Our Defense vs. St. John's (and a few numbers)

[tommy]

Nobody was happy with how the last 1/3 or so of this game went. Obviously, K among them. A lot of folks focused on the last 12 minutes of the game, so bearing in mind that many on the boards seem to have come around to the idea that our defensive problems are in large part (not exclusively of course) due to lapses in attention, periodic lack of effort, and other focus-related issues rather than purely physical failings, I took a detailed look at the last 12 minutes (in particular) vs. St. John's and here is every scoring possession they had during that time, with the time listed first:

1204: Harrison catches on deep right wing, drives left into lane, Rivers stays with him pretty well, Harrison kinda sorta turns the corner, but doesn’t really create separation. Rivers still pressuring, Harrison takes little step back jumper from 12 feet, fairly well contested, and makes it. Hairston tries to reach In with help as Harrison is in mid-move but doesn’t get the ball. Miles screened out from helping from underneath – nothing he could do. This was not poor defensive play. Just an aggressive drive and a fairly difficult shot, with some pressure, that went in.

1028: High screen, Mason hedges but just gives up the hedge too quickly, before Austin has had a chance to fight through the screen and get into position. This insufficient “push-out” on the hedge leaves Harrison, who has kept his dribble, wide open for the 3. This one is on Mason. Not an identifiable lack of effort or focus, but just poor defensive execution.

958: Bad pass by us in our offense, ball about to go backcourt, we save it way up in the air, it’s a giant jumpball and we’re called for a foul on it. After we call timeout, Garrett hits 1 of 2.

954: In-bounds play. Harkless gets it on the left, drives into the lane on Mason. Ryan helps, Harkless misses the little jump hook in the lane. Because of Ryan’s help, Seth is stuck with 2 guys on the right side of the floor, deep inside. He doesn’t box out either one. Garrett (Ryan’s man)looked like he was going to get the board but Seth kind of nudges him out of the way from behind, but still Greene (Seth’s original man) is there alone for the easy putback. Can’t blame Ryan for helping, but there was just no way a guy of Seth’s size was going to handle two St John’s guys going strong to the offensive board by himself. Again, I’d say this was a failure of execution, if anything, rather than a mental mistake or lapse.

918: Garrett, on the right wing, drives on Ryan and takes a crazy shot in between Ryan and Mason, which had no chance. But he sliced though them and got to the left side of the rim, and fortunately for him the ball bounced back to him off the bottom of the rim, before Ryan or Andre could get there. Andre was watching the play from the weak side, and some might fault him for not seeing the play developing and getting himself in better position to be involved in the play, but I don’t think that’s fair after reviewing this play a number of times. I think he reasonably assumed that Garrett would never be able to get through the two man wall consisting of Mason and Ryan, and make it all the way over to his side of the hoop, the left side, and be in position to get a rebound of a ball that bounced down off the bottom of the rim. So Garrett gets it back and Austin, apparently assuming Garrett would go back up, sort of drops off of his man at the arc on the left side. Garrett, rather than going back up against Kelly with his hands up, kicks out to Austin’s man (Green) who buries the 3. Garrett was very aggressive and athletic on this play, but had Austin maintained contact with his man, there is no open 3. Have to put this one on him in the mental/focus category. 7 point game. Uh-oh.

804: On a switch, Thornton is on Greene. Takes him left to left side of lane, where he shoots and Mason contests the shot hard. Kelly loses sight of Harkless though, so does not box. Easy putback for Mo. Kelly’s lapse here, whether you want to call it physical or mental, but I tend to think of it more as mental.

721: Good St John’s screen necessitates a switch leaving Mason on Harkless on the right wing. He takes Mason to the hoop and draws a shooting foul. No chance for anyone to help. Hits 1 of 2 throws.

615: Rivers tries to deny 40’ from the hoop, gets beaten backdoor by Harrison. This requires Mason to help out on the driving Harrison. Dumps it to the now-open Achiuwa, who Rivers comes back to foul on the shot. This one is on Rivers for the initial poor overplay. Physical or mental? To me, the decision to overplay way out there is mental, but the poor execution of it once that decision was made was physical.

