe we need to take more chances and force more turnovers. Or possibly we just need to get better at rotating and/or stopping the penetration of opposing PGs.

It's interesting to look at 2010. We had the worst defensive rebounding rate of the dozen years I charted, the 2nd worst free throw rate, and the 2nd worst turnover percentage. Yet we had the 4th best adjusted defensive efficiency in the land. Why? Because our defensive eFG% was our 2nd best over the past twelve seasons. Our defense against two-pointers was decent but not great (7th best in the past 16 years), but the reason our defensive eFG% was so good was we stopped the three-pointer at an astonishing rate, compared to the other Duke teams I looked at.

It's really cool. We were OK at stopping twos, but not that great, and we more or less sucked at every other component of defensive efficiency -- except we were amazing at just one thing. And that one thing made our defense good enough to win the national championship.

So maybe there's hope for this year's team. Let's get amazing at one thing, and perhaps the rest will follow...

[Greg_Newton]

I think it confirms what we see with the eye test: too many lay-ups, and no turnovers. It's not like teams ever really hit threes against us, so to have an eFG% that high means we're really doing a bad job of giving up high-percentage shots inside the arc.

The decent FT rate and rebounding percentage are somewhat of a testament to our big guys not being a major part of the problem, I think. It all boils down to our inability to effectively pressure the ball and keep guards out of the lane, and our lack of length to bother shots once they get there. Bad rotations and ball-screen defense aren't helping things either.

[Double DD]

And to add another point to what Kedsy said about the 2010 team being really good at one aspect and weak elsewhere and how that can be effective. It wasn't the only championship team to play like that. As a disclaimer, the era is obviously quite different and teams played quite differently, but the following is a nice illustration.

The team with by far the worst eFG% allowed for a Duke team since the advent of the 3-point line is actually the 1991-92 team. And they weren't great at defensive rebounding or forcing turnovers either but had an extremely low free throw rate. I can only guess by browsing through the stats of the other top teams for context, but this probably wasn't a top 10 defensive squad like the 2010 team, but it obviously did enough.

(Although that comparison only goes so far, since the '92 squad is probably one of the greatest offenses in NCAA history. They had by far the best offensive eFG% for any Duke team and it might the best of any NCAA team in the last 25 years.)

[tele]

Good summary, not sure if this fits the stats and def. eff., but I view it as a team defense question with the problem often being the second rotation, if not the first. And I think this has a lot to do with playing three guards and two bigs. A defender like Singler can cover and provide a great deal of help side d.

[CLW]

Nice post breaking down what many have concluded without the hard data.

I think several people here have thought that this team isn't quick/athletic enough to stay in front of the ball handler with extended man-to-man pressure defense. It seems to me that the only possible solution (or at least the most logical one) is to gravitate back to our 2010 style of defense (i.e. more of a packed in and contain).

Also if we are going to do this it might make the most sense to start both Plumlees and bring Kelly off of the bench b/c they are better rebounders and can take up more space in the paint that Ryan can.

[roywhite]

I think it confirms what we see with the eye test: too many lay-ups, and no turnovers. It's not like teams ever really hit threes against us, so to have an eFG% that high means we're really doing a bad job of giving up high-percentage shots inside the arc.

The decent FT rate and rebounding percentage are somewhat of a testament to our big guys not being a major part of the problem, I think. It all boils down to our inability to effectively pressure the ball and keep guards out of the lane, and our lack of length to bother shots once they get there. Bad rotations and ball-screen defense aren't helping things either.


Good summary, not sure if this fits the stats and def. eff., but I view it as a team defense question with the problem often being the second rotation, if not the first. And I think this has a lot to do with playing three guards and two bigs. A defender like Singler can cover and provide a great deal of help side d.

Went to the game yesterday, first one I've seen in person. As others have commented, it was one of the better college games of the season in terms of overall quality of play and competitiveness.

The morning after, I'm struck with a few observations that fit well with the analysis and comments in this thread:
Florida State is a physically mature team with big, long, strong, quick athletes
This year's Duke team does not have that caliber of athletes in abundance
We are especially lacking in not having a versatile, athletic player anywhere between 6'4" and 6'10"
Once an opposing team like FSU can penetrate our perimeter they overmatch our interior defense with a drive or good passing resulting in high quality shots, often lay-ups or dunks

Don't have any ready prescription for this type of defensive weakness; we have to play with the players we have.
Would certainly help to have shot a little better ourselves and win the game by just out-scoring the Seminoles.

I'm afraid our flaws on defense could lead to a real ceiling as to what this team can achieve.
We'll see what Coach K and the staff can do to adjust and improve.

[Devilsfan]

Everyone says we don't have the athletes to be an elite team. I still contend it's the chemistry and lack of leadership. We don't talk ( communicate) with each other on the court like teams in the past. The help defense suffers because of this lack of playing as a "fist" (K's term). I would gladly welcome a new recruit like say some kid from Las Vegas coming in and developIng into our on court leader because no one seems to be accepting the challenge currently.

[Reilly]

Another factor: what role, if any, does our offense play into all? If a Duke player has an ill-advised drive, gets knocked to the floor, and the other team has a 5 on 4 run-out that results in a layup, it's not necessarily a problem of us being unable to stop penetration, but rather a problem of offensive shot selection, hustling back, what have you. Maybe these happen so infrequently so as to not affect the numbers. Still, I'm curious as to how offensive productivity (we make the 2d FT; we make the FG) might affect the defensive end.

[Reilly]

...I still contend it's the chemistry and lack of leadership. ....

Who is our Billy King, our Wojo, our Shane Battier, our Zoubek? Who's the player who relishes playing D? TT?

[TampaDuke]

I think several people here have thought that this team isn't quick/athletic enough to stay in front of the ball handler with extended man-to-man pressure defense. It seems to me that the only possible solution (or at least the most logical one) is to gravitate back to our 2010 style of defense (i.e. more of a packed in and contain).

Was thinking the same thing. Seems to me our on ball defense far outside of the 3 point arc is not generating much by way of turnovers. Our whole defense seems to break down if the on ball defender is beaten. Since the opposing guards seem to have figured out to just drive around the on ball defender and go 5 on 4, the on ball pressure also doesn't seem to be as disruptive to the opponent's offense as in past years.

A this point I'd try sagging just below the arc by the guards, with the bigs packing it in. Shouldn't be as much of an adjustment since most of our guys did it in 2010.

[Kedsy]

OK, I made a slight mistake. I put opposing Defensive rebound percentage in the table rather than our defensive rebounding percentage.

Here's the correct table:



Year DReb% ft rate to % eFG%
2012 68.5 30.1 20.0 48.0
2011 66.8 29.6 21.0 44.5
2010 67.5 34.0 21.4 43.6
2009 66.8 31.0 23.5 47.8
2008 66.2 40.6 17.1 47.5
2007 69.6 31.9 24.7 46.0
2006 62.2 27.6 22.5 46.1
2005 63.2 32.0 21.8 42.2
2004 62.9 31.9 24.4 44.7
2003 65.1 37.6 24.4 47.5
2002 65.9 32.1 25.6 46.0
2001 63.8 28.3 24.9 45.7


It actually doesn't change much. This year's team actually has the 2nd best defensive rebounding percentage of the twelve years (rather than 3rd as I reported above). Although the best Duke defensive rebounding team of the past dozen years was the 2007 team, which gave me a little shiver.

The only substantive difference caused by my mistake is my analysis of the 2010 team. They were tied for 3rd best defensive rebounding pct, rather than the worst. Their free throw rate and turnover pct were both still 2nd worst, though, so for the most part my observation about that team still holds.

Sorry about the mixup.

[Kedsy]

A this point I'd try sagging just below the arc by the guards, with the bigs packing it in. Shouldn't be as much of an adjustment since most of our guys did it in 2010.

That was my original thought, too. But this morning, I wonder if our guards are tall enough to pull it off. Looking at the numbers, the 2010 team was only average (for a Duke team) at stopping the two, and if we played the same sort of D that team did, perhaps we can move our numbers stopping the two from awful to average. But that team stopped the three at by far the best rate of any Duke team in the past twelve years. We also featured a starting perimeter of 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. Our tallest perimeter now is 6'2, 6'5, 6'5. When Quinn or Tyler play, we're usually 6'0, 6'2, 6'5. And frankly I don't think Seth or Quinn are as tall as they're listed. If we're laying off the shooters and then running at them if they look like they're going to shoot, 6'0, 6'2, 6'5 is a LOT less likely to bother the shot than 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. So, I'm not sure the 2010 style would work for us this year.

[TampaDuke]

That was my original thought, too. But this morning, I wonder if our guards are tall enough to pull it off. Looking at the numbers, the 2010 team was only average (for a Duke team) at stopping the two, and if we played the same sort of D that team did, perhaps we can move our numbers stopping the two from awful to average. But that team stopped the three at by far the best rate of any Duke team in the past twelve years. We also featured a starting perimeter of 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. Our tallest perimeter now is 6'2, 6'5, 6'5. When Quinn or Tyler play, we're usually 6'0, 6'2, 6'5. And frankly I don't think Seth or Quinn are as tall as they're listed. If we're laying off the shooters and then running at them if they look like they're going to shoot, 6'0, 6'2, 6'5 is a LOT less likely to bother the shot than 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. So, I'm not sure the 2010 style would work for us this year.

Good points.

[OldPhiKap]

Who is our Billy King, our Wojo, our Shane Battier, our Zoubek? Who's the player who relishes playing D? TT?

I think Miles could become that man in the backcourt, and TT up top. Still think Seth could become a top-notch thief on the perimeter too -- he has very quick hands.

[CLW]

That was my original thought, too. But this morning, I wonder if our guards are tall enough to pull it off. Looking at the numbers, the 2010 team was only average (for a Duke team) at stopping the two, and if we played the same sort of D that team did, perhaps we can move our numbers stopping the two from awful to average. But that team stopped the three at by far the best rate of any Duke team in the past twelve years. We also featured a starting perimeter of 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. Our tallest perimeter now is 6'2, 6'5, 6'5. When Quinn or Tyler play, we're usually 6'0, 6'2, 6'5. And frankly I don't think Seth or Quinn are as tall as they're listed. If we're laying off the shooters and then running at them if they look like they're going to shoot, 6'0, 6'2, 6'5 is a LOT less likely to bother the shot than 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. So, I'm not sure the 2010 style would work for us this year.

That would be a problem and I suppose the only possible solution would be:

PG - Rivers 6'4"
SG - Dawkins 6'4"
SF - Gbinjie 6'7"
PF - Plumlee 6'10"
C - Plumlee 6'10"

[SoCalDukeFan]

not enough big players that K thinks are ready to play.

We have Mason and Miles as bigs, 10 fouls. I see Ryan as inside out, as a big 5 more fouls.
So against FSU we had to be careful not to get fouls inside in the second half and it hurt the defense.

This problem will continue unless he plays Josh or Michael more.

In 2010 we had 4 bigs, Brian, Lance and the Plumless. Kyle could and did play inside, as did Ryan some. 6 players, 30 fouls.

SoCal

[Bluealum]

Good points.

Agreed, the relative size of our guards make run outs to 3 point shooters an issue. A possible maxim: You can be long and a little slower, or short and very quick and forge an effective strategy. If you are short and not that quick you have a weakness waiting to be exploited.

The guard heights of the primary contenders in the ACC:

UNC (now w/o Strickland): 6' 4", 6' 6", 6' 8"
Fla St: 6' 5", 6' 5", 6' 5"
NC State: 6' 5", 6' 5", 6' 6"
Virginia: 5' 11", 6'1, 6' 6"

The only team with shorter guards (UVa) we managed to eke out a victory at home against and handled their guards fairly well. It was Scott who wore us down a bit.

We are going to figure out how we handle bigger guards in conference long before we are 'exposed' in the tourney one way or the other, as the games most meaningful to creating separation in the conference race all involve big guards for the rest of the year.

In fact UNC may well have one of the tallest starting five's in college basketball history. At least they aren't also loaded with quick penetrators which is a relief.

This teams greatest strength thus far is the athleticism of the brothers Plum. They have masked a lot of our guard defensive liabilities as they have controlled the interior fairly well even though they are often having to rotate and cover incessantly due to our need to play up on opposing guards and having them dribble by into the lane. At times it's not enough as it was way to easy for both Fla. State and Virginia to get the ball deep in the paint for their best scorers (Scott and James) in the second half, once they realized their advantage there.

Man if Mason leaves next year we are really going to see how we can operate without those two cleaning the glass, creating defensive headaches, and getting up and down the court at amazing speed for their size.

Let the tinkering continue...!


PS - Great stat work Kedsy, good to have objective measures even if they aren't conclusive.

[bird]

I think Miles could become that man in the backcourt, and TT up top. Still think Seth could become a top-notch thief on the perimeter too -- he has very quick hands.

Driving into work this morning the thought I had was this:

Miles needs to foul out more.

He's the most likely candidate to do a mid-late season emergence as a defensive stopper. He's got 5 fouls to give; if he has to use them to get into the right mode, then that's what should happen.

[DukieInBrasil]

Great work. The one thing I would say that really angers me is when I see Mason for instance just give up a lay up without trying to foul the guy. He does some lazy late shot block where he has absolutely no chance at preventing the layup. I think there should be a policy on the team that the #1 priority is that the other team does not get layups. If you have to foul them to put them on the line, do it. Frankly I'd like to see our bigs give a few hard fouls to the other team to let them know that you will get punished if you go to the rim. Duke has 4 bigs that can play. There is no reason why our bigs should be worrying about foul trouble.
I disagree completely with this comment. I saw Mason contest several easy dunks and came close to getting clean blocks on a couple. If the policy is to not let the other team get layups, which i agree with, then the onus is on the guards, cuz they are the ones letting the opposition get past them at will, into the lane for a layup or forcing our bigs to rotate away from their man, thus allowing for an easy dish for a layup from someone else. If our bigs actually followed your policy, we would end the game with all 4 on the bench, which doesn't help very much.
Yeah, lots of the layups are coming vs our bigs, but not b/c the bigs are failing to prevent easy layups, but b/c our guards are failing to prevent penetration.

[dukelifer]

That was my original thought, too. But this morning, I wonder if our guards are tall enough to pull it off. Looking at the numbers, the 2010 team was only average (for a Duke team) at stopping the two, and if we played the same sort of D that team did, perhaps we can move our numbers stopping the two from awful to average. But that team stopped the three at by far the best rate of any Duke team in the past twelve years. We also featured a starting perimeter of 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. Our tallest perimeter now is 6'2, 6'5, 6'5. When Quinn or Tyler play, we're usually 6'0, 6'2, 6'5. And frankly I don't think Seth or Quinn are as tall as they're listed. If we're laying off the shooters and then running at them if they look like they're going to shoot, 6'0, 6'2, 6'5 is a LOT less likely to bother the shot than 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. So, I'm not sure the 2010 style would work for us this year.

Seth and Quinn are both smaller than lister. I have stood next to both - I am 6' 2"- and they are shorter- maybe 6' and 5'11", respectively. I think that this team is fundamentally flawed to play K's defense as he has developed it. K can tinker but I am not sure it will help too much. Duke will need to outscore teams and mix up defenses down the stretch. This team is likely to be in every game it plays- but every game will come down to the wire in the ACC -particularly on the road. For Duke to win- they will need to make throws and limit turnovers. No one will take a night off against Duke- so this will be a wearing season- as it usually is. The D is not going to win it as in previous years. The margin for error is pretty small.

[SilkyJ]

It's interesting to look at 2010. We had the worst defensive rebounding rate of the dozen years I charted, the 2nd worst free throw rate, and the 2nd worst turnover percentage. Yet we had the 4th best adjusted defensive efficiency in the land. Why? Because our defensive eFG% was our 2nd best over the past twelve seasons. Our defense against two-pointers was decent but not great (7th best in the past 16 years), but the reason our defensive eFG% was so good was we stopped the three-pointer at an astonishing rate, compared to the other Duke teams I looked at.

It's really cool. We were OK at stopping twos, but not that great, and we more or less sucked at every other component of defensive efficiency -- except we were amazing at just one thing. And that one thing made our defense good enough to win the national championship.

So maybe there's hope for this year's team. Let's get amazing at one thing, and perhaps the rest will follow...

Kedsy- ESPN wouldn't give me the numbers for some reason, but didn't the 2010 team have a really high offensive rebounding rate? I seem to recall Zoubs was at or near the top of the offensive rebounding charts, at least based on a per 40min rate. (He only played 19mpg even in his senior year).

Point being, even then we were very good at two things so we've got to improve.

(not that this relates to defense 100%, but we also made better plays down the stretch that year...at some point I throw all the comparisons and number crunching out the door and think it comes down to who can make good, smart plays in the clutch.)

[lotusland]

Driving into work this morning the thought I had was this:

Miles needs to foul out more.

He's the most likely candidate to do a mid-late season emergence as a defensive stopper. He's got 5 fouls to give; if he has to use them to get into the right mode, then that's what should happen.

I never thought a Duke fan would want more Plumlee fouls but they've both done a good job eliminating the silly fouls they were both prone to commit in prior years.

[Devilsfan]

K must realize how good he had it with Nolan and Jon as his guards. He made reference to his recently graduated guards on his TV show. But that was then, this is now, let's look forward and hopefully bring in the kid from Nevada. Maybe he could be our Patriots #12.

[RoyalBlue08]

Interesting numbers, but it seems that they don't take into account our unusually tough non conference sechedule this year. Seems like these sort of analysis comparing different years would be effected by how many weak teams we were able to dominate each season.

[Kedsy]

That would be a problem and I suppose the only possible solution would be:

PG - Rivers 6'4"
SG - Dawkins 6'4"
SF - Gbinjie 6'7"
PF - Plumlee 6'10"
C - Plumlee 6'10"

Well, that might be a solution if Michael was ready to start and play big minutes, but I don't think he is.


Kedsy- ESPN wouldn't give me the numbers for some reason, but didn't the 2010 team have a really high offensive rebounding rate? I seem to recall Zoubs was at or near the top of the offensive rebounding charts, at least based on a per 40min rate. (He only played 19mpg even in his senior year).

Point being, even then we were very good at two things so we've got to improve.

