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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    How Do We Fare When Our Big Men Hedge?

    There has been a fair amount of discussion in other threads, not only this year, but in years past, of our big men hedging against perimeter screens, whether they should be, shouldn't be, how effective or ineffective this defensive strategy is, who does it well and who doesn't, how our perimeter guys recover or don't recover, etc. I wanted to look at it in detail, and thought others might be interested in what I found. The Georgia Tech game is the first game I've looked at this issue for this purpose, and so obviously it's just one game, small sample size, but it's a start. To summarize my findings, see the charts below, but first I'll describe the plays that then get translated into numbers below.

    The short answer to the question, "How effective were we hedging against Georgia Tech?" is: very effective. In the entire game, out of 16 times that we had a big man hedge against a perimeter screen set by his man against a Tech dribbler, and considering the immediate (and sometimes semi-immediate) aftermath of that screen and hedge, Tech scored a grand total of two baskets. Two out of 16 hedges. And even those were both highly contested shots by Udofia and one of those took place after an atypical switch we got forced into.

    OK so here were the hedges, in order. First I'll indicate the two players on the outside who handled the screen and hedge, then identify the other three defensive players (the "back 3") and then describe the plays.

    1. Rivers and Miles on the screen and hedge. Cook/Mason/Curry the back 3. Austin recovers quickly from being screened, Miles also returns quickly to his man, GT does not get a shot off as a result of this play.

    2. Thornton and Kelly; Cook/Curry/Miles the back 3. Dribbler splits the double, creates a 3 on 2, Miles steps up to make it a tough shot, forcing a miss, then gets the defensive board. Cook and Curry not involved in the play.

    3. Cook and Miles; Rivers/Dawkins/Kelly the back 3. Cook recovers from the screen, Miles quickly returns to his man too. Kelly provides good help/shading on Miles's man until he gets back. Dawkins/Rivers not involved. GT does not get a shot off.

    4. Dawkins and Miles; Cook/Rivers/Kelly the back 3. Andre recovers, but then gets faked out on a head fake, allowing the GT player to get into the lane. Miles is recovering but GT player drops off a pass to Kelly's man, who misses the short shot. We fouled on the rebound.

    5. Curry and Mason; Thornton, Rivers, and Hairston the back 3. Seth gets his hands on the ball, Hairston shifts to Mason's man, who's trying to get position down low. Josh directs Curry to move down and take Josh's man, which he does, until Mason gets back into position. Hairston did very well on this one. GT fails to get a shot.

    6. Cook and Kelly; Curry/Dawkins/Miles the back 3. Quinn recovers, Miles covers 2 GT players down low, directs Kelly which one to go to as he returns down low. GT fails to get a shot off.

    7. Curry and Kelly; Dawkins/Cook/Miles the back 3. Kelly doesn't stay with the hedge long enough, Seth can't get back in front of his man, so is forced to trail him into the lane, but Miles steps up and takes a great charge. Cook (at the elbow) did not help on this drive, but could've/should've.

    8. Curry and Mason; Cook/Rivers/Kelly the back 3. GT splits the double, leading to 4-on-3. Dribbler gets to the elbow, Cook comes over, leaving his man for an open 3 which is missed. Rivers grabs a nice backside rebound.

    2nd half:

    9. Curry and Mason; Rivers/Cook/Miles the back 3. Mason, on the hedge, pokes it away from the dribbler. Seth picks it up. Turnover for us.

    10. Curry and Miles; Thornton/Dawkins/Mason the back 3. Miles pushes out well, Seth recovers just as Udofia is shooting at the elbow. Seth gets his hand in Udofia's face, contests. Udofia hits the tough shot. Dawkins could've shaded over and helped out, but didn't.

    11. Rivers and Miles; Thornton/Dawkins/Mason the back 3. Quick recovery by Austin, Miles gets right back to his man too. Rice takes a quick, contested 3 pointer over Rivers; missed.

    12. Thornton and Kelly; Dawkins/Rives/Mason the back 3. Ty and Ryan remain switched; Udofia takes Ryan to the hole and scores, although Mason did help and contest. Tough shot over him.

    13. Dawkins and Kelly; Thornton/Rivers/Mason the back 3. Andre recovers nicely, dribbler tries a pass to the low post, but Mason tips it away. Turnover for us.

    14. Curry and Miles; Dawkins/Rivers/Mason the back 3. This was a strange screen near the right corner. Miles hedges and fouls as the dribbler is dribbling away from the basket.