443: Dawkins on Garrett on the right wing. Greene comes around his top side, Curry trailing him. Dawkins anticipates Garrett dumping off to Greene, which he could’ve done (but didn’t). So Andre shades towards Greene, but Garrett instead keeps it and heads for the hoop. Andre now is about to start trailing his man on the way to the hoop, so Seth grabs Garrett from behind to prevent this from happening. Seth’s foul, but not great defensive execution from either guy, especially Dawkins. Hits both.

418: Harkless grabs defensive board, and as he starts to dribble upcourt to begin a break, Mason fouls him from behind. We’re in the penalty, and Harkless hits 1 of 2.

257: Harkless takes Ryan baseline, Mason comes over and provides very good help. Tough, challenged shot bounces off, and Harkless basically out-athletes Kelly for the board, and puts it back up and in.

200: Harkless has Kelly on an iso left side. Takes him with one dribble into the lane, followed by a very nice spin move back to his left and cans the 10 footer. Sweet individual move and Ryan was right there with him. Hats off.

108: Harkless this time has Mason one-on-one on the left side, takes 2 dribbles into the lane, Dawkins comes over to help and puts his hands up, but Harkless rolls it in anyway. Kid is just a baller, that’s all.

038: High screen and a switch leaves Mason outside on Harkless. Mo just bangs a 3 right in his face. Wow. No matter how we play him, he scores. To quote Al McGuire on Isiah Thomas at age 18: “You canNOT be a freshman!”

023: Lots of switching up high as St. John’s is in desperation mode. Harrison drains a 3 after Mason gets screened and Ryan is flying at him. Another tough shot.

011: Curry does good job contesting Harrison’s full court drive, but Achiuwe outhustles Seth and Mason for the rebound, and is fouled by Rivers. Hits 1 of 2.


OK that’s all their points in the last 12 minutes. Lot of points, to be sure. Before I went over the game again to compile this, I had expected to find that a lot of their hoops were the result of mental lapses, inattention, loss of focus, etc., as we’ve seen in a number of other games. But it really wasn’t. Out of all of these scoring plays, which number 16, I think I count only 3 that were due to mental lapses or lack of effort, and one of those was shaky if that designation is even fair.

St. Johns’s kids are talented, especially Harkness, Garrett, and Harrison, and they played very loose as if they had nothing to lose, because they didn’t. They made a number of tough shots, which you can do when there’s less game pressure on you.

Our defense in the first half and first part of the second half was actually pretty good. We denied, we stayed in front on a lot of moves to the hoop – Curry was especially good in that department, we helped. And like I say, even in the last 12 minutes, while they certainly scored a lot, I really don’t think our D was so bad when it’s broken down play-by-play. Sure, we got out-athleted some; we had some questionable execution on some screen plays; we got beaten into the lane off the dribble, which is nothing new. But it’s not like we weren’t making full effort or that we were unfocused or even that we were playing poorly. St. John’s played well offensively too, causing us to just get beaten more than we would have liked.

The numbers for the bigs are going to look a lot worse than our perimeter guys. Mason and Ryan each gave up 8 baskets, which is a lot. A lot of those – not all, but a fair number – were the result of them switching and having to deal with guys quick off the bounce rather than getting beaten on more traditional post play.

I really don’t understand why Miles didn’t play more, again. He wasn’t great defensively in this game, as he was responsible primarily for 2 hoops and another several plays that resulted in St. John’s free throws, in limited action. But still – I know Mason was dominating the boards, but to have the big man minutes have as big a disparity as they did between Mason and Ryan, on the one hand, and Miles on the other? Miles is our strongest interior defender and it’s not like Mason was killing it offensively like he did against Maryland, and Ryan was playing well, but not so great that Miles should be nailed to the bench. So what gives?

OK below are the stop % numbers for this game. Just when I’m starting to think these numbers don’t tell us all that much, you see something like this. As a team, we got stops on half of St. Johns’ possessions, and they scored on half. I counted it as 36 stops and 38 hoops, for 49%. Curry, Rivers, and Dawkins were all right at that number. So were Mason and Kelly. All of which makes sense, seeing that those 5 got the lions’ share of the minutes.

But then you look at Tyler Thornton at 62% and Quinn Cook at only 33% -- in pretty limited minutes, however – and it does have to make you think, right?