(not that this relates to defense 100%, but we also made better plays down the stretch that year...at some point I throw all the comparisons and number crunching out the door and think it comes down to who can make good, smart plays in the clutch.)

Yes, of course that's true. On offense our 2010 team was amazing at two things (low turnovers and offensive rebounding), which made up for our really awful two-point shooting. When I said one thing (which in retrospect is closer to two things because our defensive rebounding wasn't as bad as I originally thought), I was talking about defense.


Interesting numbers, but it seems that they don't take into account our unusually tough non conference sechedule this year. Seems like these sort of analysis comparing different years would be effected by how many weak teams we were able to dominate each season.

That may be, but they were the only numbers I had. Even Pomeroy doesn't adjust the "four factors" for competition, at least he doesn't as far as I know. I got my numbers from statsheet.com.

[Kedsy]

Seth and Quinn are both smaller than lister. I have stood next to both - I am 6' 2"- and they are shorter- maybe 6' and 5'11", respectively. I think that this team is fundamentally flawed to play K's defense as he has developed it. K can tinker but I am not sure it will help too much. Duke will need to outscore teams and mix up defenses down the stretch. This team is likely to be in every game it plays- but every game will come down to the wire in the ACC -particularly on the road. For Duke to win- they will need to make throws and limit turnovers. No one will take a night off against Duke- so this will be a wearing season- as it usually is. The D is not going to win it as in previous years. The margin for error is pretty small.

Hmm. Also, in my earlier post I mistakenly said 6'5 for Austin and Andre, when of course they're both 6'4. If you're right about Seth and Quinn (and as I said earlier, I suspect you are), that means the biggest we can be is 6'0, 6'4, 6'4, and the starting lineup with Quinn is 5'11, 6'0, 6'4. That's really, really small.

[loldevilz]

It's interesting to look at 2010. We had the worst defensive rebounding rate of the dozen years I charted, the 2nd worst free throw rate, and the 2nd worst turnover percentage. Yet we had the 4th best adjusted defensive efficiency in the land. Why? Because our defensive eFG% was our 2nd best over the past twelve seasons. Our defense against two-pointers was decent but not great (7th best in the past 16 years), but the reason our defensive eFG% was so good was we stopped the three-pointer at an astonishing rate, compared to the other Duke teams I looked at.

It's really cool. We were OK at stopping twos, but not that great, and we more or less sucked at every other component of defensive efficiency -- except we were amazing at just one thing. And that one thing made our defense good enough to win the national championship.

So maybe there's hope for this year's team. Let's get amazing at one thing, and perhaps the rest will follow...

The problem is that we aren't going to see major changes unless the personnel is adjusted. I don't know if it was you I had this discussion with, but someone was saying that they were certain that Duke would just get better on defense when Dawkins, Curry ect just played harder/ better. The problem is that this simply hasn't happened. Duke's defensive efficiency has basically been in free fall the last month.

Also its pure speculation that Gbinije isn't able to play major minutes. This guy was top 25 player in his class, 5* talent that almost every scout said could contribute immediately. Every time he's played he's locked down the guy he's guard. I think its much more likely that the amount of guard depth Duke has prevents him from playing more.

[CrazieDUMB]

Can someone with a Kenpom membership look up our "effective height" stats? I would bet it's one of the lowest in the ACC, and it has a lot to do with our guys not being able to get in the passing lanes and clog up the paint.

[tbyers11]

Can someone with a Kenpom membership look up our "effective height" stats? I would bet it's one of the lowest in the ACC, and it has a lot to do with our guys not being able to get in the passing lanes and clog up the paint.

Strangely, we are 4th in the country in effective height according to KenPom. 2nd in the ACC behind only UNC. However, this is due primarily to being 16th at C and 2nd at PF from the combo of Miles, Mason and Ryan that get most of the minutes there. We are 174th, 153rd and 105th at SF, SG and PG, respectively. So you are correct that we are short in the backcourt.

[tbyers11]

Interesting numbers, but it seems that they don't take into account our unusually tough non conference sechedule this year. Seems like these sort of analysis comparing different years would be effected by how many weak teams we were able to dominate each season.

Kedsy is correct that KenPom doesn't adjust the "four factors" for schedule. They are raw statistics. He computes the raw defensive efficiency from them and then calculates the Adjusted DE based on schedule strength. For reference, we are currently 149th in raw DE vs 84th in Adj DE. Along the same lines, we are 6th in raw OE vs 3rd in Adj OE.

[MChambers]

Strangely, we are 4th in the country in effective height according to KenPom. 2nd in the ACC behind only UNC. However, this is due primarily to being 16th at C and 2nd at PF from the combo of Miles, Mason and Ryan that get most of the minutes there. We are 174th, 153rd and 105th at SF, SG and PG, respectively. So you are correct that we are short in the backcourt.
I think effective height only measures the height of the two biggest players on the floor. As you say, Duke's big there.

Of course, the 1986 team didn't have a very big perimeter, and had an amazing season. So size doesn't always matter. But we don't do a good job of pressuring the other team's guards.

[Double DD]

Hmm. Also, in my earlier post I mistakenly said 6'5 for Austin and Andre, when of course they're both 6'4. If you're right about Seth and Quinn (and as I said earlier, I suspect you are), that means the biggest we can be is 6'0, 6'4, 6'4, and the starting lineup with Quinn is 5'11, 6'0, 6'4. That's really, really small.

Both Rivers and Dawkins have been measured at 6'5" in shoes at camps. And every other team seems to list players in shoes (a personal pet peeve about basketball), so it might be a better measurement for comparison.

[roywhite]

I think effective height only measures the height of the two biggest players on the floor. As you say, Duke's big there.

Of course, the 1986 team didn't have a very big perimeter, and had an amazing season. So size doesn't always matter. But we don't do a good job of pressuring the other team's guards.

Just smiling recalling how Johnny Dawkins and Tommy Amaker could spring a trap on the opposing ball handler. Disrupted opposing offenses and often led to turnovers, and they knew what to do with turnovers!

[sagegrouse]

OK, I made a slight mistake. I put opposing Defensive rebound percentage in the table rather than our defensive rebounding percentage.

Here's the correct table:



Year DReb% ft rate to % eFG%
2012 68.5 30.1 20.0 48.0
2011 66.8 29.6 21.0 44.5
2010 67.5 34.0 21.4 43.6
2009 66.8 31.0 23.5 47.8
2008 66.2 40.6 17.1 47.5
2007 69.6 31.9 24.7 46.0
2006 62.2 27.6 22.5 46.1
2005 63.2 32.0 21.8 42.2
2004 62.9 31.9 24.4 44.7
2003 65.1 37.6 24.4 47.5
2002 65.9 32.1 25.6 46.0
2001 63.8 28.3 24.9 45.7


It actually doesn't change much. This year's team actually has the 2nd best defensive rebounding percentage of the twelve years (rather than 3rd as I reported above). Although the best Duke defensive rebounding team of the past dozen years was the 2007 team, which gave me a little shiver.

The only substantive difference caused by my mistake is my analysis of the 2010 team. They were tied for 3rd best defensive rebounding pct, rather than the worst. Their free throw rate and turnover pct were both still 2nd worst, though, so for the most part my observation about that team still holds.

Sorry about the mixup.

Kedsy, I sliced and diced your data, and there was very little correlation between the team's total winning percentage and any of the stats. Then when the DReb% changed, there was a correlation -- but it was negative! For some reason, the last six years have had the highest defensive rebounding percentage of the last 12.


So then I started looking for trend lines. Holy moly! Our defensive rebounding is increasing over time, with a correlation coefficient of +0.61 (the stat goes between +1.0 and -1.0). Our TO forced stat is declining over time with a -0.79 correlation coefficient. So, we are doing better in recent years with defensive rebounds, but our ballhawking is not as effective.

I wouldn't make anything of the stats except that none of the other correlations seem to show anything.

sage

[Kedsy]

Kedsy, I sliced and diced your data, and there was very little correlation between the team's total winning percentage and any of the stats. Then when the DReb% changed, there was a correlation -- but it was negative! For some reason, the last six years have had the highest defensive rebounding percentage of the last 12.


So then I started looking for trend lines. Holy moly! Our defensive rebounding is increasing over time, with a correlation coefficient of +0.61 (the stat goes between +1.0 and -1.0). Our TO forced stat is declining over time with a -0.79 correlation coefficient. So, we are doing better in recent years with defensive rebounds, but our ballhawking is not as effective.

I wouldn't make anything of the stats except that none of the other correlations seem to show anything.

sage

OK, this is kind of embarrassing, but when I fixed the first error, I pasted the new data into the wrong table in my spreadsheet. My 2nd table had bad data for 2007 and 2008. But I just noticed I used the wrong table when I saw your post.

So here is the correct data:



Year DReb% ft rate to % eFG%
2012 68.5 30.1 20.0 48.0
2011 66.8 29.6 21.0 44.5
2010 67.5 34.0 21.4 43.6
2009 66.8 31.0 23.5 47.8
2008 66.2 31.9 24.7 47.5
2007 69.6 29.5 22.1 46.0
2006 62.2 27.6 22.5 46.1
2005 63.2 32.0 21.8 42.2
2004 62.9 31.9 24.4 44.7
2003 65.1 37.6 24.4 47.5
2002 65.9 32.1 25.6 46.0
2001 63.8 28.3 24.9 45.7


Maybe the correlation will be better now? Although obviously wins and losses are a combination of offense and defense -- according to Pomeroy, our defense in 2006-07 was 5th best in the country, but obviously the offense (and the wins) didn't correlate to that.

Sorry about making another mistake.

Regarding our defensive rebounding increasing over time, that makes sense. Rebounding was always considered our weakest defensive attribute back in the 80s and 90s, and obviously that continued into the mid 2000s.

[NSDukeFan]

We keep talking about how this year's team has the worst defensive efficiency in the Pomeroy era, so I thought it might be worthwhile to break it down and analyze the pieces.

According to Pomeroy, there are four factors that go into defensive efficiency: defensive rebounding percentage (what percentage of available defensive rebounds do you get); free throw rate (how often do you send your opponent to the free throw line); turnover percentage (what percentage of your opponents possessions end up in a turnover; and effective field goal percentage (shooting percentage counting made three-point shots as 1.5 and made two-point shots as 1.0).

...

Our three-point defense seems OK. Six of the past 16 Duke teams were worse and two others were practically identical, so we're middle of the pack for a Duke team in defending the three. So far, so good. Except opponents try fewer threes against us this year than all but three of the past 16 seasons (2006, 2005, and 1997), which suggests the key lies in two-point shots. Where this year's team is tied for worst among the past 16 years in stopping the two-pointer.

I assume this means we're giving up a lot more dunks and layups than usual. Which I suppose I should have been able to guess without all the charts. Combine that with the low turnover rate, and it spells bad D, like we saw in the 2nd half against Florida State today.

How can we fix it? I don't know. Perhaps we should pack it in more, clog up the middle and force people to take more threes with people running at them, sort of like we saw from UVa. Maybe we need to take more chances and force more turnovers. Or possibly we just need to get better at rotating and/or stopping the penetration of opposing PGs.

Frankly, I was hoping for more illumination from the numbers, but you can't force the data. Since I did the work, I'm posting the charts, and maybe someone else will have a better idea.

Thanks for your research. Interesting thread that has led to some good discussion. I believe (maybe over optimistically so) that the answer is the bolded part above. I remember thinking last year's team would generate a bunch of turnovers leading to some easy hoops, but that didn't happen. This team does have a few quick guards, so there is the possibility of generating more turnovers, but I think the team has to get better at rotations first so that when our guards are beaten, the whole team is ready to help them recover. Then, the guards may be able to take more risks and perhaps generate some more steals and make interior passing more difficult. One reason I have confidence that this team can improve on its rotations is that I think the team was very focused the first half and did a great job as a defensive team. I am hoping for more of that and more consistency as the year goes on.

[sagegrouse]

OK, this is kind of embarrassing, but when I fixed the first error, I pasted the new data into the wrong table in my spreadsheet. My 2nd table had bad data for 2007 and 2008. But I just noticed I used the wrong table when I saw your post.

So here is the correct data:


Maybe the correlation will be better now? Although obviously wins and losses are a combination of offense and defense -- according to Pomeroy, our defense in 2006-07 was 5th best in the country, but obviously the offense (and the wins) didn't correlate to that.

Sorry about making another mistake.

Regarding our defensive rebounding increasing over time, that makes sense. Rebounding was always considered our weakest defensive attribute back in the 80s and 90s, and obviously that continued into the mid 2000s.

Kedsy:

I think I accidentally used the correct data. I just stripped in the DReb% and left the other stats unchanged, and did not pick up the other problems. So, the results are as I stated above.

sage

[lotusland]

I'm not much of an analytical thinker when it comes to hoops so the stats don't tell me much. Call it flying by the seat of my pants but I'd rather just evaluate what I see than crunch the numbers. With that in mind I watched the FSU game again to try to get a handle on where the defense broke down and I have to say I'm baffled. It just wasn't really horrible defense. Our guys were definitely competing hard and, in many ways, I thought we defended much better than earlier in the season. We didn't give up a whole lot of uncontested layups or dunks. It seemed more like they were able to get the ball inside frequently either by penetrating or passing and our bigs were consistently a half step slow rotating to defend. Our guards definitely played a soft man to man D on the perimeter and either went under screens or fought through half heartedly. Definitely not trpical Duke D but it appeared to be by design perhaps to compensate for our lack or size and/or speed. So did the bigs rotate too slow or were the unfettered drives and passes the culprit? Beats me.

I don't think it was a bad loss though. In fact if the last second shot didn't fall and Duke pulled it out instead we wouldn't be doing all this hand-wringing anyway. Duke played well enough to win but they just made one more play than us at the end. In regard to the two controversies count me in the Austin was fouled and it should have been called camp. The contact was obvious and it was before the shot and Austin got to the spot first and didn't force the contact. To me that's a foul on the first or last possession of a game. As far Dre's D on the last play I don't think it was bad. If he had move out to cover Saer sooner, Louks would have dribbled past Ryan for a possible layup. Instead Dre hedged, Louks made the pass and Saer drained the shot.

I think Duke is improving gradually and I expect the Defense to continue to get better but unless we can get another year of eligibility for Grant Hill to shut down the perimeter or Sheldon to erase the mistakes I don't think we're going to be a great defensive team this year.

[airowe]

Interesting numbers, but it seems that they don't take into account our unusually tough non conference sechedule this year. Seems like these sort of analysis comparing different years would be effected by how many weak teams we were able to dominate each season.

We have played the #2 toughest offensive schedule, the #3 toughest defensive schedule, and the #1 toughest schedule overall according to kenpom.com. (http://kenpom.com/) I'm sure it has effected the numbers quite a bit.

[superdave]

A quick brainstorm on the possible changes Coach K could implement to make our D better:

1. Pack it in more. Have the guards sag back to cut off driving lanes, forcing opponents to shoot more jump shots. Use our interior size to control the defensive boards.

2. Ratchet up the pressure D. Have the guards and wings overplay the passing lanes and bring pressure starting at the mid-court line.

3. Utilize depth more and play full-court defense.

4. Junk defenses. Throw zones, traps and full-court D at opponents a couple of possessions each half to break their rhythm.

5. Maximize effort on one or two strengths. I'm not sure what those might be but potentially defending the 3, defensive rebounding, taking out the opponents best player.

6. Keep the same scheme, hope everyone improves with more practice and games. Consistent intensity is important here (and in all of these, for that matter)

What am I missing? I'll be interested in seeing what wrinkles Coach K brings the next few weeks. We are getting close to the point this season where we are who we are and our guys just have to buckle down and start executing at a higher level.

[COYS]

I'm not much of an analytical thinker when it comes to hoops so the stats don't tell me much. Call it flying by the seat of my pants but I'd rather just evaluate what I see than crunch the numbers. With that in mind I watched the FSU game again to try to get a handle on where the defense broke down and I have to say I'm baffled. It just wasn't really horrible defense. Our guys were definitely competing hard and, in many ways, I thought we defended much better than earlier in the season. We didn't give up a whole lot of uncontested layups or dunks. It seemed more like they were able to get the ball inside frequently either by penetrating or passing and our bigs were consistently a half step slow rotating to defend. Our guards definitely played a soft man to man D on the perimeter and either went under screens or fought through half heartedly. Definitely not trpical Duke D but it appeared to be by design perhaps to compensate for our lack or size and/or speed. So did the bigs rotate too slow or were the unfettered drives and passes the culprit? Beats me.

I don't think it was a bad loss though. In fact if the last second shot didn't fall and Duke pulled it out instead we wouldn't be doing all this hand-wringing anyway. Duke played well enough to win but they just made one more play than us at the end. In regard to the two controversies count me in the Austin was fouled and it should have been called camp. The contact was obvious and it was before the shot and Austin got to the spot first and didn't force the contact. To me that's a foul on the first or last possession of a game. As far Dre's D on the last play I don't think it was bad. If he had move out to cover Saer sooner, Louks would have dribbled past Ryan for a possible layup. Instead Dre hedged, Louks made the pass and Saer drained the shot.

I think Duke is improving gradually and I expect the Defense to continue to get better but unless we can get another year of eligibility for Grant Hill to shut down the perimeter or Sheldon to erase the mistakes I don't think we're going to be a great defensive team this year.

Lotus, I completely agree with this analysis WRT how hard we played. I found myself not particularly dismayed that we lost. I thought the team played really tough. FSU just hit more shots than we did. We missed a large number of wide open shots that would have put the game away earlier. I actually thought we handled their defense pretty well. I still would have liked to see Mason get more touches in the post, but FSU was doing a good job cutting off our entry passes. Defensively, we played well in the first half and struggled in the second half as fouls started to mount. However, I thought our effort was more consistent in this game than it has been in any other game against top competition this season. Our adjusted defensive efficiency numbers suffered terribly after this game in large part because of how poorly FSU was to start the season. Scoring 10 points in a half against Princeton NEVER looks good. That being said, it's clear FSU is capable of better, as they've shown against Duke and UNC.