    15. Curry and Kelly; Dawkins/Rivers/Mason the back 3. Seth and Ryan both recover nicely. No shot or penetration surrendered.

    16. Cook and Kelly; Rivers/Curry/Mason the back 3. Kelly forces the dribbler way out; Quinn recovers. Ryan hustles back to his man. No shot surrendered.

    OK so that's it. In terms of aggregating these into a table, I came up with two tables. I know the categories look silly, but this is my first go at this. They are below:

    First, for when each player was one of the two screen/hedge defenders outside:

    Total plays Full recovery to your man Contested shot from screener or dribbler Uncontested shot screener or dribbler No shot permitted at all Allowed split at top Extra big pushout by hedger Not big enough pushout Got hands on ball Fouled Helped force turnover Remained in switch Hoop allowed
    Curry 7 2 2 3 1 1 1 1
    Rivers 2 2 1 1
    Dawkins 2 1 1 1
    Cook 3 3 3
    Thornton 2 2 1 1 1
    Mason 3 1 2 1 1
    Miles 6 4 2 1 1 1
    Kelly 7 2 3 4 1 1 1 1 1
    Hairston






















    Keep in mind that while the "hoop" column would total four, that's because we allowed two hoops, but there were two guys on each of them involved in the screen/hedge, so I marked it down for both of them on each bucket, so 2 x 2 = 4.



    Notable to me here is that of the three times that Quinn was the man screened outside and a big hedged to help, Quinn made a full recovery quickly to his man all three times, and Duke did not even permit Tech to get a shot off as a result of the play any of the three times. I like that efficiency. Austin Rivers also did a good job recovering both times when he was the man screened. Miles, as our best overall defender, made excellent recoveries to his man 4 of the 6 times he hedged -- far better than did Mason and Ryan. Hope our opponents don't see that -- they'll have Mason's and Ryan's men do all the screening up top.


    And the below table is for when each player was one of the "back 3":



    Total plays Middle big steps up to help (failures to) Side man Shades/helps (failures to) Contested shot allowed Uncontested shot allowed No shot allowed Not involved in play Fouled Good talk Force turnover Hoop allowed
    Curry 4 4 4
    Rivers 10 5 10 1
    Dawkins 8 (1) 3 8 2
    Cook 6 1 (1) 1 1 5
    Thornton 4 2 4 1
    Mason 8 1 1 4 6 1 2
    Miles 4 2 1 1 1 1 1
    Kelly 3 1 1 1 1 1
    Hairston 1 1 1 1

























    Small sample size, but again Miles showed the best ability to step up and help when either the screened teammate or the hedger needed help. As you can see, when any of the back 3 did any helping, it was almost always a big. Neither Curry, Rivers, Dawkins nor Thornton got involved in these plays at all when they were in the back 3, and Cook did only once. Yet even though I didn't see him do any shading or anything like it to help deter anything or anyone, somehow every time Seth Curry was in the back 3, Georgia Tech failed to get a shot off. Maybe coincidence, I don't know. Small sample size, I guess. But that only occurred one time of the six that Cook was one of the wing defenders.

    Overall, though, like I said at the outset, our hedging and recovery was excellent in this game. Sure, Georgia Tech is not the most talented team I've ever seen, but still, our performance as to this aspect of our defensive strategy was outstanding. It'll be interesting to see if we get these same types of numbers against better teams.

  2. #2
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    Very interesting break-down, thanks. It will take some time for me to review.

    On one of your last observations -- it may be that the guards have box-out or "don't leave the shooter on the perimeter" responsibilities and therefore do not move towards the baseline on a hedge when they are in the back line. I am assuming they were primarily on the weak side (which may be a bad assumption).

  3. #3
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    Good analysis, thanks for putting it together. While watching the game I remember thinking that Mason was extending the hedge out a little to far, making it harder to recover. But then later it resulted in a steal so maybe he was doing it right.

    The big takeaway I got from your analysis is the further evidence that Miles is definitley our best post defender as a couple of our more frequent posters have been saying for a while.

    Which leads me to believe that Miles really needs to be getting more minutes. That also means another big losing some minutes and I believe it should be Kelly. I really do like Kelly and the versatile scoring ability he brings but with the current makeup of this team, I think what Miles brings is more important. We already have potent scoring ability from the perimeter with our guards so having another low post threat with better rebounding and better defense seems to make a lot of sense. And Kelly would certainly still have a large role with the team, especially at end of game situations.

    We saw Miles get the start at GT and maybe these are the reasons. Although foul trouble is another issue.