Miles was only at 44%, but again small sample size. If one more possession that he was on the floor for had been a stop instead of a hoop, he’d have been at 50% too.

	Stops	Hoops	Stop%
Curry	26	28	48%
Rivers	34	35	49%
Dawkins	29	31	48%
Mason	31	31	50%
Thornton	13	8	62%
Kelly	28	28	50%
Miles	8	10	44%
Cook	6	12	33%
Gbinije	0	0
Hairston	5	7	42%
TEAM	36	38	49%

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Fantastic analysis! Thanks.

I wondered why Miles wasn't playing more too, especially at the end when we were subbing Andre for Mason to have the better foul shooter in the game, since Miles is significantly better at the line than Mason (kudos for his recent improvement!) Perhaps Miles was under the weather so the coached didn't put him in? As sick as the team has been, I think this is a distinct possibilty.

[dyedwab]

I can not tell you how much these threads have increased my knowledge and understanding of this basketball team.

One point. I think that what you describe as lack of execution sometimes can be thought of as bad decision-making in real time. That, to me, seems to be related to the idea that this team loses focus/intensity for period of the game. And, the combination of bad decision-making and losing intensity manifests itself on both ends of the floor, but this team is way more talented offensively, so it more easily overcomes it on the offensive end.

Coach K's reaction - and the way he has coached this team all year - makes me think that he identifies these two themes as the teams biggest defensive problems. He hasn't radically changed our defense (or offense) based on to emphasize this teams strengths & mitigate its weaknesses - even though they seem fairly clear. I think its because he sees the first 30 min. of the SJU game, or the 1st half of the FSU game, and believes that this team has the talent to play the type of defensive system Duke employs. And evidence suggests that it can...but that this team doesn't. And, just, mho, its related to both a lack of focus for periods of time and a lack of execution/bad-decision-making.

[Kedsy]

	Stops	Hoops	Stop%
Curry	26	28	48%
Rivers	34	35	49%
Dawkins	29	31	48%
Mason	31	31	50%
Thornton	13	8	62%
Kelly	28	28	50%
Miles	8	10	44%
Cook	6	12	33%
Gbinije	0	0
Hairston	5	7	42%
TEAM	36	38	49%

Thanks, Tommy. Interesting analysis of the last 12 minutes. The fact that our defense really wasn't so terrible sort of confirms my suspicion that Coach K's press conference was more of a motivational ploy than anything else.

Once again I've taken the liberty of compiling a cumulative stop chart. Tyler is really distancing himself from the pack in this statistic. Mason and Andre continue to lag, and of course Michael didn't play against St. John's, so no new information there.

CUMULATIVE STOP CHART, THROUGH ST. JOHN'S GAME (though I don't remember exactly when this started)

	Stops	Hoops	Stop %
Curry	233	219	51.5%
Rivers	256	230	52.7%
Dawkins	183	185	49.7%
Mason	218	215	50.3%
Thornton	159	126	55.8%
Kelly	209	186	52.9%
Miles	156	140	52.7%
Cook	109	100	52.2%
Gbinije	31	41	43.1%
Hairston	56	49	53.3%
TEAM	323	293	52.4%

[Kfanarmy]

Thanks, Tommy. Interesting analysis of the last 12 minutes. The fact that our defense really wasn't so terrible sort of confirms my suspicion that Coach K's press conference was more of a motivational ploy than anything else.

Once again I've taken the liberty of compiling a cumulative stop chart. Tyler is really distancing himself from the pack in this statistic. Mason and Andre continue to lag, and of course Michael didn't play against St. John's, so no new information there.

CUMULATIVE STOP CHART, THROUGH ST. JOHN'S GAME (though I don't remember exactly when this started)

	Stops	Hoops	Stop %
Curry	233	219	51.5%
Rivers	256	230	52.7%
Dawkins	183	185	49.7%
Mason	218	215	50.3%
Thornton	159	126	55.8%
Kelly	209	186	52.9%
Miles	156	140	52.7%
Cook	109	100	52.2%
Gbinije	31	41	43.1%
Hairston	56	49	53.3%
TEAM	323	293	52.4%

What would a great, good, average, subpar and terrible stop percentage be? I mean even Thornton's number would suggest the folks he is guarding are hitting 44% which isn't bad...is that right?