Now, all of that being said, I too am concerned about the overall defensive efficiency stats compared to other seasons. Our offense is really, really good. We have an insane number of scoring options and can score both inside and out. We also seem to be improving our offensive efficiency as the season goes on. However, the defense is trending in the opposite direction. I am a little perplexed as to how to improve it, just as others are. I understand why some think that someone like Mike G might help out because he brings size and athleticism to the 3 spot that we are currently lacking. However, he has been, to my eyes and to tommy's excellent defensive breakdowns, one of the worst defenders when he's been on the floor. The athletic ability might be there, but he still needs to develop his skills.

One area where there might be concern for hope, however, is in the softer schedule in the ACC schedule when it comes to opposing offenses. While I know that KenPom adjusts for the strength of competition meaning that our defensive stats are not artificially made worse because of the strength of opposing offenses, I think something might be said for our defense improving as the quality of opposing offenses drops off a bit. As everyone knows, pretty much ever player on Duke this season was thrust into a new role. While the team has enjoyed a lot of success on offense, it has been thrown to the wolves on defense. It is possible that with everyone in new roles we were a step slow on defense from the get-go, forcing us to constantly scramble to make up for mistakes in rotations, switches on screens, and communication. Being over-matched at times on defense makes it harder to develop the on-court chemistry that some of our other teams have had. I know our defensive ratings continue to drop, but I feel like it's hard to deny that Duke hasn't played excellent defenses for long stretches of our ACC games, thus far, including our first half against FSU. Perhaps there isn't a magical solution and we can just hope that the team is able to lengthen those stretches of tough defense until they are playing consistently throughout the game. The size of opposing backcourts will be an issue all season, but if we can become consistent enough to prevent 2-3 more easy buckets per game, it will have a BIG impact on our overall efficiency. There were many good things to take away from the FSU game, despite the loss. Hopefully we can continue to build on those good things and start to put the defense together in the second half of this season.

[NSDukeFan]

I think it is interesting that normally it is defend well, so that when the shots aren't falling, you still have a chance to win. With this team it seems to be score consistently, so that when the defense isn't playing well, you still have a chance to win. The offensive has been pretty consistent this year, though it could have been a bit better at times, but the team hasn't been consistent yet defensively. I am hoping the first half against FSU is a sign that the defense can get there. I agree that the effort and toughness was there all game vs. FSU, which is why I can't be overly disappointed in the loss. I expected there would be some inconsistency this year with Nolan and Kyle gone, but so far the team has been better offensively? than last year, but much more inconsistent defensively. I think this team has a great chance to keep improving. At 16-3 (4-1 ACC), this team is probably doing a bit better than I would have predicted at the beginning of the year and has a very good chance to add some more hardware before the season is over.

[superdave]

I think it is interesting that normally it is defend well, so that when the shots aren't falling, you still have a chance to win. With this team it seems to be score consistently, so that when the defense isn't playing well, you still have a chance to win. The offensive has been pretty consistent this year, though it could have been a bit better at times, but the team hasn't been consistent yet defensively. I am hoping the first half against FSU is a sign that the defense can get there. I agree that the effort and toughness was there all game vs. FSU, which is why I can't be overly disappointed in the loss. I expected there would be some inconsistency this year with Nolan and Kyle gone, but so far the team has been better offensively? than last year, but much more inconsistent defensively. I think this team has a great chance to keep improving. At 16-3 (4-1 ACC), this team is probably doing a bit better than I would have predicted at the beginning of the year and has a very good chance to add some more hardware before the season is over.

Of course every Duke fan expects Duke to be great. And we've seen some great Duke defenses over the years, mainly because that is Coach K's calling card. So when we have some glaring weaknesses on D, we expect Coach K to correct them because we've seen him do it before. It's just not obvious to mewhat those corrections should be at this point. But from an Xs and Os standpoint it will be really interesting to see the adjustments, big and small, and follow how they play out.

Duke probably has played better than most of us would have expected. But I think we all see room for growth and we know it can happen quickly. I'd even say we're excited about the possibility of a 2010-type repeat where Coach K finds just the right formula and maximizes this team's potential. It's unlikely, but that possibility is not far from reality. We've got the talent. Arm-chair quarterbacking is more fun than sweating the recruiting stuff, anyways!

[hq2]

Physically, this team has matchup problems. We're a little short in the backcourt, we can't defend
quick 3s, and a little slow in the frontcourt. Teams with some size and quickness at the two and
three spots know how to spread the floor against us, get our bigs away from the basket, and
attack the middle.

t think we need to mix in some 2-3 zone when the other team is penetrating well. Not a lot,
but enough to throw off their rhythm some and make them think. K doesn't like to do it,
but this team is designed for it.

[greybeard]

Good summary, not sure if this fits the stats and def. eff., but I view it as a team defense question with the problem often being the second rotation, if not the first. And I think this has a lot to do with playing three guards and two bigs. A defender like Singler can cover and provide a great deal of help side d.

Bingo! In addition, Scheyer was one amazing on and off ball defender who saw the game before the offensive players did or at least better; he was also long and no slouch as an athlete--anticipating correctly, stopping what an offensive player wants to do, making a preferred passing angle or penetration angle difficult, if not impossible, are generally regarded as "unathletic attributes" although I should not know why. Then there was Nolan-nuff said, fast, smart, long, and as tough as they come. In the end, there was the Z man and his buddy; how they altered play, who can possibly measure or try to imagine besides K, the guys who had to play against them, and the opposing coaches.

This team is designed to outpoint and wear you down on the exterior (the central game is trading three chances for twos, and getting to the basket off the bounce to win the game at those positions. The team has only three interior defenders who are undersized. Their ability to hurt people and expend a lot of energy trying to stop them on the other end I think is crucial to success against teams that can really give Duke a game. I'm beginning to think that K thinks that too.

[tommy]

OK this has been an excellent discussion of our defense. Lots of different impressions of what’s going on. I thought it might be helpful to supplement everyone’s eyeball impressions and really break it down, play by play, and analyze it. Most agree that our first half D against FSU was fine, but not so much the second. So I broke down frame-by-frame every 2nd half possession by FSU that resulted in points for them, and analyzed each play.They are below, with the time of the possession or shot indicated first.

I have not attempted to compile the results and categorize them, such as “on x number of occasions the basket was caused by poor communication by our bigs while on x number it was a loss of focus by so-and-so.” Sometimes, as you’ll see, it’s hard to assess that sort of “blame.”Other times, it’s not hard at all. But maybe if someone else wants to take this data and take a shot at summarizing it, go ahead. I just don’t have the time to do it right now.

I will also be posting the charting data for this game, hopefully later today, and I’ll be breaking that down between the two halves too. In any event, here is the play-by-play of each FSU score in the second half. Look forward, as always, to your comments.


So here goes:

1942: Miles gets caught by back screen by Seth’s man in mid-lane, Seth is underneath and surely saw James using screen and cutting low to receive the pass, but instead headed to FT line with his own man after he was done setting the screen. Maybe not the best decision by Seth, but can’t really fault him either, especially since at time he made the decision the passer on the wing still had the ball and Seth’s man was cutting to the FT line and could’ve just as easily received a pass for an open shot had Seth stayed low with James, who he would’ve been very unlikely to stop anyway. Miles did make an OK recovery on James at the baseline once he received the pass, but he was a little late and out of position, and couldn’t stop James from beating him to the other side of the hoop for the semi-awkward, semi-reverse jam. Who’s “at fault” for this? Sort of a little of each of them, but it was just a well-designed and well-executed play by FSU, truth be told.

1850: Post-offensive rebound by FSU, our defense is distorted, mismatches at several positions. Rivers made a probably unwise attempt at a steal on a semi-loose ball from a strange angle 30’ from the hoop, but his miss meant that Miles gets caught way outside on Miller (Austin’s man), who shot-fakes him, Miles goes for it, Miller goes around him and to the hoop. Mason puts his arms up and jumps on the help attempt, but Miller scores it. The “original sin” if you will, was Austin’s failed steal attempt, but if he succeeds, it’s a live-ball turnover and an easy hoop for us, so do we really want to fault him for that? Once Miles gets caught on Miller outside, he’s in trouble, and that’s not really his fault either. Mason made a decent block attempt with his help down low, but Miller made a tough shot over two bigs.

1815: Miles lets James catch 8’ from hoop on right side. James backs him into the lane, shoots 6 foot hook over him. Mason did not provide help, but if he had, his man would’ve been wide open had James opted to dump it to him for a layup/dunk. This was just a 1-on-1 post move and James made a nice shot over Miles’ OK defense – failure to deny the pass, but then he at least challenged the shot.

1754: Live-ball turnover by Andre/Mason in frontcourt leads to runout for FSU. Ends up a 2-on-1 with Dulkys getting the easy layup after the pass from Gibson. Fault: our turnover on offense. Not a defensive lapse here. Timeout Duke.

1645: Mason, guarding Gibson on the outside, turns his head, watching the ball only. Gibson goes backdoor and straight down the lane. Loucks hits him with a perfect lob for the dunk. Rivers was weakside and looks like he saw the play developing but failed to step in and prevent Gibson from getting down the lane. If he had, Gibson wouldn’t have had the opportunity to jump to catch the alley oop and if he had it would’ve been a charge. This was both a poor individual play on the perimeter by Mason and a failure of the “team” defense by Austin.

1532: Loucks gets a backscreen at the left elbow, cuts down and around to the right corner. Seth trails him to the corner. Loucks gets the pass, shot fakes, dribbles past Seth into the lane. Mason comes over and helps off of his man (Kreft), who Loucks drops it off to for a layup. Kelly was right there next to Kreft too and should’ve helped better on him and contested the shot better. “Fault” I suppose is to be shared by Seth, for getting faked out, and the bigs, for not helping better.

1403: After good moving-the-feet and staying in front by Rivers, then by Curry, the ball is swung to Miller, who catches 20’ away. Miller takes one dribble past Ty and banks in a 7 footer. Ryan really didn’t have much chance to help. Fault: Thornton’s inability to stop one-dribble penetration.

1315: High screen by White (guarded by Kelly) for Miller, guarded by Rivers. Ryan hedges just fine, but Austin kinda hangs around near Miller too, but not doing much to bother him, but in the meantime leaving White to head to the hoop unguarded. The easy pass to White is made. Mason comes over to help, contests, and fouls him hard. White hits both throws. Fault: Rivers’ poor handling of the high screen/roll. Not sure if he’s unclear on the concept (doubtful at this point) or whether he was unfocused, but he was nowhere near where he was supposed to be on this.

1201: Inbounds play, Seth gets screened. His man has the dribble, Miles helps and moves his feet nicely to cut off the dribbler, Peterson, at least for awhile. Peterson ultimately does make it into the lane but is deterred by Miles staying with him. Thornton, apparently thinking that the dribbler might keep going and turn the corner on Miles (which he never did), plays way off his man (Miller) and cheats almost into the lane, leaving Miller wide open at the 3 point line for the pass. Ty hustles back to get a hand up, but it’s nails. Fault: I think you’d have to say Thornton, for playing too far off his man at the 3 point line when, even had Peterson kept his drive alive, both Miles and Kelly were in the lane to contest him.

1123: While FSU is setting a high screen for Snaer, with Ryan hedging, Dulkys is setting a backscreen at the low right block for James (I think it is). Dawkins, covering Dulkeys, and Miles, covering James communicate poorly. Dawkins stays low with James and Miles doesn’t jump out on Dulkys, who pops out after setting the downscreen. Instead, Miles follows James too. Both our guys are on James and neither is on Dulkys, who catches the pass and buries the nobody-in-his-area-code 3. Ryan tried to contest it with a hand up, but he was way too far away. Not his fault – Dulkys should’ve never been left that alone to begin with. Poor communication, poor team defense here.

930: Ryan allows Gibson to catch about 9’ from hoop on the left. Gibson takes a dribble, spins baseline and Ryan fouls him on the shot. Nice move by Gibson. No real opportunity for Miles to help, which is why it was smart of Gibson to spin to the base, away from the help. Hits both free throws.

854: Rivers gets shot faked at the 3 point line, his man dribbles past him towards the baseline. Kelly helps off of Gibson onto the driver, and Gibson floats out to the 3 point line. The pass is made back to Gibson. Thornton, covering Dulkys at the top of the key, comes over to the area, apparently intending to contest what appears will be a Gibson shot. So Gibson smartly fakes a pass to Dulkys, who is spotting up for a 3. Thornton goes for the fake, runs back towards Dulkys, leaving Gibson to take the 3 which Ryan belatedly and weakly comes out to contest. “Fault” has to be shared on all 3 guys on this one. Rivers got shot faked to begin the distortion of our defense. Thornton, I think, needed to stay on Gibson once the pass went to him, trusting someone else to rotate onto Dulkys. (the staff may have told him to stick with Dulkys no matter what given how hot he’s been lately though, and let Gibson shoot). Ryan needed to recover more quickly and contest Gibson’s shot regardless of what the much smaller Thornton was doing. Gibson buried the 3. Not good team defense here, unless, again, the staff told them to take their chances with a guy like Gibson from long range, which would have been quite a reasonable gamble.

652: High screen results in Miles and Andre switching. Miles now has to guard Snaer on the outside. Snaer, predictably, takes him to the hoop. He turns the corner, gets into the lane, and goes all the way to the basket. Austin Rivers has his head turned as Snaer is barreling down the lane so has no concept of trying to take a charge or contesting Snaer’s shot in any way. Miles tried to swat at it from behind, but no way. Mason was on the other side of the lane and not close enough to help/contest. While yes, Miles was beaten off the dribble, I don’t think it’s fair to expect him really to stay with a guy like Snaer on the outside. Rivers has to be paying attention and be moving into position to take a charge in this situation, IMO. Failure of help D.

541: Seth’s man sets a backscreen on Mason on the left side of the paint. He doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. But Seth, seeing that Mason was being screened, needed to pick up Mason’s man (James) but he didn’t. He just stayed with his own man. Mason had to fight through all that traffic in the lane to try to get to James, which he did, but by that time James had the ball and had the advantage and he was able to get it over Mason pretty easily. I think the primary cause of this hoop was Seth missing his assignment.

523: Live-ball turnover by us (poor pass on the perimeter by Austin, intercepted by James) leads to breakaway dunk attempt that Mason has to foul him from behind to stop. Mason’s 4th foul. James hits 1 of 2. Fault was the turnover by us on the offensive end.

450: On the second of two consecutive high screen/hedge plays, Ryan makes an aggressive hedge on Loucks, but is called for the block. Loucks nails both throws.

402: Loucks drives on Curry from the outside, Seth called for a foul on the drive. Len Elmore opined “that’s a hold right there” despite it being Seth who ended up on his butt on the play. I didn’t see a reach or a hold, or a pushoff on Loucks either for that matter. After the under-4 timeout Loucks hits one and misses one. I don’t know what you attribute these points to.

257: Out of bounds play for FSU. Miles and Mason have their two bigs underneath. As Loucks is dribbling around the free throw line, Miles kinda gets lost between their two bigs, loses sight of his own man, James. Loucks drills a pass to James, forcing Mason to step over to him (this is all in close quarters in there.) James drops a nice little pass to Gibson (Mason’s man) for the dunk. Not sure what Miles was thinking here or why, if he thought he and Mason were going to switch, why that was necessary at that point. Loss of focus/poor communication.

240: Rivers goes 1-on-2, gets blocked, and FSU gets a runout. Seth does a nice job forcing a tough runner going away from the basket by Dulkys, but James grabs the errant shot as Miles mis-times his jump and Mason doesn’t jump for it at all. James lays it in.

158: Miles got screened on the left (well, it was more of a bodyblock, actually), freeing James to get to the right block. Miles tried to recover, and actually did so fairly well, but James took a step into the lane and hit a tough little hook over him. Nice shot. But no help effort by Mason here.

100: Snaer catches on the right wing, Dawkins on him. Snaer drives left, into the lane, lot of chest-to-chest contact with Andre, good no call, but Snaer, upon bouncing off Dawkins, puts up a quick little jumper in the lane and it’s good. Again, weak help effort by Mason, as he allowed Snaer to slip between himself and Andre instead of cutting the drive off completely.

036: Desperation time after Seth’s missed 3. Andre fouls Loucks in the backcourt intentionally (not that kind of intentional). He hits 1 of 2.

018: Another intentional foul, this time Seth on Gibson. Again, hits 1 of 2.

000: Obviously the winning 3 pointer. I know there has been a lot of discussion on the boards of Andre’s positioning on this play, but I am looking at this again and again, frame by frame, and at the time Loucks makes the pass, he is on the move, about 8 or 10 feet above the arc, dead center of the floor. Kelly is standing at the top of the arc. Dawkins has not one, but both feet in the lane, and he’s a good 12 feet from Snaer. Also, directly to Loucks’s right as he makes the pass is Mason Plumlee. This seems important, because if Andre was concerned about Loucks driving, and that’s why he was in the lane and not closer to Snaer, he shouldn’t have been so concerned. If Loucks was inclined to drive instead of pass, it stands to reason that he would’ve driven left, not right, because Mason was on his right. He could’ve driven left and assuming he got by Ryan, the only guy left on that side would’ve been Austin Rivers, without a rangy 7-footer like Mason Plumlee being involved on his side or from behind. I strongly believe Andre misplayed this, either out of inattention to Snaer or the misguided belief that he needed to help Ryan (or, really, help both Ryan and Mason) on Loucks.

OK that's all I got for now.

[jv001]

OK this has been an excellent discussion of our defense. Lots of different impressions of what’s going on. I thought it might be helpful to supplement everyone’s eyeball impressions and really break it down, play by play, and analyze it. Most agree that our first half D against FSU was fine, but not so much the second. So I broke down frame-by-frame every 2nd half possession by FSU that resulted in points for them, and analyzed each play.They are below, with the time of the possession or shot indicated first.

I have not attempted to compile the results and categorize them, such as “on x number of occasions the basket was caused by poor communication by our bigs while on x number it was a loss of focus by so-and-so.” Sometimes, as you’ll see, it’s hard to assess that sort of “blame.”Other times, it’s not hard at all. But maybe if someone else wants to take this data and take a shot at summarizing it, go ahead. I just don’t have the time to do it right now.

I will also be posting the charting data for this game, hopefully later today, and I’ll be breaking that down between the two halves too. In any event, here is the play-by-play of each FSU score in the second half. Look forward, as always, to your comments.