  4. #4
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    This is a very useful analysis, thank you. I hope no coaches figure out how to split the hedge or duck underneath it the way Temple did.

    Miles is starting to really hit his defensive responsibilities with a lot of consistency. I am excited to see all his hard work paying off. I hope he continues to play well down the stretch. Our big guys playing well can certainly help our perimeter defense to get better knowing they have help.

  5. #5
    Love the breakdown Tommy. It's not surprising to me that Miles and Quinn scored highly in these kind of plays. I wonder how much our effectiveness during this was due to a concentration on these types of plays after what seemed to be a complete inability to hedge properly in the Temple game. I'd be interested to see the numbers from that contest.

    Thanks for doing this!

  6. #6
    Thanks, tommy, this is interesting. I wonder what the charts would look like for the Temple game?

    Looking at the team results, rather than individual, I would note that while 2 of 16 sounds amazing, we also had poor results in three other instances (#4 -- allowed short shot and then fouled on rebound; #8 -- allowed open three; #14 -- fouled on hedge). And poor results on 5 of 16 (31.3%) doesn't sound nearly so good.

    Having said that, we had extra-good results in three instances (turnovers in #7, #9, #13), and that should be factored in to evaluating the overall performance. Also, on the two baskets they actually made, you define the shots as difficult ones, so it's hard to judge the success or failure of the hedge on those.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    Cary, NC
    Thanks for pulling together these numbers. I've been pretty critical of our hedging strategy so this was really interesting to see. I also would love to see an analysis of the Temple game, as they seemed really well coached on how to attack the hedge and their big guards were a serious matchup problem for us. I imagine a lot of practice time was spent working on those hedges following that game. Also, what do our numbers look like when we DON'T hedge? Are they better or worse? Lots to consider...

  8. #8
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    Thanks tommy for another good chart. I must say that Miles has come a long way in his development. It doesn't surprise me one bit that his numbers were good for the GT game. I hope he sees more minutes the rest of the year because he could be that X-factor going forward. GoDuke!

  9. #9
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    Washington, DC

    thanks Tommy for these awesome studies...

    ...I love seeing quantification of things we want to see so we can have a good solid discussion about them.

    As all your defensive analyses show, it seems that Miles has become our most productive defensive player. Not sure what they suggests for the team strategy going forward, but it illustrates that MP1 seems to be coming into his own.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Thanks, tommy, this is interesting. I wonder what the charts would look like for the Temple game?

    Looking at the team results, rather than individual, I would note that while 2 of 16 sounds amazing, we also had poor results in three other instances (#4 -- allowed short shot and then fouled on rebound; #8 -- allowed open three; #14 -- fouled on hedge). And poor results on 5 of 16 (31.3%) doesn't sound nearly so good.

    Having said that, we had extra-good results in three instances (turnovers in #7, #9, #13), and that should be factored in to evaluating the overall performance. Also, on the two baskets they actually made, you define the shots as difficult ones, so it's hard to judge the success or failure of the hedge on those.
    Thanks - those are great observations you made too as to aspects of the results of each play, other than just whether the opponent scored or not.

    I've reviewed (again) the Temple game and should have a thread up on how we did on hedges in that game up later today or tonight. (spoiler alert: not very well)

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by tommy View Post
    I've reviewed (again) the Temple game and should have a thread up on how we did on hedges in that game up later today or tonight. (spoiler alert: not very well)
    Cool. Are you going to continue to use this thread or start a new one? FWIW, I vote you keep it all in one thread, that way it's easier to compare.

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    This is a superstar post. Thank you for this service to all of us.

    I suspect Duke's coaching staff has done this, but I would be curious to see a breakdown of our hedging game-by-game, season-by-season, so that we could be precise in identifying the scenarios in which our hedging is ineffective, as in the Temple game.

    I think we could predict some of the Kryptonite:

    1) Guards with excellent vision/passing ability
    2) Teams with excellent perimeter shooting, thereby making our "help" defenders more likely to be a step further away from proper help position
    3) Teams with excellent athleticism/speed, beating our help defense to spots on the floor

    Etc., etc.

    There are, of course, more Duke-deprecating possibilities:

    1) Bad communication
    2) Bad positioning
    3) Lack of intensity/focus
    4) A simple off night

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Los Angeles

    How'd the Hedging Go Against Temple?

    As a follow-up to the thread I started yesterday about big man hedging and its results, I decided to do the same for the Temple game, as several posters were interested in that, and a number of folks on
    other threads understandably lamented our defensive performance in that game.