So here goes:

1942: Miles gets caught by back screen by Seth’s man in mid-lane, Seth is underneath and surely saw James using screen and cutting low to receive the pass, but instead headed to FT line with his own man after he was done setting the screen. Maybe not the best decision by Seth, but can’t really fault him either, especially since at time he made the decision the passer on the wing still had the ball and Seth’s man was cutting to the FT line and could’ve just as easily received a pass for an open shot had Seth stayed low with James, who he would’ve been very unlikely to stop anyway. Miles did make an OK recovery on James at the baseline once he received the pass, but he was a little late and out of position, and couldn’t stop James from beating him to the other side of the hoop for the semi-awkward, semi-reverse jam. Who’s “at fault” for this? Sort of a little of each of them, but it was just a well-designed and well-executed play by FSU, truth be told.

1850: Post-offensive rebound by FSU, our defense is distorted, mismatches at several positions. Rivers made a probably unwise attempt at a steal on a semi-loose ball from a strange angle 30’ from the hoop, but his miss meant that Miles gets caught way outside on Miller (Austin’s man), who shot-fakes him, Miles goes for it, Miller goes around him and to the hoop. Mason puts his arms up and jumps on the help attempt, but Miller scores it. The “original sin” if you will, was Austin’s failed steal attempt, but if he succeeds, it’s a live-ball turnover and an easy hoop for us, so do we really want to fault him for that? Once Miles gets caught on Miller outside, he’s in trouble, and that’s not really his fault either. Mason made a decent block attempt with his help down low, but Miller made a tough shot over two bigs.

1815: Miles lets James catch 8’ from hoop on right side. James backs him into the lane, shoots 6 foot hook over him. Mason did not provide help, but if he had, his man would’ve been wide open had James opted to dump it to him for a layup/dunk. This was just a 1-on-1 post move and James made a nice shot over Miles’ OK defense – failure to deny the pass, but then he at least challenged the shot.

1754: Live-ball turnover by Andre/Mason in frontcourt leads to runout for FSU. Ends up a 2-on-1 with Dulkys getting the easy layup after the pass from Gibson. Fault: our turnover on offense. Not a defensive lapse here. Timeout Duke.

1645: Mason, guarding Gibson on the outside, turns his head, watching the ball only. Gibson goes backdoor and straight down the lane. Loucks hits him with a perfect lob for the dunk. Rivers was weakside and looks like he saw the play developing but failed to step in and prevent Gibson from getting down the lane. If he had, Gibson wouldn’t have had the opportunity to jump to catch the alley oop and if he had it would’ve been a charge. This was both a poor individual play on the perimeter by Mason and a failure of the “team” defense by Austin.

1532: Loucks gets a backscreen at the left elbow, cuts down and around to the right corner. Seth trails him to the corner. Loucks gets the pass, shot fakes, dribbles past Seth into the lane. Mason comes over and helps off of his man (Kreft), who Loucks drops it off to for a layup. Kelly was right there next to Kreft too and should’ve helped better on him and contested the shot better. “Fault” I suppose is to be shared by Seth, for getting faked out, and the bigs, for not helping better.

1403: After good moving-the-feet and staying in front by Rivers, then by Curry, the ball is swung to Miller, who catches 20’ away. Miller takes one dribble past Ty and banks in a 7 footer. Ryan really didn’t have much chance to help. Fault: Thornton’s inability to stop one-dribble penetration.

1315: High screen by White (guarded by Kelly) for Miller, guarded by Rivers. Ryan hedges just fine, but Austin kinda hangs around near Miller too, but not doing much to bother him, but in the meantime leaving White to head to the hoop unguarded. The easy pass to White is made. Mason comes over to help, contests, and fouls him hard. White hits both throws. Fault: Rivers’ poor handling of the high screen/roll. Not sure if he’s unclear on the concept (doubtful at this point) or whether he was unfocused, but he was nowhere near where he was supposed to be on this.

1201: Inbounds play, Seth gets screened. His man has the dribble, Miles helps and moves his feet nicely to cut off the dribbler, Peterson, at least for awhile. Peterson ultimately does make it into the lane but is deterred by Miles staying with him. Thornton, apparently thinking that the dribbler might keep going and turn the corner on Miles (which he never did), plays way off his man (Miller) and cheats almost into the lane, leaving Miller wide open at the 3 point line for the pass. Ty hustles back to get a hand up, but it’s nails. Fault: I think you’d have to say Thornton, for playing too far off his man at the 3 point line when, even had Peterson kept his drive alive, both Miles and Kelly were in the lane to contest him.

1123: While FSU is setting a high screen for Snaer, with Ryan hedging, Dulkys is setting a backscreen at the low right block for James (I think it is). Dawkins, covering Dulkeys, and Miles, covering James communicate poorly. Dawkins stays low with James and Miles doesn’t jump out on Dulkys, who pops out after setting the downscreen. Instead, Miles follows James too. Both our guys are on James and neither is on Dulkys, who catches the pass and buries the nobody-in-his-area-code 3. Ryan tried to contest it with a hand up, but he was way too far away. Not his fault – Dulkys should’ve never been left that alone to begin with. Poor communication, poor team defense here.

930: Ryan allows Gibson to catch about 9’ from hoop on the left. Gibson takes a dribble, spins baseline and Ryan fouls him on the shot. Nice move by Gibson. No real opportunity for Miles to help, which is why it was smart of Gibson to spin to the base, away from the help. Hits both free throws.

854: Rivers gets shot faked at the 3 point line, his man dribbles past him towards the baseline. Kelly helps off of Gibson onto the driver, and Gibson floats out to the 3 point line. The pass is made back to Gibson. Thornton, covering Dulkys at the top of the key, comes over to the area, apparently intending to contest what appears will be a Gibson shot. So Gibson smartly fakes a pass to Dulkys, who is spotting up for a 3. Thornton goes for the fake, runs back towards Dulkys, leaving Gibson to take the 3 which Ryan belatedly and weakly comes out to contest. “Fault” has to be shared on all 3 guys on this one. Rivers got shot faked to begin the distortion of our defense. Thornton, I think, needed to stay on Gibson once the pass went to him, trusting someone else to rotate onto Dulkys. (the staff may have told him to stick with Dulkys no matter what given how hot he’s been lately though, and let Gibson shoot). Ryan needed to recover more quickly and contest Gibson’s shot regardless of what the much smaller Thornton was doing. Gibson buried the 3. Not good team defense here, unless, again, the staff told them to take their chances with a guy like Gibson from long range, which would have been quite a reasonable gamble.

652: High screen results in Miles and Andre switching. Miles now has to guard Snaer on the outside. Snaer, predictably, takes him to the hoop. He turns the corner, gets into the lane, and goes all the way to the basket. Austin Rivers has his head turned as Snaer is barreling down the lane so has no concept of trying to take a charge or contesting Snaer’s shot in any way. Miles tried to swat at it from behind, but no way. Mason was on the other side of the lane and not close enough to help/contest. While yes, Miles was beaten off the dribble, I don’t think it’s fair to expect him really to stay with a guy like Snaer on the outside. Rivers has to be paying attention and be moving into position to take a charge in this situation, IMO. Failure of help D.

541: Seth’s man sets a backscreen on Mason on the left side of the paint. He doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. But Seth, seeing that Mason was being screened, needed to pick up Mason’s man (James) but he didn’t. He just stayed with his own man. Mason had to fight through all that traffic in the lane to try to get to James, which he did, but by that time James had the ball and had the advantage and he was able to get it over Mason pretty easily. I think the primary cause of this hoop was Seth missing his assignment.

523: Live-ball turnover by us (poor pass on the perimeter by Austin, intercepted by James) leads to breakaway dunk attempt that Mason has to foul him from behind to stop. Mason’s 4th foul. James hits 1 of 2. Fault was the turnover by us on the offensive end.

450: On the second of two consecutive high screen/hedge plays, Ryan makes an aggressive hedge on Loucks, but is called for the block. Loucks nails both throws.

402: Loucks drives on Curry from the outside, Seth called for a foul on the drive. Len Elmore opined “that’s a hold right there” despite it being Seth who ended up on his butt on the play. I didn’t see a reach or a hold, or a pushoff on Loucks either for that matter. After the under-4 timeout Loucks hits one and misses one. I don’t know what you attribute these points to.

257: Out of bounds play for FSU. Miles and Mason have their two bigs underneath. As Loucks is dribbling around the free throw line, Miles kinda gets lost between their two bigs, loses sight of his own man, James. Loucks drills a pass to James, forcing Mason to step over to him (this is all in close quarters in there.) James drops a nice little pass to Gibson (Mason’s man) for the dunk. Not sure what Miles was thinking here or why, if he thought he and Mason were going to switch, why that was necessary at that point. Loss of focus/poor communication.

240: Rivers goes 1-on-2, gets blocked, and FSU gets a runout. Seth does a nice job forcing a tough runner going away from the basket by Dulkys, but James grabs the errant shot as Miles mis-times his jump and Mason doesn’t jump for it at all. James lays it in.

158: Miles got screened on the left (well, it was more of a bodyblock, actually), freeing James to get to the right block. Miles tried to recover, and actually did so fairly well, but James took a step into the lane and hit a tough little hook over him. Nice shot. But no help effort by Mason here.

100: Snaer catches on the right wing, Dawkins on him. Snaer drives left, into the lane, lot of chest-to-chest contact with Andre, good no call, but Snaer, upon bouncing off Dawkins, puts up a quick little jumper in the lane and it’s good. Again, weak help effort by Mason, as he allowed Snaer to slip between himself and Andre instead of cutting the drive off completely.

036: Desperation time after Seth’s missed 3. Andre fouls Loucks in the backcourt intentionally (not that kind of intentional). He hits 1 of 2.

018: Another intentional foul, this time Seth on Gibson. Again, hits 1 of 2.

000: Obviously the winning 3 pointer. I know there has been a lot of discussion on the boards of Andre’s positioning on this play, but I am looking at this again and again, frame by frame, and at the time Loucks makes the pass, he is on the move, about 8 or 10 feet above the arc, dead center of the floor. Kelly is standing at the top of the arc. Dawkins has not one, but both feet in the lane, and he’s a good 12 feet from Snaer. Also, directly to Loucks’s right as he makes the pass is Mason Plumlee. This seems important, because if Andre was concerned about Loucks driving, and that’s why he was in the lane and not closer to Snaer, he shouldn’t have been so concerned. If Loucks was inclined to drive instead of pass, it stands to reason that he would’ve driven left, not right, because Mason was on his right. He could’ve driven left and assuming he got by Ryan, the only guy left on that side would’ve been Austin Rivers, without a rangy 7-footer like Mason Plumlee being involved on his side or from behind. I strongly believe Andre misplayed this, either out of inattention to Snaer or the misguided belief that he needed to help Ryan (or, really, help both Ryan and Mason) on Loucks.

OK that's all I got for now.

It seems like there are many mistakes that we as fans cannot assign blame to. We don't know how our guys are coached on certain assignments. But it's also certain that there were breakdowns on "D". Some probably came from lack of communication, some from getting caught looking at the play and not reacting to what was going on. With Austin it could be his lack of experience. I'm sure Coach K is working on our lack of defense in practice. Let's hope it gets better. Thanks for observations tommy. GoDuke

[Kedsy]

OK this has been an excellent discussion of our defense. Lots of different impressions of what’s going on. I thought it might be helpful to supplement everyone’s eyeball impressions and really break it down, play by play, and analyze it. Most agree that our first half D against FSU was fine, but not so much the second. So I broke down frame-by-frame every 2nd half possession by FSU that resulted in points for them, and analyzed each play.They are below, with the time of the possession or shot indicated first.

Well, going through your report, it seems most of the mistakes were either a failure to communicate or a failure to recognize when to help. If so, that's encouraging in a way because it implies we can improve. As opposed to the problem being our guards are too short or too slow, for example, which we can't really improve this season. Of course, just because we can improve doesn't mean we will improve, but at the least it gives us room for hope.

I thought our first half defense against FSU was excellent, so maybe we're taking baby steps toward righting the defensive ship.

[jv001]

Well, going through your report, it seems most of the mistakes were either a failure to communicate or a failure to recognize when to help. If so, that's encouraging in a way because it implies we can improve. As opposed to the problem being our guards are too short or too slow, for example, which we can't really improve this season. Of course, just because we can improve doesn't mean we will improve, but at the least it gives us room for hope.

I thought our first half defense against FSU was excellent, so maybe we're taking baby steps toward righting the defensive ship.

This is what I'm seeing. It's a mental problem and not a physical one. I may be wrong, but I thought that our guards did a pretty good job on defense against the Noles. However it looked like Mason and Miles were a little too slow in reacting to the ball coming into the low post. Like Kedsy says, this is something we can improve on. And communication is something that can get better. Coach K has always preached communication to his teams, because it's critical in making our defense successful. GoDuke!

[MChambers]

Well, going through your report, it seems most of the mistakes were either a failure to communicate or a failure to recognize when to help. If so, that's encouraging in a way because it implies we can improve. As opposed to the problem being our guards are too short or too slow, for example, which we can't really improve this season. Of course, just because we can improve doesn't mean we will improve, but at the least it gives us room for hope.

I thought our first half defense against FSU was excellent, so maybe we're taking baby steps toward righting the defensive ship.
The good thing about our weakness being on the defensive end is that it should be easier to remedy than an offensive deficiency, especially if it's not a physical limitation (e.g, too small or too slow). I'm inclined to think our guards have the physical attributes to be good, if not great, defenders, so I'm still optimistic. OTOH, I can't remember a Duke team that was this bad on defense.

[roywhite]

The good thing about our weakness being on the defensive end is that it should be easier to remedy than an offensive deficiency, especially if it's not a physical limitation (e.g, too small or too slow). I'm inclined to think our guards have the physical attributes to be good, if not great, defenders, so I'm still optimistic. OTOH, I can't remember a Duke team that was this bad on defense.

Seems pretty clear that improvement on the defensive end is the key to our degree of success this year.

You may be right about the potential being there, but I'm not sure we can really compensate for our lack of good intermediate size defenders (in some programs, they are called forwards:)).
Shane Battier ain't walking through the door, but, heck, I'd be delighted to see Lance Thomas.

[devildeac]

Seems pretty clear that improvement on the defensive end is the key to our degree of success this year.

You may be right about the potential being there, but I'm not sure we can really compensate for our lack of good intermediate size defenders (in some programs, they are called forwards:)).
Shane Battier ain't walking through the door, but, heck, I'd be delighted to see Lance Thomas.

We saw him at a Brunchgate this fall. You should have joined us (nudge, nudge). He looked good but back in the NBDL after a bried stint with the Hornets, IIRC. He's not suiting up either, roy. Sorry. It was still good talking hoops with you before the game Saturday and reading some of your thoughts here on other threads.

[DukieInBrasil]

This team is designed to outpoint and wear you down on the exterior (the central game is trading three chances for twos, and getting to the basket off the bounce to win the game at those positions. The team has only three interior defenders who are undersized. Their ability to hurt people and expend a lot of energy trying to stop them on the other end I think is crucial to success against teams that can really give Duke a game. I'm beginning to think that K thinks that too.

The bolded part is just not true. We have 3 interior defenders who are all 6'10 or bigger. The MPs are both big and strong, only Kelly is a bit light but that doesn't mean he's "undersized". Few teams have that much size, as it turns out, FSU did. FSU's bigs were effective, somewhat b/c they are pretty good, but mostly b/c our perimeter D was getting shredded consistently and forced our bigs to be out of position.

[MChambers]

Seems pretty clear that improvement on the defensive end is the key to our degree of success this year.

You may be right about the potential being there, but I'm not sure we can really compensate for our lack of good intermediate size defenders (in some programs, they are called forwards:)).
Shane Battier ain't walking through the door, but, heck, I'd be delighted to see Lance Thomas.
I guess, but I think Coach K has pulled off similar defensive miracles in the past, such as in 2010. I'll admit that was different, but in many ways was a bigger challenge.

[tommy]

The bolded part is just not true. We have 3 interior defenders who are all 6'10 or bigger. The MPs are both big and strong, only Kelly is a bit light but that doesn't mean he's "undersized". Few teams have that much size, as it turns out, FSU did. FSU's bigs were effective, somewhat b/c they are pretty good, but mostly b/c our perimeter D was getting shredded consistently and forced our bigs to be out of position.

I agree with the first part of your post -- we have 3 genuine bigs, no doubt.

But in the second half of the FSU game, our perimeter D was not "getting shredded consistently." Check the play-by-play in post #49 of this thread. By my count, there were only 3 occasions, those occuring at 15:32, 14:03, and 8:54, where the FSU score was fairly attributable to one of our perimeter guys getting beaten on the outside, causing a big to have to help and be out of position. A lot more hoops were caused by the failure to help, the failure to communicate, loss of focus and inattention, and those sorts of things. Not just flat out getting beaten from the outside. Check it out.

[Billy Dat]

This has been a good thread, and it made me hop over to kenpom.com to see where our D was currently ranked.....90th!!!!! That is really remarkable.

Still and all, we fans have often complained that our teams peak too early. This represents an area where we can and should get better - I hope....it's nearly February.

[94duke]

This has been a good thread, and it made me hop over to kenpom.com to see where our D was currently ranked.....90th!!!!! That is really remarkable.

Still and all, we fans have often complained that our teams peak too early. This represents an area where we can and should get better - I hope....it's nearly February.

Did you see Florida?
AdjO - 2
AdjD - 111

111th !! They are more schizo than we are! ;) :cool: :p

[Billy Dat]

Did you see Florida?
AdjO - 2
AdjD - 111

111th !! They are more schizo than we are! ;) :cool: :p

What would be the over/under - 240? Halftime entertainment - Miles and Patrick Young in the Octagon? Boynton and Rivers switch uniforms at halftime to see what might have been?

[blueduke59]

Thought I'd give my two cents on the state of Duke's defense this year......it's horrible compared to most of K's past teams. Guards can't stay in front of anybody. I've witnessed this scenario so often this year I'm sick of it: opposing guard breezes past his defender. Duke forward rotates over from his man to cut off guard penetration. Opposing guard dishes off to man open by Duke forward rotating over for a lay up or dunk. This leads to forwards racking up fouls. It's time to tinker with a zone or something. At the moment Maryland is penetrating any time they feel like it.

[Greg_Newton]

Thought I'd give my two cents on the state of Duke's defense this year......it's horrible compared to most of K's past teams. Guards can't stay in front of anybody. I've witnessed this scenario so often this year I'm sick of it: opposing guard breezes past his defender. Duke forward rotates over from his man to cut off guard penetration. Opposing guard dishes off to man open by Duke forward rotating over for a lay up or dunk. This leads to forwards racking up fouls. It's time to tinker with a zone or something. At the moment Maryland is penetrating any time they feel like it.

Don't forget 6'11" Ryan Kelly rotating under the basket in the passive-charge position and crumpling to the floor at the slightest bit of contact. :p

[loldevilz]

Don't forget 6'11" Ryan Kelly rotating under the basket in the passive-charge position and crumpling to the floor at the slightest bit of contact. :p

I couldn't believe when he tried to take a charge on the 6 foot Stoglin. Taking the charge is a good move, but not when you are a foot taller than the guy and he's much quicker than you.

[nobodybutDUKE]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed. You will never see quality
defense in any sport without either of these properties.

This is no personal reflection on our team, just a blunt reality. A short definition of the Duke basketball program
is: HEART and DESIRE. We will always have that, therefore we will always strive to improve as a team in all
levels of offense and defense.

However, this year we lack what creates true championship teams: GREAT DEFENSE!

Even with the greatest coach on the planet in any sport, you can't teach speed and quickness. You either
have it or you don't. Unfortunately, this year, we don't.

Just one man's opinion.

[stixof96]

If I were to analyze the defense in football terms, here is what I would say........you can run up the middle on them all night long........bad thing to say.........

[flyingdutchdevil]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed. You will never see quality
defense in any sport without either of these properties.

Not true. Curling.

Boom. :p

[superdave]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed. You will never see quality
defense in any sport without either of these properties.

This is no personal reflection on our team, just a blunt reality. A short definition of the Duke basketball program
is: HEART and DESIRE. We will always have that, therefore we will always strive to improve as a team in all
levels of offense and defense.

However, this year we lack what creates true championship teams: GREAT DEFENSE!

Even with the greatest coach on the planet in any sport, you can't teach speed and quickness. You either
have it or you don't. Unfortunately, this year, we don't.

Just one man's opinion.

Yeah, we lack the lateral quickness to be considered speedy. But I would not have described Scheyer as laterally quick or speedy either. Yet he had a lot of playing time under his belt and was really crafty, so he learned how to become a really good defender, both on and off the ball.

One thing I've noticed is that our attention span as a team is pretty short. They can get fired up for short stretches but cannot sustain it. It's like ADD and it's bad for bringing the intensity you need to bring to make up for not being a great defensive team. I'm not sure how to make it more sustainable, but I think using Tyler in spurts when we look like we're losing intensity and focus is one method and switching to zone or full-court press for a possession or two is another method. I guess the analogy would be that if we dont have the 96 mph fastball, we need to change speeds to keep their hitters off balance. When an opponent gets in rhythm, we need to throw some changeups at them. Coach K was quick to insert Tyler in the 2nd half once Stoglin hit 3 fgs in a row, so he does seem to recognize this. But throwing some junk defenses out there could help too. Not sure if I expect us to do it though.

[Billy Dat]

K on defensive adjustments during the MD game:

"On the improvement on his team's defense:
"They came out really fast, they were really sharp executing. We're bigger than they are, but they're more athletic. They were really moving fast, you could tell they were very ready for the game and it showed up. They had good looks on their faces and we changed the way we were doing the ball screens after eight minutes, because we couldn't do what we wanted to do with their athleticism. So, we went to a little bit of a different way of defending the ball screen. That helped us, and we didn't get as strung out as much."

I thought I noticed us going under the screen more, which obviously opens up 3 point shooting, but Stoglin often was determined to get to the hole despite us going under screens so maybe that helped us?

[superdave]

K on defensive adjustments during the MD game:

"On the improvement on his team's defense:
"They came out really fast, they were really sharp executing. We're bigger than they are, but they're more athletic. They were really moving fast, you could tell they were very ready for the game and it showed up. They had good looks on their faces and we changed the way we were doing the ball screens after eight minutes, because we couldn't do what we wanted to do with their athleticism. So, we went to a little bit of a different way of defending the ball screen. That helped us, and we didn't get as strung out as much."

I thought I noticed us going under the screen more, which obviously opens up 3 point shooting, but Stoglin often was determined to get to the hole despite us going under screens so maybe that helped us?

Yeah, I noticed our guards going under the ball screens too. That was to prevent penetration. Bob Knight kept pointing out how well MD was attacking the basket early on, but that faded.

[wilko]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed. You will never see quality defense in any sport without either of these properties.

This is no personal reflection on our team, just a blunt reality. A short definition of the Duke basketball program
is: HEART and DESIRE. We will always have that, therefore we will always strive to improve as a team in all
levels of offense and defense.

However, this year we lack what creates true championship teams: GREAT DEFENSE!

Even with the greatest coach on the planet in any sport, you can't teach speed and quickness. You either
have it or you don't. Unfortunately, this year, we don't.

Just one man's opinion.

I get the point. I understand and agree with your statement to a certain extent.
More speed and quickness would probably help this group RIGHT NOW! (and maybe that's all that matters... the right now). It would certainly mask some problems.

If you'll Indulge me for a moment...
Lets look back at Dukes' past recipients for NABC Defensive Player of the Year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NABC_Defensive_Player_of_the_Year)

Tommy Amaker
Billy King
Grant Hill
Steve Wojciechowski
Shane Battier
Shelden Williams

I'm not sure all these past players were both speedy AND quick to fantastic degrees.
They understood the game. They grokked defensive principles and executed what the staff wanted. They had good insists and anticipation. They had a good seasoned cast of mature players around them a lot of the time.

What this team is lacking most right now is experience.
If it were possible for this team to exist in a vacuum for 1 more year their collective defensive effort would be much improved because they will have a superior understanding of the game and trust for one-another to be in their positions and make plays.

[Kedsy]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed.

It's true we lack lateral quickness, i.e., we don't move our feet well enough in one-on-one D. But I think we have excellent north/south speed. Austin, Seth, Andre, Quinn, and Michael can all get up and down the court in a hurry. Mason and Miles are two of the fastest big men around, and even Ryan has sneaky speed on the fast break. We also have a lot of guys with quick hands on D. I wonder if we'd be better off with more full or three-quarter court pressing?

Where I think we're currently slow is in mentally assessing and reacting to situations. You have to be able to do it without taking the time to think about it, and right now we don't appear to be there.

Still, we played around 20 minutes of good D in both the Florida State and Maryland games, so maybe we're getting there.

[tommy]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed. You will never see quality
defense in any sport without either of these properties.

There are many counter-examples to this. Just to take one, our 2010 National Championship team starting 5. Nolan Smith was pretty quick. Lance Thomas, reasonably so. Singler, not so much. And Jon Scheyer and Zoubek were well below average for their positions in the quickness and speed departments. All in all, that was not a quick basketball team at all.

Don't get me wrong. Quickness, I believe, is one of the most important single attributes for a player to have. But there are ways in basketball to make up for deficiencies in these areas. We did that exceedingly well down the stretch in 2010. Defensively, we have been erratic this year in our execution of the things you need to do to make up for a lack of quickness and speed.


What this team is lacking most right now is experience.
If it were possible for this team to exist in a vacuum for 1 more year their collective defensive effort would be much improved because they will have a superior understanding of the game and trust for one-another to be in their positions and make plays.

We're starting two juniors, a 4th year junior, and a senior. Four upperclassmen. That's way more experience than a lot of elite teams start in this day and age. I don't agree that lack of experience is a significant factor in our defensive performance.

[Kedsy]

We're starting two juniors, a 4th year junior, and a senior. Four upperclassmen. That's way more experience than a lot of elite teams start in this day and age. I don't agree that lack of experience is a significant factor in our defensive performance.

Well, I'm going to side with Wilko a little bit. Yes, we have five upperclassmen (and four of them start), but here are the number of career starts for Duke that this five accumulated before this season:

Seth: 19
Mason: 32
Ryan: 27
Andre: 7
Miles: 42

If you didn't know how long this quintet had been at school, based on these numbers you might think they were four sophomores and a junior. And it's not just starts. Each of them has exactly one season in which they've played as many as 17 mpg for Duke (and it was last year for all of them).

[wilko]

Don't get me wrong. Quickness, I believe, is one of the most important single attributes for a player to have. But there are ways in basketball to make up for deficiencies in these areas. We did that exceedingly well down the stretch in 2010. Defensively, we have been erratic this year in our execution of the things you need to do to make up for a lack of quickness and speed.

We're starting two juniors, a 4th year junior, and a senior. Four upperclassmen. That's way more experience than a lot of elite teams start in this day and age. I don't agree that lack of experience is a significant factor in our defensive performance.

When I look at the roster, I see:
AR - Fr.
QC - Fr.
TT - So.
AD - Jr. but left HS a yr early
SC - Jr. (w/ an extra transfer yr)

Dukes D generally starts with pressure from the guards.
And then the bigs either help or double depending on the opponent/match-up. Who among the guards is the Defensive stopper?

I think AR is developing into that guy, he has the tools but has a ways to go.
QC - Has looked good in spurts in a limited sample ...and then must work thru this most recent illness.
TT - This kid fights. and fouls and reaches...
AD - Has looked good in spurts but is inconsistent -even within a single game he is up and down..
SC - he needs space to operate on both O and D and is having trouble finding it on both ends.

That said, there are things the team can do to compensate and the more experienced players need to step up and do more consistently.

[tommy]

It's true we lack lateral quickness, i.e., we don't move our feet well enough in one-on-one D. But I think we have excellent north/south speed. Austin, Seth, Andre, Quinn, and Michael can all get up and down the court in a hurry. Mason and Miles are two of the fastest big men around, and even Ryan has sneaky speed on the fast break. We also have a lot of guys with quick hands on D. I wonder if we'd be better off with more full or three-quarter court pressing?

Where I think we're currently slow is in mentally assessing and reacting to situations. You have to be able to do it without taking the time to think about it, and right now we don't appear to be there.

Still, we played around 20 minutes of good D in both the Florida State and Maryland games, so maybe we're getting there.

Sneaky fast. Love that phrase.

I agree that the mental component of our defensive effort is a significant factor in the level of our performance. That encompasses both focus and decisionmaking, as well as other things.

But I'd be afraid of what would happen to this team if we try to become an aggressive, pressing squad. From a physical perspective, though we have a number of guys with quick hands, I don't think our guards have the lateral quickness to really harass dribblers really well. But more than that, a good pressing defense requires a lot of sound decisions on the part of the pressing team. When to trap, how to react to the action in front of you, how to react to the ball moving from one side to the other and the trap moving, what to do when the press is broken and the opponent now has an advantage, or at least a head of steam. Lots of different situations that the defensive players now have to master.

It seems to me that we're having trouble enough making good decisions on help defense, reacting appropriately to ball and player movement, and those sorts of things even in the standard man-to-man (with switching where necessary) that we regularly play. To throw a whole lot more on our guys' plates at this point? Not sure how they'd handle it. And when you're pressing and get beaten, or make bad decisions, layups and dunks usually ensue. Not much margin for error.

I do like SupaDave's suggestion about throwing in some other defenses for a few possessions here and there, not only to make our opponent react to them, but as a way to keep our own guys more intensely focused on what we're doing on defense. Pressing a little as part of that strategy might be OK, along with some zone, some junk, etc. But I think the main thing is for each guy to bring that focus and intensity and apply it to the best defense we have, and the D that K prefers, which is straight up, hard-nosed man-to-man.

[AsiaMinor]

...are great 3 point shooters on offense that are not the "big" guards other teams seem to have and that we have had in the past. What we do have are guys learning to play together, but without the "I am going to get this done no matter what" attitude that Singler and Nolan had. This last thing, more than any other thing (to me and to the man I watch the game with who knows more than I ever will) is the greatest deficiency. Well, how he put it was with a long ago quote from (he thinks) K who said, "every team needs a sonofa-----" We don't have a sonofa----- this year. We do have other things that I think we may take for granted in complaining about what we lack.

[hq2]

There are many counter-examples to this. Just to take one, our 2010 National Championship team starting 5. Nolan Smith was pretty quick. Lance Thomas, reasonably so. Singler, not so much. And Jon Scheyer and Zoubek were well below average for their positions in the quickness and speed departments. All in all, that was not a quick basketball team at all.

Don't get me wrong. Quickness, I believe, is one of the most important single attributes for a player to have. But there are ways in basketball to make up for deficiencies in these areas. We did that exceedingly well down the stretch in 2010. Defensively, we have been erratic this year in our execution of the things you need to do to make up for a lack of quickness and speed.


That team had quickness where it mattered (1 and 3 positions), and had a decent shotblocker in Zoubs to back 'em up.
Lance Thomas' defense was a huge (and underrated) part of Duke's championship run; he put the clamps on a lot of really good players.
Our lack of quickness isn't so noticeable at the guard positions; it's the fact that we're both short and not that quick that makes it hard for
us to be a good defensive team, especially at the 2 and 3 spots where we can't guard big, quick 2s or quick 3s. And, given the gap in the team's
size, I don't see us fixing it.

[COYS]

That team had quickness where it mattered (1 and 3 positions), and had a decent shotblocker in Zoubs to back 'em up.
Lance Thomas' defense was a huge (and underrated) part of Duke's championship run; he put the clamps on a lot of really good players.
Our lack of quickness isn't so noticeable at the guard positions; it's the fact that we're both short and not that quick that makes it hard for
us to be a good defensive team, especially at the 2 and 3 spots where we can't guard big, quick 2s or quick 3s. And, given the gap in the team's
size, I don't see us fixing it.

I still maintain that mental lapses account for 6-10 of opponent's points each night and maybe even more. Cleaning up all of these errors is probably impossible, but cleaning up most of them means that we're giving up 4-6 fewer points per game, which makes a huge difference in both efficiency rankings and our own prospects on the court. Height on the perimeter is definitely an unsolvable issue, especially if Seth and Tyler/Quinn share the court a lot. But height and a relative lack of lateral quickness on the perimeter are not the only reasons the defense hasn't been up to par. I think everyone on the team would agree that they have yet to play a full 40 minutes of focused, intense defense. No, focus won't prevent tall guards from shooting over our perimeter. Nor will it stop quick guards from penetrating the defense. But focused defense will prevent fewer missed assignments, slow rotations, and preventable fouls. It would also mean more box-outs from our guards (something that has really been lacking), which would hopefully lead to fewer offensive rebounds. I don't think it's possible that the team wakes up and is suddenly a juggernaut on the defensive end. However, I DO think it's possible to see significant improvement on that end through improved execution and consistency. If every player makes a small improvement in one area on defense, the team will take a leap forward. I'm optimistic that the team WILL improve just a bit, which will make a big difference overall, especially with our offense being so strong.

[jipops]

Our defensive problems are really very simple. We lack quickness and speed. You will never see quality
defense in any sport without either of these properties.

This is no personal reflection on our team, just a blunt reality. A short definition of the Duke basketball program
is: HEART and DESIRE. We will always have that, therefore we will always strive to improve as a team in all
levels of offense and defense.

However, this year we lack what creates true championship teams: GREAT DEFENSE!

Even with the greatest coach on the planet in any sport, you can't teach speed and quickness. You either
have it or you don't. Unfortunately, this year, we don't.

Just one man's opinion.

Wisconsin must be blazing fast then.

I wonder what Shane Battier's time in the 40 was? Must have been Usain Bolt-like.

[Kedsy]

I still maintain that mental lapses account for 6-10 of opponent's points each night and maybe even more. Cleaning up all of these errors is probably impossible, but cleaning up most of them means that we're giving up 4-6 fewer points per game, which makes a huge difference in both efficiency rankings and our own prospects on the court.

Well, you're absolutely right that 4 to 6 points a game would make a huge difference in our efficiency rankings. Assuming we'd improve at least as much as the raw efficiency numbers, it would place us between 9th and 19th in the country. Since we've played the 3rd best offensive schedule in the country, I suspect it would make us a lot better than that, certainly a top 10 defense, even with 4 points better. It might not have changed our win/loss record very much (it probably would have made a win vs. Florida State, but probably not Temple or Ohio State), but if we had a top ten defense in Pomeroy, it at least would make us fans feel more comfortable...

[fgb]

That was my original thought, too. But this morning, I wonder if our guards are tall enough to pull it off. Looking at the numbers, the 2010 team was only average (for a Duke team) at stopping the two, and if we played the same sort of D that team did, perhaps we can move our numbers stopping the two from awful to average. But that team stopped the three at by far the best rate of any Duke team in the past twelve years. We also featured a starting perimeter of 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. Our tallest perimeter now is 6'2, 6'5, 6'5. When Quinn or Tyler play, we're usually 6'0, 6'2, 6'5. And frankly I don't think Seth or Quinn are as tall as they're listed. If we're laying off the shooters and then running at them if they look like they're going to shoot, 6'0, 6'2, 6'5 is a LOT less likely to bother the shot than 6'2, 6'5, 6'8. So, I'm not sure the 2010 style would work for us this year.

agree completely. I think we can run sabermetric style numbers all we want, but at the end of the day, we are simply below average in terms of both size and quickness on the perimeter.

[TampaDuke]

A quick brainstorm on the possible changes Coach K could implement to make our D better:

1. Pack it in more. Have the guards sag back to cut off driving lanes, forcing opponents to shoot more jump shots. Use our interior size to control the defensive boards.


Perhaps we sag only as to the PG (or only those opposing players with quick, dribble-penetration styles) and play tight D on the wings (or against jump shooters). Go under screens when the ballhandler is a driver and through/over screens when he is a shooter. Seems to me that most college players are proficient at either a dribble penetration style or a jump shooting style, but rarely both. If we're going to give up something, perhaps we play the percentages and give the drivers a few open jump shots and dare the jump shooter to drive.