    Only change I made is to add a column in the first table for "stay in doubleteam" for those instances when the dribbler's man and the screener's man out front remain in the doubleteam, trapping, rather than either switching or both recovering to their respective men. Sorry if the tables are too wide (too many columns) to be seen without clicking or tabbing or arrowing all the way over to see the right-most columns. (If anyone knows how to narrow the whole table a little so it can all be seen together, I'd welcome it.)

    So in the Temple game we hedged 21 times and gave up 7 buckets. That 33% rate is far worse from Duke's perspective than the 12.5% (2 of 16 scores) against us in the Georgia Tech game. (There also was a shooting foul off of a hedge committed by Hairston, so you could say it's really 8 of 21. I think it was a shooting foul but didn't mark it down specifically as shooting.)

    It sure seemed like Temple high-screened us to death when I first watched it, but it was only five more times than Georgia Tech did, though there were a couple of times where Temple set the high screen
    and we didn't hedge or double or anything, so I didn't count those in this analysis of hedging and its success/failure.

    Here are the 21 in "play by play" format, then below a couple of tables summarizing it player by player.

    1. Rivers and Mason on the dribbler and screener; Thornton, Kelly, and Curry the back 3. Rivers recovers well, Mason recovering as Temple just throws the ball out of bounds for a turnover. Kelly provided
    good help on Mason's man, to whom the pass was sort of intended. Curry and Thornton not involved.

    2. Rivers and Miles on a screen near the sideline; Quinn/Mason/Dawkins the back 3. Rivers and Miles stay with a pretty good doubleteam, Austin fights through the screen well. Mason slides over to cover
    Miles's man. Miles gets a little bit lost in finding where to go as he retreats. Mason's original man (Hollis-Jefferson) gets the pass, head fakes Miles, gets a shot in the lane. Mason comes back and provides a good contesting of this shot, which misses. Dawkins should've slid down to cut off the pass to Hollis-Jefferson, but didn't. Had he done so, we could've avoided giving up the shot entirely. Cook not involved in the play.

    3. Dawkins and Miles; Rivers/Mason/Cook the back 3. Miles hedges out, but the dribbler spins the other way, away from him and drives on Dawkins, shooting over him and scoring. Miles was back in decent
    rebounding position but this turned out to be irrelevant. Cook and Rivers not involved.

    4. Cook and Mason; Rivers/Miles/Dawkins the back 3. Mason really failed to hedge at all on this play, leaving Quinn trailing the dribbler into the lane. This forced Miles to help, leaving his man open for an alley oop dunk. Rivers not involved. Dawkins failed to shade over and help on the drive.

    5. Rivers and Mason; Cook/Miles/Dawkins the back 3. Mason pushes way out on the hedge on this one; he and Austin both recover nicely. No shot is surrendered. Back 3 not involved.

    6. Cook and Mason; Rivers/Miles/Dawkins the back 3. Good pushout by Mason on the hedge. He and Quinn both recover. No shot. Dawkins did shade a bit to help Mason as he recovered. Austin and Miles not involved.

    7. Thornton and Kelly; Curry/Mason/Gbinije the back 3. Ty and Ryan stay switched; dribbler takes Ryan to the hole, shoots a short runner and scores. Mason provided no help. Curry and Mike G not involved.

    8. Dawkins and Hairston; Thornton/Kelly/Rivers the back 3. No pushout at all from Hairston; rather, he retreats. Both he and Andre stay with the dribbler, who drives and is fouled by Josh. Other 3 not
    involved.

    9. Rivers and Hairston; Thornton/Kelly/Dawkins the back 3. Strong pushout and doubleteam. Tyler slides over to take Josh's man as he rolls to the hoop, and Tyler steals the pass intended for that man. Turnover. Great play by Thornton.

    10. Thornton and Hairston; Rivers/Curry/Gbinije the back 3. Ty and Josh remain switched. Curry slides over to help on the dribbler. No shot surrendered. Other 2 guys not involved.

    2nd half:

    11. Thornton and Hairston; Rivers/Miles/Gbinije the back 3. Double comes on the side, screener rolls free to the lane. No switch; no recovery. Rivers and Miles converge but Lee finishes over both of them for the short bucket. Mike G not involved.

    12. Curry and Miles; Thornton/Hairston/Rivers the back 3. Good pushout by Miles into a doubleteam. Miles tips the ball away from the dribbler, to Seth. Turnover. Other 3 guys not involved.

    13. Rivers and Hairston; Ty/Miles/Curry the back 3. Quick hedge by Hairston, both he and Austin recover quickly. No shot. Other 3 guys not involved.