In other words, stay as close as possible to a guy like JJ Redick and live with his occasional drives to the basket. And thank God you weren't playing against Jason Williams.

Seems simplistic, but I'm not so sure even such a small step wouldn't help at this point.

[NSDukeFan]

agree completely. I think we can run sabermetric style numbers all we want, but at the end of the day, we are simply below average in terms of both size and quickness on the perimeter.

I disagree that the team is below average in terms of size and quickness on the perimeter. When Seth-Austin-Andre are out there, I would say the team is probably above average in both size and quickness, though is smaller than some teams at the wing positions, and not as quick as some of the quickest teams. With Quinn or Tyler in the lineup, I would say the Duke perimeter would be quicker than most, but doesn't have a super quick defender that is fantastic at stopping penetration.

My impression is that normally, Duke likes to pressure on the perimeter to try to generate steals and make it harder for the offense to pass the ball inside, with the side effect of allowing more penetration (making our perimeter defenders appear slower as they get beat more often.) When the team is playing well and has the defense down pat, these extra times of our perimeter defense getting beat are worth it, as our help defense is ready to prevent easy baskets and the other team still has to make several more good moves and/or passes to get a good shot most of the time. I don't think the team is there yet, but I am like COYS in that I hope the team will get there and be able to pressure on the perimeter, but improve a bit in preventing penetration and improve a lot at reducing the damage from penetration, by greatly improving help side defense and communication.

[Kedsy]

I don't know where else to put this, but after having read the Shane Ryan piece which is linked on the front page, some of which discusses Duke's defense, I had the same reaction I have every time I read something he writes: What a jerk. A Duke fan who clearly hates the Duke players, doesn't know much about basketball, and is way more interested in showing off how clever he is than writing a fair piece. I guess that makes him the perfect Duke writer for Grantland, but I get angry every time I read the guy. OK, sorry. [/rant]

[jv001]

I don't know where else to put this, but after having read the Shane Ryan piece which is linked on the front page, some of which discusses Duke's defense, I had the same reaction I have every time I read something he writes: What a jerk. A Duke fan who clearly hates the Duke players, doesn't know much about basketball, and is way more interested in showing off how clever he is than writing a fair piece. I guess that makes him the perfect Duke writer for Grantland, but I get angry every time I read the guy. OK, sorry. [/rant]

I agree with you. That article was say out of line. I commented on another thread a couple of mins ago. GoDuke!

[DukieInBrasil]

I don't know where else to put this, but after having read the Shane Ryan piece which is linked on the front page, some of which discusses Duke's defense, I had the same reaction I have every time I read something he writes: What a jerk. A Duke fan who clearly hates the Duke players, doesn't know much about basketball, and is way more interested in showing off how clever he is than writing a fair piece. I guess that makes him the perfect Duke writer for Grantland, but I get angry every time I read the guy. OK, sorry. [/rant]
the immature name-concoctions near the beginning were stupid and totally unnecessary, but the author was able to muster up the ability to complement MP IIs game vs MD and the growth of his game overall. I think both of those things deserve some kudos, b/c it would also be easy to say "well, the kid is supposed to be great so what he's doing now is no big deal". As K likes to say, each player runs their own race, and MP II is starting to hit his stride now. Somebody gave props to Mason for doing so, what's wrong with that? I guess my starting point is that most sports writers at popular sites are idiots and their stories probably not worth reading, so to get anything positive out of a story is good?

[Kedsy]

the immature name-concoctions near the beginning were stupid and totally unnecessary, but the author was able to muster up the ability to complement MP IIs game vs MD and the growth of his game overall. I think both of those things deserve some kudos, b/c it would also be easy to say "well, the kid is supposed to be great so what he's doing now is no big deal". As K likes to say, each player runs their own race, and MP II is starting to hit his stride now. Somebody gave props to Mason for doing so, what's wrong with that? I guess my starting point is that most sports writers at popular sites are idiots and their stories probably not worth reading, so to get anything positive out of a story is good?

I agree with you that it's nice that someone is giving Mason props, which he truly deserves. Shane Ryan, however, has to go on with the "Mason Clumslee" stuff and talking about the "hated Miles." Plus, after having unfairly criticized Mason for some time, in order to come all the way around, Mr. Ryan now seems to believe Mason is the only decent player on the team and the rest of our players stink.

Then he goes off on Andre and makes a "defensive mistake mix tape," and the first thing he shows is Andre getting tripped. As if that's his fault. Mr. Ryan doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between someone scoring and a defensive mistake. He showed a whole lot of plays, but I only counted two true mistakes plus maybe another two arguable mistakes. Big deal.

So I have nothing against his praising Mason, but in general I just can't stand what he says or the way he says it.

[Duvall]

I don't know where else to put this, but after having read the Shane Ryan piece which is linked on the front page, some of which discusses Duke's defense, I had the same reaction I have every time I read something he writes: What a jerk. A Duke fan who clearly hates the Duke players, doesn't know much about basketball, and is way more interested in showing off how clever he is than writing a fair piece. I guess that makes him the perfect Duke writer for Grantland, but I get angry every time I read the guy. OK, sorry. [/rant]

It's kind of remarkable how much Grantland has come to reflect the kind of publication that Bill Simmons would want to read. Simmons cares about the NFL, NBA and MLB, so he gets quality writers for those sports. He has always treated college basketball as an afterthought, and Grantland has hired writers for the sport accordingly.

[SilkyJ]

Then he goes off on Andre and makes a "defensive mistake mix tape," and the first thing he shows is Andre getting tripped. As if that's his fault. Mr. Ryan doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between someone scoring and a defensive mistake. He showed a whole lot of plays, but I only counted two true mistakes plus maybe another two arguable mistakes. Big deal.


Agreed here. I watched that expecting to see a bunch of mistakes and didn't see many. I saw a gamble and a non-boxout as mistakes, 1-2 poor efforts on a ball screen and getting blown by, and the rest were solid defensive plays. You can play solid defense, not make a mistake, and still get beat or give up a shot. At the highest levels, good offense tends to beat good defense in 1v1 scenarios.

[duke09hms]

I don't know where else to put this, but after having read the Shane Ryan piece which is linked on the front page, some of which discusses Duke's defense, I had the same reaction I have every time I read something he writes: What a jerk. A Duke fan who clearly hates the Duke players, doesn't know much about basketball, and is way more interested in showing off how clever he is than writing a fair piece. I guess that makes him the perfect Duke writer for Grantland, but I get angry every time I read the guy. OK, sorry. [/rant]

I thought the article was well-written and quite accurate. Yes it was a little bit over the top, but all-in-all a pretty accurate and cleverly written assessment of the game. I believe the majority of Duke fans would agree with the article as well. You know, the truth is not always pretty, but if we as Duke fans can take off the blue-tinted glasses, it's definitely there.

To summarize the article: I've been hard on Mason the last 2 years, but he's finally put it together this year and carried the team against Maryland. Our defense is absolutely atrocious (which it is), and Andre had a particularly bad game on defense, which is why he didn't play much in the 2nd half.

[duke09hms]

Agreed here. I watched that expecting to see a bunch of mistakes and didn't see many. I saw a gamble and a non-boxout as mistakes, 1-2 poor efforts on a ball screen and getting blown by, and the rest were solid defensive plays. You can play solid defense, not make a mistake, and still get beat or give up a shot. At the highest levels, good offense tends to beat good defense in 1v1 scenarios.

So that is at LEAST 5, and the video covered not even the entire 1st half? And I thought there were 7 defensive mishaps out of those 10.

Not to single only Andre out since none of Seth/Tyler/Austin were lockdown defenders that night, but Andre clearly had a bad game on both sides of the ball, which is why he sat the 2nd half. Kid needs to FOCUS.

[Kedsy]

I thought the article was well-written and quite accurate.

Well, I disagree on both counts, but that's not really the point. Reading a Shane Ryan article is like reading the worst of the worst DBR in-game threads.

[throatybeard]

I don't think it was a bad loss though. In fact if the last second shot didn't fall and Duke pulled it out instead we wouldn't be doing all this hand-wringing anyway.

The voice of sanity manifests itself.

[duke09hms]

For what it's worth, the Tommy Amaker-led Harvard Crimson (17-2) have the #10 adjusted defense and the Johnny Dawkins-led Stanford Cardinal (15-5) have the #43 adjusted defense.

Our defensive weaknesses can be almost entirely attributed to mental lapses. Harvard plays guards of 6-1, 6-3, and 6-5, and Stanford's PG is 5-10, and I find it hard to argue they have more talented players than us. However, they play much smarter defense than us as do many other teams.

Moe Harkless of St. Johns just dropped 30 pts on us in CIS. Giving up 76 points to the #188 adjusted offense today does not seem to signal improvement in our defense. 10 games left in the regular season. Come on Duke, focus and lock it up.

[toooskies]

Following the second half against St. John's, Duke may be 18-3, but has a 31-11 record if you score the games by halves. It's clearly a focus/consistency issue. We're much better playing to win than playing not to lose.

[Kedsy]

Following the second half against St. John's, Duke may be 18-3, but has a 31-11 record if you score the games by halves.

But why would you score that way? Of course I'd prefer if we kept our foot on the pedal and increased our lead until the last second, but the object of the game is to win, not to win by as many points as possible.

[ncexnyc]

But why would you score that way? Of course I'd prefer if we kept our foot on the pedal and increased our lead until the last second, but the object of the game is to win, not to win by as many points as possible.

It be be some people are concerned that this appears to be a nasty habit this team has acquired and that at the worst possible moment (UNC game or tourny game) it will come back to bite us.

[Kedsy]

It be be some people are concerned that this appears to be a nasty habit this team has acquired and that at the worst possible moment (UNC game or tourny game) it will come back to bite us.

Yeah, I understand that, but keeping our record by halves? So if we have a 20 point lead at halftime and win by 18, it's a "loss." Seems silly to me.

[Indoor66]

Yeah, I understand that, but keeping our record by halves? So if we have a 20 point lead at halftime and win by 18, it's a "loss." Seems silly to me.

Kinda the way I see trying to reduce all things basketball to numbers. Seems silly to me. IMO, there is no sample size large enough on any one team to make a statistical evaluation meaningful, but then I am not a statistician. It seems to me that looking at such numbers is like being a hammer - everything looks like a nail.

There is such a thing as heart, player compatibility and complement, leadership and intangibles involved in the game.

[loldevilz]

Yeah, I understand that, but keeping our record by halves? So if we have a 20 point lead at halftime and win by 18, it's a "loss." Seems silly to me.

I think its more useful to note that quite a few teams have been able to drop 50 in a half on us even in Cameron. I guess its just another statistic that shows how poor our defense is, not that we need any more.

[Bob Green]

I think its more useful to note that quite a few teams have been able to drop 50 in a half on us even in Cameron. I guess its just another statistic that shows how poor our defense is, not that we need any more.

I disagree. Three teams. That's all. And we won two of the three games. FSU scored 50 points in one half in a win over us, while Washington scored 54 and Michigan 53 in losses to us. The FSU game was the only one in Cameron. We beat Washington in MSG and beat Michigan in Maui.

[loldevilz]

I disagree. Three teams. That's all. And we won two of the three games. FSU scored 50 points in one half in a win over us, while Washington scored 54 and Michigan 53 in losses to us. The FSU game was the only one in Cameron. We beat Washington in MSG and beat Michigan in Maui.

Or almost 50-

St Johns 47
OSU - 47
Belmot -46

When you add those three thats 6 teams that have dominated offensively against us.

[mapei]

Yeah, any way you slice it defense is not a consistent strength for us this year, especially on the perimeter. That's just the way it is. We need to outscore teams, basically, and hit 3s.

[Bob Green]

When you add those three thats 6 teams that have dominated offensively against us.

You said 50 not almost 50. Plus, we won four of the six games you reference. You cannot claim a team dominated when they lost the game. Winning is a prerequisite for dominating.

[moonpie23]

no one slaps the floor......ever....

when we get that edge back, we'll get the DUKE edge back...

[PSurprise]

Who is the leader on this team??? In previous seasons, we've had leaders, whether it be Jon, or Nolan/Kyle, even going back to Laettner. I don't get that feeling that anyone is willing to step up to that role on this team. It doesn't mean that they have to be the highest scorer, or best player, but we need someone to turn to when the going gets tough. We've had that in the past, and I just don't see it this year. Certainly guys have stepped up their play when it matters, but who wants to "carry" this team? Who wants to put their foot down and get in teammates' faces for failing assignments? I don't see anyone doing that right now. Maybe that's not a prerequisite for a championship-caliber team, but every championship we've been involved in had that leader. Hopefully someone will step up. Just my thoughts...

^Moon stated what I was trying to say in shorthand.

[loldevilz]

You said 50 not almost 50. Plus, we won four of the six games you reference. You cannot claim a team dominated when they lost the game. Winning is a prerequisite for dominating.

Well we just outscored those other teams. I was just trying to make a point. Jeez.

[Bob Green]

Well we just outscored those other teams. I was just trying to make a point. Jeez.

As am I. And the point I am making is the facts do not support the point you are trying to make.

[mapei]

As am I. And the point I am making is the facts do not support the point you are trying to make.

Harsh. I think he was really trying to say that we've had some serious defensive lapses that may indicate a real problem for us on that side of the ball. The fact that we won those games anyway with superior offense doesn't really negate his observation.

[ncexnyc]

Yeah, I understand that, but keeping our record by halves? So if we have a 20 point lead at halftime and win by 18, it's a "loss." Seems silly to me.

I hear what you're saying, however it is a statistic which shows the inconsistency which this team has displayed throughout the season.

[Newton_14]

I don't know where else to put this, but after having read the Shane Ryan piece which is linked on the front page, some of which discusses Duke's defense, I had the same reaction I have every time I read something he writes: What a jerk. A Duke fan who clearly hates the Duke players, doesn't know much about basketball, and is way more interested in showing off how clever he is than writing a fair piece. I guess that makes him the perfect Duke writer for Grantland, but I get angry every time I read the guy. OK, sorry. [/rant]

Spot on. The guy has no understanding of the game of basketball. I don't even bother reading his trash anymore, and it's disappointing to see DBR link to his crap. Bleacher Report articles are better to be honest. He is a tool who gets off on writing hate speech against Duke players.

[Kedsy]

I hear what you're saying, however it is a statistic which shows the inconsistency which this team has displayed throughout the season.

I suppose so. It seems to me we lose concentration, often midway through the 2nd half (which is when it happened today). By the end of the game, we generally regain our concentration, which is probably why we've won almost every game where our big lead has dissipated. Of course I agree that it would be better if the concentration lapses didn't occur. But I don't think we "lost" the half unless we completely squandered the lead.

[duke09hms]

You said 50 not almost 50. Plus, we won four of the six games you reference. You cannot claim a team dominated when they lost the game. Winning is a prerequisite for dominating.

Kind of quibbling over inconsequential details.

If a team scores anywhere close to 50 on DUKE in a half, their offense dominated our defense. For example, FSU dropped 50 on us in CIS (dang that still hurts to say) the 2nd half, that equates to scoring on 71% of their 2nd half possessions. Seventy-one percent.

[Kedsy]

Kind of quibbling over inconsequential details.

If a team scores anywhere close to 50 on DUKE in a half, their offense dominated our defense. For example, FSU dropped 50 on us in CIS (dang that still hurts to say) the 2nd half, that equates to scoring on 71% of their 2nd half possessions. Seventy-one percent.

I'll quibble over another inconsequential detail. In the 2nd half, Florida State scored on 25 of 36 possessions in the 2nd half, which is 69%.

[duke09hms]

I'll quibble over another inconsequential detail. In the 2nd half, Florida State scored on 25 of 36 possessions in the 2nd half, which is 69%.

My bad, I had read 25 of 35 possessions elsewhere. Yes FSU shot 67% FGs and scored on 69% of their possessions in the 2nd half. Unfortunately, I think that still counts as our defensive being dominated in the 2nd half.

We'll have to agree to disagree about "blowing leads." I would argue you don't have to lose the game to blow a lead, apparently you do. I think when most people see a 22 pt. lead being cut down to 4 pts, they would agree with me.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. Don't know of any other coach I'd rather have to coach defense than our K. It's clearly mental deficiencies and lapses in focus, which cannot be blamed entirely on youth. For example, the 2007 team that was extremely young with an injured Greg Paulus at PG and a much weaker frontcourt than ours now was #5 in adjusted defense. And they also played the #3 SOS, so our #1 SOS this year is not the culprit. It's all between the ears kids.

[Kedsy]

Anyway, we'll see what happens. Don't know of any other coach I'd rather have to coach defense than our K. It's clearly mental deficiencies and lapses in focus, which cannot be blamed entirely on youth. For example, the 2007 team that was extremely young with an injured Greg Paulus at PG and a much weaker frontcourt than ours now was #5 in adjusted defense. And they also played the #3 SOS, so our #1 SOS this year is not the culprit. It's all between the ears kids.

I agree with this. I would note, however, that the difference between where our D is ranked in Pomeroy and #6 is just a tad more than 6 points a game, so we don't really need to tighten it all that much to get where we want to be.

[cspan37421]

I agree with this. I would note, however, that the difference between where our D is ranked in Pomeroy and #6 is just a tad more than 6 points a game, so we don't really need to tighten it all that much to get where we want to be.

If I understand the Pomeroy stuff right (and I very well might not), as of today it's 10 points a game (adjusted) to get from #96 (where we are) to #6. Not a trivial difference.

[G man]

I believe there are a few issues that this team needs to address.

A true leader/ alpha dog
ability to guard the ball
ability to guard the ball screen (specifically Austin getting really tired of watching him reach around screens instead of fighting through)



I think not having a true floor leader has lead to offensive inconsistency, and lack of a defensive personality. On the flip side I think we should change our defensive approach to what we were doing in 2010. Pull the defense back to three point line. This would help with guys allowing penetration to the middle of the paint. We are big enough to control the glass against 98% of teams. This same defense is working for UVA. It should work for us as well. That being said Coach K and staff know way more about basketball than I do, but I think this is worth considering.

[Kedsy]

If I understand the Pomeroy stuff right (and I very well might not), as of today it's 10 points a game (adjusted) to get from #96 (where we are) to #6. Not a trivial difference.

No, it's 10 points per 100 possessions. Our current pace is a little under 70 possessions per game, which means the difference between #96 and #6 is under 7 points a game. Not trivial, no, but possibly attainable. Butler and VCU each gained 3 points (per 100) in defensive efficiency over their last 4 games. Kentucky gained 2+. We have 10 games before the ACC tournament, if we improve over those 10 games at a similar rate to those teams, it would put us in the top 15. Will we do that? I have no idea. The odds are against it. But looking at it this way, our defense is certainly not beyond redemption.

[cspan37421]

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not that surprised - since I did notice that the ranking is somewhat volatile (I think we were #84 a few days ago). But I am surprised the figure is that volatile, with 20+ games under our belt, unless it's a moving average or something non-cumulative.

If our defensive shortcomings are through motivation & focus, or "fist" components, he does have some levers at his disposal. Even then, I suspect he's already been pulling on those levers for some time, so I don't know how much benefit can be had through going to the well again and again, to mix a metaphor.

If the problem is talent, I'm not sure what we can do at this point except go all-in on offense. We can't get taller or faster quickly.

[Kedsy]

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not that surprised - since I did notice that the ranking is somewhat volatile (I think we were #84 a few days ago). But I am surprised the figure is that volatile, with 20+ games under our belt, unless it's a moving average or something non-cumulative.

If our defensive shortcomings are through motivation & focus, or "fist" components, he does have some levers at his disposal. Even then, I suspect he's already been pulling on those levers for some time, so I don't know how much benefit can be had through going to the well again and again, to mix a metaphor.

If the problem is talent, I'm not sure what we can do at this point except go all-in on offense. We can't get taller or faster quickly.

Pomeroy does give extra weight to more recent games, though I don't know how much. However much it is, the efficiency figures remain volatile even after 30 games, as evidenced by the movement in the Final Four teams' numbers over the course of the NCAAT.

As far as solving our defensive woes, I think Coach K's presser was a good sign. He wouldn't have taken that particularly trick out of his bag it if he didn't think a public shaming might solve the problem.

[FellowTraveler]

Following the second half against St. John's, Duke may be 18-3, but has a 31-11 record if you score the games by halves. It's clearly a focus/consistency issue. We're much better playing to win than playing not to lose.


I hear what you're saying, however it is a statistic which shows the inconsistency which this team has displayed throughout the season.

Is it? Seems more like a contrivance; a 'junk stat' that is offered without any context whatsoever and, as such, tells us nothing. In order to draw conclusions from "record if you score the games by halves," we have to know how that 31-11 record compares to other teams. No such comparison has been provided, so it is not an illuminating "statistic."

Syracuse, which has been ranked #1 much of the season and has but a single loss, is 35-9-2 by halves. Wisconsin, #2 in KenPom's rankings, is 31-11-2 by halves (and has an additional overtime loss.) Marquette, currently 1 spot behind Duke in KenPom ratings and possessing a similar 18-4 real w/l record, is 32-12 by halves. Add in the fact that Duke has the third toughest schedule in the country, and a 31-11 "record if you score the games by halves" seems unremarkable.

[Newton_14]

Is it? Seems more like a contrivance; a 'junk stat' that is offered without any context whatsoever and, as such, tells us nothing. In order to draw conclusions from "record if you score the games by halves," we have to know how that 31-11 record compares to other teams. No such comparison has been provided, so it is not an illuminating "statistic."

Syracuse, which has been ranked #1 much of the season and has but a single loss, is 35-9-2 by halves. Wisconsin, #2 in KenPom's rankings, is 31-11-2 by halves (and has an additional overtime loss.) Marquette, currently 1 spot behind Duke in KenPom ratings and possessing a similar 18-4 real w/l record, is 32-12 by halves. Add in the fact that Duke has the third toughest schedule in the country, and a 31-11 "record if you score the games by halves" seems unremarkable.

Thanks. I agree.

I think this is a meaningless stat. For example, UNC dominated GaTech tonight pretty much start to finish. Up 20 at the half, and up 20 with 4 or 5 minutes to go. Roy had the starters on the pine the last 2 to 3 minutes, and Tech cut the lead to 12 at the end. So UNC "lost" the 2nd half by 8. That's supposed to mean something? Really?

[Billy Dat]

In all the post St. Johns game chatter, I didn't see anyone include K's specific call-out of our defense:

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=1845&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=205369999
On his concerns about the defense
“The defense in the first half was very good. I think a very big part of it was we just let it up. These kids are more offensive players and they won’t win big unless they become defensive players that can play offense that’s the bottom line. At Maryland, we played really well defensively, first half against Florida State, so we can do it. It’s just not in our nature to do it.”

This is a very interesting peek behind the practice curtain - K goes so far as it say it's not in their nature to play the kind of defense he wants them to play.

[dukejim1]

With the current status of the best HS players playing the majority of their games in an AAU environment where a group of stars fly into a weekend venue and play a multitude of games, it should be no surprise that it is not in many players "nature" to understand how to play the team oriented defense that Duke demands. Those teams struggle to put in a couple of offensive and inbound sets in their limited amount of practice time and coaching knowledge of team defensive principles. This will be an ongoing problem, but we have the best staff to work within that framework. We also recruit kids that for the most part want to learn those principles. This team will improve on defense this year. Will it be enough to carry us deep in the postseason, I can'r project that. But they will improve as has every Duke team.

[superdave]

If most people here agree that defense is our major issue and that focus and effort are what needs to remain consistently elevated on defense for us to jump a level as a team, what are the in-season changes that might make Duke dial in and play focused, intense defense for entire games and for weeks at a time?

The 2010 Duke team started to rebound and defend better in February when Zoubek entered the starting lineup. So I think a lineup change, or perhaps an increase in minutes for one of our guys, could be a possible focus-inducing change. Tyler and Miles would seem to be the two candidates who could spur our D to better heights. I'd argue that Tyler's offensive deficiencies could actually offset what he brings to the team on D, so perhaps a strong run by Miles is more likely to spark Duke to play better team D.

Similarly, the team's starting lineup and (more importantly) its rotation has been in flux all season. If the lineup and rotation become fixed and guys know what minutes they can expect each game, that could be one dynamic that helps spur some greater defensive consistency as well.

Last year, Connecticut was 9th in the Big East at the end of the regular season. They would have been a low-seeded tourney team, but they got hot. They won 5 games in 5 days to win the Big East tournament, then won 6 games to win the NCAAs. They went from 21-9 to 32-9 and champions. There's something to be said for a team that feels like it has its back against a wall. They fight. The Packers rode a similar wave last year to win the Super Bowl and the Giants are trying to use that same magic this year. Duke is 18-3 and in all likelihood is too good to look like a low seed. But they could feel like their backs are against the wall with the talk of a lackadaisical Cameron and consistently inconsistent play. It could cause leaders to emerge and the team to come out swinging.

Doug Gottlieb mentioned according to some DBR posters that this particular Duke roster might just be tired of one another after China, Maui and the season to date. I doubt there's any spite or bad blood in the locker room. I certainly have not heard of any. But there could be some fatigue. After all these are the dog days of the season - no more Maui, no more MSG, no more Ohio State. But, could the game in Chapel Hill and all the energy and pomp that goes with that wake this team up? Do they need a big game and a little hatred to get the blood flowing again? I think it will help. Unc is a good measuring stick for us. Heck, they are the measuring stick for us. I recall the game in Chapel Hill two years ago. Duke was the better team, but was really unsure of whether it was the better team. Down the stretch Mason got an offensive rebound and a really nice reverse dunk in traffic. The team sort of collected themselves and carried themselves as if they were superior the rest of that game. Competition is often about attitude and we started developing some attitude at that moment. That team knew how to play, but that day they started believing they knew how to win. This team has further to go because it is more green, but could have a similar awakening in Chapel Hill or when Unc comes to Cameron.

I am skeptical there is a wildcard like Gbinije that will emerge to change the team's current dynamic but it's always possible. I do think the season is a long one. Kids go hot and cold for stretches. They play beat up a lot and grow tired of 5am practices and the grind.

But we are at the point in the season where players have a lot of reps under their belt. That especially helps when learning Coach K's defense. We're 2-3 stops per game more from being a good defensive team. It's within the realm of possibility. I think some combination of the factors I detailed above could get this team to focus and start playing at a higher level defensively so we can get those stops and eliminate some of our mistakes.

[jv001]

If most people here agree that defense is our major issue and that focus and effort are what needs to remain consistently elevated on defense for us to jump a level as a team, what are the in-season changes that might make Duke dial in and play focused, intense defense for entire games and for weeks at a time?

The 2010 Duke team started to rebound and defend better in February when Zoubek entered the starting lineup. So I think a lineup change, or perhaps an increase in minutes for one of our guys, could be a possible focus-inducing change. Tyler and Miles would seem to be the two candidates who could spur our D to better heights. I'd argue that Tyler's offensive deficiencies could actually offset what he brings to the team on D, so perhaps a strong run by Miles is more likely to spark Duke to play better team D.

Similarly, the team's starting lineup and (more importantly) its rotation has been in flux all season. If the lineup and rotation become fixed and guys know what minutes they can expect each game, that could be one dynamic that helps spur some greater defensive consistency as well.

Doug Gottlieb mentioned according to some DBR posters that this particular Duke roster might just be tired of one another after China, Maui and the season to date. I doubt there's any spite or bad blood in the locker room. I certainly have not heard of any. But there could be some fatigue. After all these are the dog days of the season - no more Maui, no more MSG, no more Ohio State.

I am skeptical there is a wildcard like Gbinije that will emerge to change the team's current dynamic but it's always possible. I do think the season is a long one. Kids go hot and cold for stretches. They play beat up a lot and grow tired of 5am practices and the grind.

But we are at the point in the season where players have a lot of reps under their belt. That especially helps when learning Coach K's defense. We're 2-3 stops per game more from being a good defensive team. It's within the realm of possibility. I think some combination of the factors I detailed above could get this team to focus and start playing at a higher level defensively so we can get those stops and eliminate some of our mistakes.

superdave you make some good points here. The 2010 team stepped up their play with Zoubs and Lance leading the way. They played the way we expected them to play earlier in their careers. I could see Miles becoming that player this year. But who can be the Lance Thomas player for this years team? I don't see anyone that can play that type of defense. However if all our players improve on defense we could see a similar improvement for the team. Keeping their focus and wanting to play defense could be what Coach K is looking for. As for Gotlip's comments, who knows what he was trying to do. He may have wanted to start a controversy that Duke is having chemistry problems. I don't think they are. If we can pick up the defense and continue to play efficient offense, I think attitudes will change and we will see the the team improve. Like you, I don't think Michael Binijie will be the answer. However I could be wrong. Coach K may do as you say, cut back minutes for some of the guys and go with a 7 man rotation for the most part. It's going to be interesting to see what Coach K will do. I'm pretty sure he won't let it stay as it is. GoDuke!

[Kedsy]

Coach K may do as you say, cut back minutes for some of the guys and go with a 7 man rotation for the most part.

Who from our current 8 man rotation do you think will drop out?

[flyingdutchdevil]

Who from our current 8 man rotation do you think will drop out?

Maybe he thinks that the short stature of both Tyler and Quinn equals one player?

[jv001]

Who from our current 8 man rotation do you think will drop out?

I don't really know and would hate to guess. It won't be: Mason, Ryan, Miles, Seth, or Austin. If he does cut the rotation to 7, the odd man out will come from Andre, Tyler or Quinn. Andre and Tyler are healthy. So that goes in their favor. Quinn I don't know anything about his health. I stated he may go with a 7 man rotation. I don't think he will unless there's an injury or illness. This team will only improve if they play better as a team and not as individuals. GoDuke!

[patentgeek]

Thanks. I agree.

I think this is a meaningless stat. For example, UNC dominated GaTech tonight pretty much start to finish. Up 20 at the half, and up 20 with 4 or 5 minutes to go. Roy had the starters on the pine the last 2 to 3 minutes, and Tech cut the lead to 12 at the end. So UNC "lost" the 2nd half by 8. That's supposed to mean something? Really?

After reading the discussion on the relative utility of following "halves" as a measure of a team's effectiveness/success, I recall this article published on Basketball Prospectus a couple of years ago that takes a different look at how to assess a team's strength - it's based on the running score of the game and the win probability at any point in the game. I'm not sure whether I agree or not, but it's an interesting take on the issue.

http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1183

[Neals384]

Good ideas. Make defending more fun and less predictable by mixing it up.

We have only two players with any size on the court, we need to work harder at keeping them in the paint. Pack it in, lose the hedge, add a bit of zone. And more Miles - he's best of the 3 at not getting suckered out past the 3 point line.


A quick brainstorm on the possible changes Coach K could implement to make our D better:

1. Pack it in more. Have the guards sag back to cut off driving lanes, forcing opponents to shoot more jump shots. Use our interior size to control the defensive boards.

2. Ratchet up the pressure D. Have the guards and wings overplay the passing lanes and bring pressure starting at the mid-court line.

3. Utilize depth more and play full-court defense.

4. Junk defenses. Throw zones, traps and full-court D at opponents a couple of possessions each half to break their rhythm.

5. Maximize effort on one or two strengths. I'm not sure what those might be but potentially defending the 3, defensive rebounding, taking out the opponents best player.

6. Keep the same scheme, hope everyone improves with more practice and games. Consistent intensity is important here (and in all of these, for that matter)

What am I missing? I'll be interested in seeing what wrinkles Coach K brings the next few weeks. We are getting close to the point this season where we are who we are and our guys just have to buckle down and start executing at a higher level.

[COYS]

Good ideas. Make defending more fun and less predictable by mixing it up.

We have only two players with any size on the court, we need to work harder at keeping them in the paint. Pack it in, lose the hedge, add a bit of zone. And more Miles - he's best of the 3 at not getting suckered out past the 3 point line.

We haven't been consistent with our hedges, by any means, but hedging is almost a necessity if we want to stop perimeter penetration. A good hedge will force the opponent's ball handler to go perpendicular to or even away from the basket after rubbing off his defender on the screen. If we take away the hedge, we run the risk of dribblers penetrating the defense even easier or getting more open looks from beyond the arc. Packing it in might help a bit so that our hedges aren't way out beyond the three point line where a relative lack of quickness gives the opposing guards time to out-quick our guys into the lane, but I don't think losing the hedge entirely is a recipe for success. Watching Zoubs and Lance hedge while Jon and Nolan recovered on defense was a thing of beauty. I doubt this team will ever get that good, but even a marginal improvement in this regard will have significant results on our overall defense.

Also, while I really have liked Miles' defense for the most part, he doesn't get suckered out beyond the three point line mostly because when he's in, he guards the opposing team's biggest player who is the least likely to venture beyond the arc. Honestly, this might not be good for our defense, anyway, since Miles is our best hedger.

[moonpie23]

i guess i'm like everyone else...i'm frustrated when i watch......after i cooled off following the SJ game, my wife made a point that i felt was important......

1. EVERY single team, no matter WHO, gets up for duke.....if you can beat duke, you've accomplished something special....maybe SJ just played their brains out in the 2nd half...


add to that, i thought of a few other things..

2. THIS duke team doesn't seem to intimidate anyone. They don't put teams out with patented duke "runs"......you used to be able to count on the first two minutes of the 2nd half scaring the crap outta the other team.......now, for some reason, we don't have that as a dependable weapon. We have runs, but not the ones that SHOW the other team that they are going to lose....

3. Our "stars" are mason and austin........they don't exude the typical duke "killer instinct"..although i think if austin stays another year, you WILL see that in him....

4. They look more like a group of individuals, going about their jobs, but looking for a leader..

jmho (and mrs. moonpie's)

[superdave]

1. EVERY single team, no matter WHO, gets up for duke.....if you can beat duke, you've accomplished something special....maybe SJ just played their brains out in the 2nd half...


Along these lines, does it feel like opponents are hitting a high percentage of well-defended shots vs. us this year? I wonder if that has to do with our perimeter height, meaning it's easier for offensive players to elevate and shoot over us than the past few years. Just a feeling I have - our opponents are hitting a high percentage of tough shots.

[tommy]

We haven't been consistent with our hedges, by any means, but hedging is almost a necessity if we want to stop perimeter penetration. A good hedge will force the opponent's ball handler to go perpendicular to or even away from the basket after rubbing off his defender on the screen. If we take away the hedge, we run the risk of dribblers penetrating the defense even easier or getting more open looks from beyond the arc. Packing it in might help a bit so that our hedges aren't way out beyond the three point line where a relative lack of quickness gives the opposing guards time to out-quick our guys into the lane, but I don't think losing the hedge entirely is a recipe for success.

I agree with you that the hedge is pretty much a necessity. If you don't hedge, the man defending the dribbler, that is to say, the man getting screened, if he is able to get through the screen at all will constantly be playing catch up, trailing his man into the lane. The opponent will essentially have a 4 on 3 situation. Not good.

But I actually think our hedging has been pretty good this year. A few weeks ago I started a thread on the subject, and was tracking it with stats, but I haven't had the time to continue it. I may chart it on an individual game basis going forward here and there just to check in on how we're doing, but I will say that even though I haven't been doing the stats on it lately I have been watching for it and taking some notes on our performance on the hedge, and it has been pretty good. I am not seeing a lot of instances where a poor hedge, or a poor recovery from the high screen/hedge play, is leading to open shots, or really many shots at all. We're recovering pretty well in most instances. Like I say, I'll try to get some numbers on it when I can.

[toooskies]

Addressing the topic I brought up, which was scoring by halves...

Perhaps why that stat jumped out at me wasn't that it was necessarily bad, but that it didn't seem like what I expect from Duke. Compared to last year, Duke had lost 6 halves up to this point of the year (and tied two more). Duke lost 14 halves all of last year. That was a more talented defensive team, so you'd expect some advantage, but

But it was also a more consistent team. A team that didn't take many possessions off. When a consistent mantra of the school is "next play", and a game like St. John's is the latest of many games this year where we're playing to finish the 40 minutes with a W instead of trying to win every possession. That's not to say there isn't some X and O tweaks to better guarantee the end result is a W in a closely contested game. But our weaknesses aren't in stall-ball or defensive adjustments. It's entirely in losing intensity, particularly on defense. It's about focusing on the outcome of the game instead of the outcome of every play.