    14. Thornton and Mason; Curry/Kelly/Rivers the back 3. Decent double, Fernandez slips a pass through to the FT line. Kelly steps up to cover, ball is then laid off to Ryan's man, but Ryan recovers and
    blocks the shot. Other 2 guys not involved.

    15. Thornton and Mason; Curry/Kelly/Rivers the back 3. Good double, but Mason's man (Lee) cuts down the lane to receive the pass as Temple had the one man advantage now. Kelly has to split the difference between his man (Hollis-Jefferson) and Lee. Seth tries to deflect the pass to Hollis-Jefferson as he cuts from the weak side to the FT line, but it's not enough. Uncontested 13 footer for the hoop. Rivers not involved in this play.

    16. Rivers and Mason; Curry/Miles/Cook the back 3. Rivers recovers but Mason really doesn't. Miles covers for him as Hollis-Jefferson goes down low and receives the pass. Miles prevents the shot from
    being taken. Mason does get back to take Miles's man at least. Curry and Cook not involved.

    17. Thornton and Mason; Rivers/Kelly/Curry the back 3. Good pushout and doubleteam, but the pass gets through to the original screener. 4 on 3. Kelly doesn't come out far enough, despite his own man not being in a good position to catch and score -- in other words, Ryan could've attacked the pass-catching original screener much harder, as he didn't have to worry about his own man right then, and really challenged the shot. Fortunately, the Temple player missed the J. Rivers and Curry not involved. Seemed to me that perhaps Ryan would've challenged the shot more aggressively had Rivers slid over
    towards Ryan's man near the FT line, but he didn't. Curry not involved.

    18. Thornton and Mason; Rivers/Kelly/Curry the back 3. Late in the shot clock. No real pushout on the hedge. Fernandez, with Mason in front of him tries to force a pass down low, but throws it at his
    man's feet. Too bad for them, as he had Rivers on his back near the low block. Ball bounces off his foot right to Seth. Lucky turnover for us. Kelly not involved.

    19. Dawkins and Mason; Curry/Miles/Rivers the back 3. Not great pushout but Mason -- good talk here -- directs Dawkins where to recover to, and he does. No shot. Others not involved.

    20. Thornton and Mason; Curry/Kelly/Rivers the back 3. Good pushout, Fernandez goes behind his back to the cutting screener, Lee. Kelly comes over but not strongly and Lee shoots a 5 footer right over him. Curry and Rivers not involved.

    21. Thornton and Mason; Rivers/Curry/Gbinije the back 3. Decent double, but no pushout. Fernandez goes behind his back again, again to Mason's man in the lane. Gbinije picks him up, leaving his own man
    open for the pass and an easy layup. Rivers up high did nothing -- was up too hight to affect anything. Curry not involved.

    So here is the table for the when each guy was involved as one of the two defending the screen/hedge play on the perimeter:


    Total plays Full recovery to man Remained in switch Stayed in double Contested shot - screener or dribbler Uncontested shot - screener or dribbler No shot permitted at all Allowed split at top xtra big pushout by hedger not big enough pushout got hands on ball fouled helped force turnover hoop allowed
    Curry 1 1 1 1
    Rivers 6 6 2 1 5
    Dawkins 3 2 2 1 1
    Cook 2 1 1 1
    Thornton 9 1 2 5 2 5
    Mason 12 4 4 1 6 4 4 1/2 4
    Miles 3 2 1 1 1 1 1
    Kelly 1 1 1 1
    Hairston 5 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 1
    Gbinije



























    Couple of observations here. Seems like Temple targeted Mason Plumlee's ability to handle the high screen play -- his man set the screen 12 times, way more than Miles or Kelly's men did. Mason's results were so-so. Four nice pushouts, four insufficient ones, and four times he and the other defender stayed in the doubleteam. Half the time, we prevented Temple from getting a shot off as a result of the play. But four times they scored -- out of 12.

    Temple also ran these high screens a lot against Tyler Thornton, and he handled them differently than our other perimeter guys. Of the 9 times it was run against Ty, on five of those he and the big man (usuallly Mason) just remained in the doubleteam, without trying for each defender to recover to his own man, hoping to force a bad pass, a turnover, or something. Our other small guys didn't use this strategy nearly as much. Wonder if that was a coaching decision thing or a Tyler-and-Mason on-their-own thing. Ty and the big man involved just remained in the switch twice, leaving only two of the nine where there was an attempt to have each guy recover onto his own man.

    Regardless, of the 9 times it was run against Ty, Temple scored 5 baskets. Ouch.

    In terms of perimeter guys recovering from the screen and getting back to their men, Austin Rivers was the best at this, as he did it all six times. And on five of Austin's six times the play was run against him, Temple did not get a shot off. Of course, that's not all attributable to Austin, but still, he obviously is far from an easy mark.

    I also noticed that, while some posters bemoan our inability to stop our opponents from splitting the doubleteam that occurs when a hedge happens, this did not happen at all in the Temple game. We broke down in other ways, and they made a number of nice plays, but it wasn't a matter of the dribbler keeping his dribble alive after the screen and the hedge come, and then knifing between our two defenders and getting into the lane. Didn't happen in my review of the game.


    OK here's the chart for when guys were part of the "back 3."


    Total plays Middle big steps to help (fails to) Side man shades/helps (fails to) Contested shot allowed Uncontested shot allowed No shot allowed Not involved in play Fouled Good talk Forced turnover Hoop allowed
    Curry 12 1 (1) 1 6 9 1/2 4
    Rivers 14 1 (2) 1 5 11 6
    Dawkins 5 1(2) 1 2 3 2 1
    Cook 4 2 4 1
    Thornton 5 1 5 4 4 1
    Mason 3 1(1) 1 1 2
    Miles 7 3 1 5 4 2
    Kelly 8 3(2) 1 2 3 3 2
    Hairston 1 1 1
    Gbinije 4 1 1 3 3
































    Couple of notables, perhaps, here. Our perimeter guys (the 2 not involved in the high screen, that is) were poorly positioned a number of times -- 5 to be exact, in ways that affected our ability to defend the play. This was a problem with Andre two of the five times he was faced with the situation.

    Seth usually was not involved when he was covering a wing as one of the back 3, but for whatever reason (maybe luck or circumstance, but who knows?) we did well with him there, as 6 of the 12 times Temple did not get a shot off, and on none of the 12 did they score.

    Rivers was kind of the opposite. He wasn't involved much as a wing player/shader, though like I indicated above he missed a few shading responsibilities. But again, for whatever reason, Temple scored a lot on high screens/hedges when Austin was one of the back 3 -- 6 of the 14 times to be exact.

    Thornton was in the back 3 for 5 plays; on four of them Temple didn't get a shot off, though Ty wasn't obviously involved in three of the four -- the one he was involved in he made an excellent steal.

    Gbinije was far from a stopper, at least in the context of these plays. He was one of the back 3 on four occasions. Temple scored 3 hoops on those four plays.

    Miles was very good as the big man holding the fort in the back line. Of the 7 times he was in the situation, on five of them Temple failed to get a shot off.

    Ryan Kelly was just so-so at stepping up and helping from the back line. He did it well three times, not so well twice. Not a good enough percentage, IMO.

    Overall, the performance defending the high screen with a hedge move did not work out well, or well enough, against Temple. Certainly not as well as it did against Georgia Tech. Many viewers could see that. Temple did a lot of things well in this game. It wasn't just our poor hedging and related play. But that sure didn't help.

  14. #14
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    Great stuff Tommy. Really good.

    One bit of feedback and something to watch for in future analysis. Mike C orey inserted a photo of the court in another thread, of Hedge # 20 in the Temple game. We talked about this a bit in that thread. Where you have listed "Rivers not involved"; on this particular play it would be important to point out/note that Austin is actually out of position. The trap on Fernandez is in the corner near half-court, and Austin's man is in the baseline corner on the other side of the court. For some reason Austin is shadowing his man and does not even have an eye on the ball. He is actually a good 3 steps away from where he should have been. He should have actually had one foot in the lane watching the ball and his man. Seth is also hugging his man who is on the wing near the top of the key on the same side as Austin. Seth should have been a step or two closer to the lane. Had both been where they should have been, they could have provided proper help when the behind the back pass to the screener near the foul line. The defense was way too spread out on that play.

    I don't point this out to nit-pick you or anything, or to rag on Austin and Seth. Just thought it was a great photo that "told a story" of why the play evolved the way it did. Just wanted to stir your thought process to also be on the look out for proper (or improper) positioning by the 5 defenders when you are capturing the data.

    I also like Kedsy's suggestion to use this one thread to put all the Hedging data from each game in.

    Thanks for doing all of this. It has to be time consuming. Much appreciated!

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Corey View Post
    This is a superstar post. Thank you for this service to all of us.