And perhaps it's because of the focus put on Coach K's achievement over his career, particularly at the beginning of the year. It's the one time where I didn't hear any rhetoric from Coach K about doing things the right way and letting the accolades come. Part of that is being gracious in the moment, but it seems like the team is less focused on the plays in front of them and more focused on the W.

And when you do that, you lose a lot of 2nd halves. You play inconsistently because what you're trying to achieve changes.

The positive here is the Duke is capable of beating anyone in March and April. The negative is that they need to remain focused to do it, and that's a weakness of this team.

[loldevilz]

i guess i'm like everyone else...i'm frustrated when i watch......after i cooled off following the SJ game, my wife made a point that i felt was important......

1. EVERY single team, no matter WHO, gets up for duke.....if you can beat duke, you've accomplished something special....maybe SJ just played their brains out in the 2nd half...


add to that, i thought of a few other things..

2. THIS duke team doesn't seem to intimidate anyone. They don't put teams out with patented duke "runs"......you used to be able to count on the first two minutes of the 2nd half scaring the crap outta the other team.......now, for some reason, we don't have that as a dependable weapon. We have runs, but not the ones that SHOW the other team that they are going to lose....

3. Our "stars" are mason and austin........they don't exude the typical duke "killer instinct"..although i think if austin stays another year, you WILL see that in him....

4. They look more like a group of individuals, going about their jobs, but looking for a leader..

jmho (and mrs. moonpie's)

1. I just don't think this is a good excuse. Kentucky for the last few years has had top 5 defense and everyone gets up to play them. Plus if you compare this Duke defense to others it is by far the worst.

2. I think this is the best reason. We aren't physical intimidating. That's why I think Gbinije should play a lot more or even start. He brings that big athletic frame that makes us a lot more physically intimidating. Dawkins and Kelly in particular don't have the physical gifts to play lock down defense.

3. I think Austin absolutely has that "killer instinct". That's almost always been his calling card.

4. I think that may be the case, but Mason I think is definitely starting to look like the leader of this team as each week passes. The only problem is that he doesn't seem to have the ball in his hands enough.

[Saratoga2]

I don't really know and would hate to guess. It won't be: Mason, Ryan, Miles, Seth, or Austin. If he does cut the rotation to 7, the odd man out will come from Andre, Tyler or Quinn. Andre and Tyler are healthy. So that goes in their favor. Quinn I don't know anything about his health. I stated he may go with a 7 man rotation. I don't think he will unless there's an injury or illness. This team will only improve if they play better as a team and not as individuals. GoDuke!

Pretty clearly we need at least 3 big men to play to fill the center/power forward positions. Just from the foul risk and physical conditioning aspect you have to have at least three so I expect no real change from what we have been doing there.

In the case of our guards, even as a freshman, Austin really needs to play starter minutes. That leaves two positions, SF/SG and PG. While we can all see issues that our guards have defensively, with ball security, passing skills and scoring ability we can'r compare them with some ideal play, but against the others available to play their position. I personally have thought Seth has had ball handling problems all year and his shooting has also dipped to only so-so. Compared to Tyler, he may be as good defensively and probably better than Quinn. Tyler has a better handle perhaps, but the offense doesn't flow so well with him in the game and the defense may be able to sag off him. Quinn seems to have both the handle and court awareness to get the offense flowing, but gives away defensive efficiency. Really, I can see why coach K struggles trying to select between them and may continue with Seth getting the majority of the time and hope that someone emerges. With Andre, he has his ups and downs. When he is hitting, he is a tremendous weapon, but then he can disappear. His size is a plus defensively, but on the defensive side he also seems to lose focus and get beaten. Since it is really difficult to start two 6'1" guards against the teams with big quick and experienced guards/SFs, that leaves us with the hope that Michael will somehow emerge. I haven't seen that much to encourage me about Michaels play except for brief flashes.

The bottom line is that I think we will stay with Austin, Seth and Andre with Tyler and Quinn the primary subs at guard depending on matchups. They are who we have and we will win or lose based on their abilities and shortcomings.

The same issue we mull over this year is likely to return again next year. If Austin goes, we will have the same number of guards, including a good 6'3" freshman. If Austin stays we will try to figure how to utilize our guards. The one difference is that we may have alternatives at the SF position with Michael having a year of PT plus Alex being ready to play.

[jv001]

1. I just don't think this is a good excuse. Kentucky for the last few years has had top 5 defense and everyone gets up to play them. Plus if you compare this Duke defense to others it is by far the worst.

2. I think this is the best reason. We aren't physical intimidating. That's why I think Gbinije should play a lot more or even start. He brings that big athletic frame that makes us a lot more physically intimidating. Dawkins and Kelly in particular don't have the physical gifts to play lock down defense.

3. I think Austin absolutely has that "killer instinct". That's almost always been his calling card.

4. I think that may be the case, but Mason I think is definitely starting to look like the leader of this team as each week passes. The only problem is that he doesn't seem to have the ball in his hands enough.

I've watched every game this year and in most games, I've said to myself or my wife; we need 3 or 4 good stops and we can put this team away. Instead of getting those stops we give up an easy basket, or hold them to a miss shot and they get an offensive rebound and put back. Or we hold them and go down and turn the ball over or take a quick 3 and the opponent gets a fast break layup. I don't think it's a lack of physical ability but something is missing. I believe that was what Coach K was talking about after the game. Do our guys not work on defense like they do offense? As for Michael Gbinije, the defensive stats that tommy has been gracious enough to provide show that he is not as good a defender as we thought he would be. As for Dawkins, he has the physical tools to play defense. It's just up to Andre to use them. I hope we see the defense pick it up and I hope we see someone step up on offense in those situations where we can put em away. I would love to see Austin do it because he has the natural ability to do just that. But he is a freshman and until this year he never had the pressure of big time college basketball. He's up against very good college players game after game. He's going to be a very very good player, but will that be this year? I hope so because we need him to be the guy. GoDuke!

[Kedsy]

The one difference is that we may have alternatives at the SF position with Michael having a year of PT plus Alex being ready to play.

I think this will end up being a big difference. Although against smaller teams I can see those guys playing PF, too.

[DukieInBrasil]

2. I think this is the best reason. We aren't physical intimidating. That's why I think Gbinije should play a lot more or even start. He brings that big athletic frame that makes us a lot more physically intimidating. Dawkins and Kelly in particular don't have the physical gifts to play lock down defense.


I wouldn't start Gbinije b/c he doesn't play like knows what he's doing yet. Why play someone just b/c they have a "big athletic frame"? If they get beat for a goal nearly every time they become a lot less physically intimidating. I really hope that Silent G becomes a defensive force, from what i've seen this year, he is not yet that player.

[sagegrouse]

Is it? Seems more like a contrivance; a 'junk stat' that is offered without any context whatsoever and, as such, tells us nothing. In order to draw conclusions from "record if you score the games by halves," we have to know how that 31-11 record compares to other teams. No such comparison has been provided, so it is not an illuminating "statistic."

Syracuse, which has been ranked #1 much of the season and has but a single loss, is 35-9-2 by halves. Wisconsin, #2 in KenPom's rankings, is 31-11-2 by halves (and has an additional overtime loss.) Marquette, currently 1 spot behind Duke in KenPom ratings and possessing a similar 18-4 real w/l record, is 32-12 by halves. Add in the fact that Duke has the third toughest schedule in the country, and a 31-11 "record if you score the games by halves" seems unremarkable.

FWIW the 1991-1992 team, which I remember as being incredibly sloppy with big leads, lost 14 halves over the course of the season. Was this Duke's best team ever? I think so.

sagegrouse
'I remember that team having a 30-point 2nd half lead over #7 St. John's but winning by only 10'

[NSDukeFan]

FWIW the 1991-1992 team, which I remember as being incredibly sloppy with big leads, lost 14 halves over the course of the season. Was this Duke's best team ever? I think so.

sagegrouse
'I remember that team having a 30-point 2nd half lead over #7 St. John's but winning by only 10'

Good thing the internet wasn't around there or there would have been a serious meltdown. ;)

[loldevilz]

I wouldn't start Gbinije b/c he doesn't play like knows what he's doing yet. Why play someone just b/c they have a "big athletic frame"? If they get beat for a goal nearly every time they become a lot less physically intimidating. I really hope that Silent G becomes a defensive force, from what i've seen this year, he is not yet that player.

I have never seen Silent G ever get continually burned like Dawkins has on many occasions. Against Buford it was night and day Dawkins vs Gbinije guarding him.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

^^^

We need to stop talking about individual players and recognize that defense is a team effort - 100% of the time. I really don't believe there is a fundamental lack of talent, athleticism, or whatever other "measure" of physical ability that some here want to use to assess different player's effectiveness. I think we have plenty of physical ability. I will simply add to the prior discussion of the need for greater defensive consistency by stating more specifically that we need consistency in two areas: communication and effort. On the effort side, there needs to be a constant ferocity about us - and we're only seeing it from this team in spurts. With respect to communication, I think there are two issues... verbal communication (i.e., calling out the picks, switches, cuts, etc.) and familiarity. The latter may be the tougher to master. While verbal communication can be taught, this team still needs more time together to gain that intuitive sense of how truly to play together.

Simply substituting in one player deemed to be more "physically able" in some way is not necessarily going to change how we play as team - although I wholeheartedly agree that someone willing to step forward and act as the team's true leader can have an incremental effect on the others. Leadership by committee just doesn't work. After all, every foot does have it's Big Toe. ;)

[COYS]

The same issue we mull over this year is likely to return again next year. If Austin goes, we will have the same number of guards, including a good 6'3" freshman. If Austin stays we will try to figure how to utilize our guards. The one difference is that we may have alternatives at the SF position with Michael having a year of PT plus Alex being ready to play.

Not to highjack the thread too much, but I think next year will look VERY different. With Miles gone at the very least and most likely Mason and Austin joining him, our size issues will switch from the perimeter (where we could easily run out Seth, Andre, and Alex/Mike to give us plenty of size) to the post, where the more perimeter oriented Kelly will be the only proven player. Also, Quinn has the quickness to be a good defender, but his lack of experience shows (he falls for fakes, doesn't anticipate the ball handlers movements, and has trouble fighting through screens). That might change next year after he's had the offseason to develop, giving us someone who can lock down the perimeter. Also, Rasheed has the quickness and length of Nolan, giving us a long-armed defender for the perimeter.

Anyway, I still maintain that our defensive struggles this season mostly apply to focus. We have two of the best rebounders in the country in Mason and Miles. Yet, we don't take advantage of that enough when we force misses because the team as a whole is inconsistent at boxing out (and our guards are really bad about this). When we hedge and recover quickly, we cut off dribble penetration really well. When our forwards are in the game and focused, they rotate well even when the opposing guards are able to penetrate the defense. We will probably always be at risk to give up jumpers over our guards when there's a size disadvantage, but as long as we box out and take advantage of our rebounders, there will be enough misses on jumpers that it shouldn't hurt us too much. When Andre is on his game, he can play strong off the ball defense and deny opposing 3's the ball. When he's not, he gets beat backdoor or loses his man on the perimeter giving up open buckets and messing up our other rotations.

We need the whole team to play consistently because there isn't one individual defender that is good enough to make up for the lack of focus at other positions. Seth isn't good enough to singlehandedly take an opposing point guard out of a game (like Nolan and Kyrie did to Pullen of K-State last year or as Nolan did to Marshall last year in the ACC Championship game). Our wing defenders aren't good enough to take opposing wings out of games as Scheyer and Singler did quietly for the past five years. And our post defenders haven't mastered rotations the way Lance and Zoubs had by the time they were seniors. The TEAM has to play well on all fronts to succeed. That makes it less probable that everyone will be on in the same game for 40 minutes, but it also doesn't mean it can't be done. The 2010 team mastered that intensity. Nolan and Kyle brought it last year. This team hasn't mastered it yet and, unlike in past seasons, doesn't have one person it can look to to help carry the defense even when others are struggling.

[BluDvlsN1]

Coach K on defense that we all probably read !


“Some of our worst defense has been with the leads,” Krzyzewski said. “But in order to get the leads, you have to play good defense. We’re striving for consistency.”

“We’re not inherently a defensive team – the mentality of these kids,” Krzyzewski said. “They’re more offensive players. But they’ve shown that they can play really good defense. We just have to get it going for longer periods of time.”

“Some of our worst defense has been with the leads,” Krzyzewski said. “But in order to get the leads, you have to play good defense. We’re striving for consistency.”

“It’s a different team than we’ve had,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve know that since China and Dubai. We’re not going to be this juggernaut defensively. We have to keep striving to get better.”

....just in case it fell between the cracks!!!!

[ncexnyc]

Based on what I heard Coach K say on his TV show the other day, I seriously doubt you'll see any changes to the size of our rotation. Basically he said that there was a lot of talent on the team, however there wasn't any separation between this talent.

[greybeard]

As I said elsewhere, another big defensive presence would make the exterior players look much better. Remember how many blows Zoubek and Lance got from the Plumlees? Also, I think we are seeing much more sophisticated offense from teams with a cluster of mid sized players and a few decent sized bigs then in the past. These mid sized player are getting it in positions I believe that they have practiced the death out of, with the ability to score off the shot or the dribble, who know when to keep the ball moving and how to be effective after the pass, and who are schooled to see passing options either outside or at the rim off of movement by their teammates who have also been schooled to death about the timing and location of getting to spots that makes that passing game a killer to "lock down." 18 and 3, with the number of really good teams these guys have faced, and this team's ability to go all out to win at the end, 99 percent of the fan bases in the nation would be more than happy.

Very good reading and thoughts how the defense might well be better. I enjoyed and learned from the contributions made. This Board is really great.

[airowe]

No, it's 10 points per 100 possessions. Our current pace is a little under 70 possessions per game, which means the difference between #96 and #6 is under 7 points a game. Not trivial, no, but possibly attainable. Butler and VCU each gained 3 points (per 100) in defensive efficiency over their last 4 games. Kentucky gained 2+. We have 10 games before the ACC tournament, if we improve over those 10 games at a similar rate to those teams, it would put us in the top 15. Will we do that? I have no idea. The odds are against it. But looking at it this way, our defense is certainly not beyond redemption.

Minor update here. Our Adjusted D is now up to 65. Whether that's a function of our play or our previous opponents is up to debate. http://kenpom.com/

[stickdog]

What is really strange is that 3 of Duke's 4 losses this season came against the teams that have shot the best from behind the arc against Duke.

OSU went 8-14 from distance against Duke.
FSU went 7-14 from distance against Duke.
Temple went 5-10 from distance against Duke.

Those are the only three games in which Duke's opponent has managed to shoot 50% or better from behind the stripe so far this season and those are also the three teams with the highest effective field goal percentages and true shooting percentages against Duke so far this season.

So it appears that Duke's opponents this season largely live and die by the three.

[toooskies]

Minor update here. Our Adjusted D is now up to 65. Whether that's a function of our play or our previous opponents is up to debate. http://kenpom.com/

But we haven't changed ratings overall as our efficiency on D was met with a similar downswing in our O. It sure makes it seem like we're improving, but in reality we're about the same team that we were. Rank tells a lot less than the raw numbers.

[airowe]

For those keeping track, I checked this last night at about 1AM and we had moved up to 61. Now, 9 hours later and without having played any games obviously, we are at 57...

http://kenpom.com/

[camion]

For those keeping track, I checked this last night at about 1AM and we had moved up to 61. Now, 9 hours later and without having played any games obviously, we are at 57...

http://kenpom.com/

We had a really good practice. :)

[toooskies]

For those keeping track, I checked this last night at about 1AM and we had moved up to 61. Now, 9 hours later and without having played any games obviously, we are at 57...

http://kenpom.com/

Just shows how close we are clustered with a bunch of other teams. We're 2 or 3 more BC games away from being top-20, but about 15 away from being top 5.

[jimsumner]

Just shows how close we are clustered with a bunch of other teams. We're 2 or 3 more BC games away from being top-20, but about 15 away from being top 5.

If only Duke had 15 more BCs on the schedule.

[hurleyfor3]

We moved up one, to 56th, after the FSU game. If it weren't for these pesky basketball games they make us play we'd be a lot better.

[Kedsy]

We moved up one, to 56th, after the FSU game. If it weren't for these pesky basketball games they make us play we'd be a lot better.

Good point. It's when other teams play that we show our true mettle.

[hurleyfor3]

Continuing the Defensive Efficiency Vigil, we're up to 53rd today.

Duke's Defense. Getting less sucky every day.

[toooskies]

Continuing the Defensive Efficiency Vigil, we're up to 53rd today.

Duke's Defense. Getting less sucky every day.

Nah. The tempo against VPI was slow, which led to the low score. Our efficiency changed by 0.1 I think? Pretty average for us, actually. I thought we played a good game, but we forced so few turnovers that they ended up with a good number of points.

[roywhite]

According to the game notes prior to the 2/28 Wake game:

"Duke’s perimeter defense has improved significantly over the last 14 games. Duke has held those 14 opponents to a .290 shooting percentage from beyond the arc and allowed just three of those teams to shoot better than .350 from three-point range. Only four of those teams have hit more than five three-pointers in a game."

[airowe]

Continuing the Defensive Efficiency Vigil, we're up to 53rd today.

Duke's Defense. Getting less sucky every day.

Defense started getting sucky again. Down to 55.

[Ian]

Our real problem is that we don't force turnovers like the typical Coach K team. 6.2 steals per game is the lowest total since 1996. and would be the 2nd lowest of any year from 1984-present (not counting 1995). Our turnover margin is also one of the lowest in the Coach K era.

[Newton_14]

The defense has actually improved more than I thought it could even a month ago. Not only have the guys defended the 3 ball much better, the perimeter guys are getting beat off the dribble far less than earlier in the season. Austin, Tyler, and Seth have all improved there. Tyler had a heck of a game guarding Green Saturday. Even more impressive given the quick turnaround for Duke, and the normal amount of rest for the Hokies.

Forcing more turnovers would be nice, but I am tickled to death if they can continue to limit the dribble penetration that was killing us earlier.