    I suspect Duke's coaching staff has done this, but I would be curious to see a breakdown of our hedging game-by-game, season-by-season, so that we could be precise in identifying the scenarios in which our hedging is ineffective, as in the Temple game.

    I think we could predict some of the Kryptonite:

    1) Guards with excellent vision/passing ability
    2) Teams with excellent perimeter shooting, thereby making our "help" defenders more likely to be a step further away from proper help position
    3) Teams with excellent athleticism/speed, beating our help defense to spots on the floor

    Etc., etc.

    There are, of course, more Duke-deprecating possibilities:

    1) Bad communication
    2) Bad positioning
    3) Lack of intensity/focus
    4) A simple off night
    I would add to you list of Kryptonite:

    4) A coach with an excellent plan for attacking our hedge and recover defense, and who has drilled his guys well in where to be, what to look for, and where the holes are going to be. Fran Dunphy excelled in this area, as the Owls were prepared, they moved the ball well, made strong cuts to the hole in positions to accept penetrating passes, and never got flustered.

    Quote Originally Posted by Newton_14 View Post
    Great stuff Tommy. Really good.
    Quote Originally Posted by Newton_14 View Post

    One bit of feedback and something to watch for in future analysis. Mike Corey inserted a photo of the court in another thread, of Hedge # 20 in the Temple game. We talked about this a bit in that thread. Where you have listed "Rivers not involved"; on this particular play it would be important to point out/note that Austin is actually out of position. The trap on Fernandez is in the corner near half-court, and Austin's man is in the baseline corner on the other side of the court. For some reason Austin is shadowing his man and does not even have an eye on the ball. He is actually a good 3 steps away from where he should have been. He should have actually had one foot in the lane watching the ball and his man. Seth is also hugging his man who is on the wing near the top of the key on the same side as Austin. Seth should have been a step or two closer to the lane. Had both been where they should have been, they could have provided proper help when the behind the back pass to the screener near the foul line. The defense was way too spread out on that play.

    I don't point this out to nit-pick you or anything, or to rag on Austin and Seth. Just thought it was a great photo that "told a story" of why the play evolved the way it did. Just wanted to stir your thought process to also be on the look out for proper (or improper) positioning by the 5 defenders when you are capturing the data.

    I also like Kedsy's suggestion to use this one thread to put all the Hedging data from each game in.

    Thanks for doing all of this. It has to be time consuming. Much appreciated!



    Thanks Newt. Not nitpicking at all. I appreciate the thoughtful response -- I look forward to this kind of feedback.

    I wrote a post in the Charting the Defense - Temple thread about this play after Mike posted that photo and the guys were discussing it. What I said was this:

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

    So then tonight I went back and looked at the play again. While you are quite correct that both Austin and Seth were too tight on their men on the right side perimeter (from the perspective of the offense) and especially Austin was barely even looking at the screen/slip play that Temple ran, in my view their obliviousness was ultimately irrelevant. The screen/slip occurred on the left side of the floor, about 5 or 6 feet to the left of the key, if one were to imagine extending the edge of the key all the way up to halfcourt, if you know what I mean. The screen was up above the actual key, a number of feet, and to the left.

    Austin and Seth were positioned far to the right of the key; Austin almost out of bounds on the right sideline! But the key is that the screener, who then rolled to the hoop to catch Fernandez's behind-the-back pass, rolled (properly) facing the left sideline, with his back facing the key, and caught it along that left edge of the key. It's because he was facing that way that Fernandez had the proper angle to throw that difficult pass. Had the roller turned the other way on his roll and faced the key, there would've been no passing lane.

    Why does that seem important? Because even HAD Austin and Seth shaded over several steps, as you correctly suggest they should have, it wouldn't have mattered. They weren't going to come all the way over to the other side of the floor (the left) even from where they should've been (the right, but just not so far right.) They wouldn't have influenced the play regardless. The passing lane for Fernandez still would've been there, the roller wouldn't have even seen Seth or Austin, and they wouldn't have been in position to disrupt the play no matter what.

    The only one who had a chance to disrupt it was Ryan, and his help was half-hearted, as it appeared he was worried about leaving his own man closer to the left corner.

    So while your point about Seth and Austin's being out of position is undoubtedly correct, I didn't count it "against" them as failing to shade or help because in my view it wasn't a factor in the outcome of the play. As you can see from the charts, I was not unaware of when players (apparently) have shading responsibilities and fail to carry those assignments out, nor unwilling to assess them negatively for such failures. But I just didn't think I could fairly do so in this case, when the failing was, in my mind, not related to the play's outcome. I guess there's just some things -- perhaps a lot of things -- that this type of charting can't cover. Some things can't be quantified, and this is one of them.

    Thanks again for your very intelligent and obviously very well-informed post. Nothing new for you, just acknowledging. Keep em coming.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Columbus, Ohio
    Tommy: I've found myself nodding like a bobble head doll for just about everything you've said in this post, mostly with gratitude and appreciation for the care with which you've put all of this together, and analyzed it to boot.

    But I must join Newton and quibble at the same pick at which he knitted. (Does that make me a "re-quibbler"? I hope so. It sounds like something Seinfeld might say.)

    First, I agree that Seth was generally irrelevant in the play. He was in proper deny defense as far as I could tell. I also agree that a huge caveat here is that the players may have simply been in the positions the coaches told them to be in, so the quibbling, re-quibbling, and over-quibbling we do from afar may be a moot point. (Or a "moo" point as they say in Chapel Hill--my understanding is that the letter "t" has been dropped from the alphabet there, as they've begun to counter our proclamations of Coach K as "the greatest of all time" by calling Roy-Will "the greatest of all." This should probably be met with rejoinders such as a recalibrated satire of "The Greatest Love of All" featuring Roy-Will and the fan from the Presbyterian game, but I digress. Again.)

    So let's pull up the screenshots:

    screen-shot-2012-01-05-at-1-11-35-am-1.jpgscreen-shot-2012-01-05-at-1-08-49-am.jpgscreen-shot-2012-01-05-at-1-14-38-am.jpg

    Looking at these, I'm compelled to disagree with you that Austin could not have had an effect on the outcome of the play had he been in better position. From where the ball was at the time the screen was about to be set, Austin presumably should have had at least one foot in the paint. His head, to be on a swivel, would have allowed me to see the screener darting for the basket. With a single sidestep, he could have placed himself directly between the cutting player and the basket.

    If the screener then dished it out to Austin's man, Austin would not have been responsible for the three-point shooter in that instance; Seth Curry would be. And at some point after the ball had been dished out to Austin's (now Seth's) man, Mason would have needed to recover, and Austin would have needed to guard Seth's old man. Or something to that effect. I'm spitballing now. The point, though, is that the rotation would have been expected to continue.

    So there's my re-quibble. Now, that isn't to say you should adjust your masterwork above. As I said before, it's superstar stuff. We're just being ungrateful readers by pushing you to make something perfect more perfect.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Cary, NC
    Looking at the photos, Austin's man is spread way out, almost out of bounds, and Austin is standing right around the three-point line. If I'm not mistaken, his man has just hit three-pointers on consecutive possessions, and three or four in a row without missing, so the last thing we want to do is give that guy an open look (I could be wrong here about which guy Austin's actually guarding, but either way we don't want to give up an open 3).

    So Austin's already several feet away from the guy he's guarding. It's kind of hard for me to fault him for not stepping even further away from his man in order to help on the pick and roll. If his foot is in the paint, then his man has a whole ocean of space around him where he could either receive a pass and be wide open or start driving and have a head of steam before Austin or Seth get to him. Furthermore, even if Austin does step over to cover Mason's man as he slips through, is Austin at 6'3 really going to be able to do anything against Anthony Lee, a 6'9 forward/center? I know Coach K doesn't play positions but guys aren't completely interchangeable either.

    I will say that Austin need to at least present himself a little more actively in the play, so the ballhandler knows he's there and is a threat to step over. But overall I think his hands were tied as Temple was smartly spreading him out.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Cary, NC
    The other thing I wanted to comment about this play is that I thought Kelly played it pretty well. He anticipated needing to step in and did, and was right up on Lee when he shot over him. Maybe he could have jumped to try to block the shot, but then he'd risk getting a foul call on top of the bucket. And he stood his ground without flopping. Kelly's original man is wide open and Lee could have very easily dumped it off to him for a dunk, but Ryan did everything he could given that he was one guy guarding two.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Corey View Post
    From where the ball was at the time the screen was about to be set, Austin presumably should have had at least one foot in the paint.
    I agree with UC. Considering where the ball was, Austin shouldn't have had one foot in the paint. He needs to be close enough to his man to prevent an open three. Maybe he should have been one step closer to the play than he was, but I don't think that would have been enough to affect the play.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Columbus, Ohio
    Fair enough.

    Maybe I'm extrapolating too much from my meager playing days--I was too slow to get in front of a defender two passes away unless I already had a foot in the paint. Austin doesn't quite have that problem.

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