[Kedsy]

What would a great, good, average, subpar and terrible stop percentage be? I mean even Thornton's number would suggest the folks he is guarding are hitting 44% which isn't bad...is that right?

This table shows the percentage of times the opponent scored while the player was on the floor, not specifically the player anybody was guarding. The idea is to take help defense, communication, etc., into account and not just how well a player stays in front of his man. What this means is that 44% of our opponents' possessions while Tyler was on the floor ended with a score and 56% of their possessions ended in a stop. What I'm looking for in the table are players who has a number far different from the team number, and Tyler is the only player with a significantly higher percentage than the team.

Of course, one could argue that this stat was invented for a player like Tyler, who doesn't stay in front of his man so well but is a great help defender. Either way, at least in the sample of games Tommy has charted, our defense performs significantly better with Tyler on the floor than it does when he's not on the floor, and he's the only current Duke player about whom we can say that.

Is it a problem that our team only stops the opponents 52.4% of the time? Probably. That's why we're all talking about defense. If the entire team's stop percentage was 55.8% (Tyler's stop percentage) instead of 52.4%, that would mean we'd prevent an additional 2.4 scores per game, and we'd probably be a top 20 defense on Pomeroy right now.

[Kedsy]

I just thought of something else. Andre's stop percentage has declined precipitously since he was reinserted into the starting lineup. Tyler's stop percentage has improved since he started coming off the bench again. Coincidence? Possibly. Or does substitution pattern make a big difference in "plus-minus style" statistics like this? Is it possible that the mix of opposing players the sub encounters are slightly less capable of scoring than the mix of opposing players the starter encounters? Something to think about, anyway.

[CDu]

I just thought of something else. Andre's stop percentage has declined precipitously since he was reinserted into the starting lineup. Tyler's stop percentage has improved since he started coming off the bench again. Coincidence? Possibly. Or does substitution pattern make a big difference in "plus-minus style" statistics like this? Is it possible that the mix of opposing players the sub encounters are slightly less capable of scoring than the mix of opposing players the starter encounters? Something to think about, anyway.

I mentioned this before in a discussion regarding Miles' +/- numbers relative to Mason's. It's unclear exactly how much the quality of opposition on the floor influences these numbers. But I definitely it should have some effect on the numbers (as should the combination of teammates on the floor).

[tommy]

I just thought of something else. Andre's stop percentage has declined precipitously since he was reinserted into the starting lineup. Tyler's stop percentage has improved since he started coming off the bench again. Coincidence? Possibly. Or does substitution pattern make a big difference in "plus-minus style" statistics like this? Is it possible that the mix of opposing players the sub encounters are slightly less capable of scoring than the mix of opposing players the starter encounters? Something to think about, anyway.

It's a great thought, Kedsy (and thanks as always for doing the cumulative chart) but in this case I don't think so. It's not like the NBA, where each coach has a set substitution pattern for most of the game, and the guys off the bench usually play against the opponent's bench guys. Not that all 5 players are off the bench, but early in the second quarter, for instance, usually you see both teams with, say, 3 bench guys in, or even 4. Happens for much of the game from late 1st quarter through maybe the 3rd or early 4th.

Not so in college. In college it seems that the substitution patterns are more dictated by the game situation. Sure, Miles is the first big off the bench and Ty is usually the first perimeter guy. But when they come in, when they go back out, when they come back in is usually a function of what else is going on than a pre-ordained decision like the NBA is.

So I think Ty is getting a lot of minutes against the opponents's starters, really. So is Andre. No way for me to calculate that or document it, but that is my sense. If I'm correct (and of course I may not be) then it wouldn't be fair to attribute much of Ty's better stop% to his facing weaker competition.

[Kfanarmy]

This table shows the percentage of times the opponent scored while the player was on the floor, not specifically the player anybody was guarding. The idea is to take help defense, communication, etc., into account and not just how well a player stays in front of his man. What this means is that 44% of our opponents' possessions while Tyler was on the floor ended with a score and 56% of their possessions ended in a stop. What I'm looking for in the table are players who has a number far different from the team number, and Tyler is the only player with a significantly higher percentage than the team.

Of course, one could argue that this stat was invented for a player like Tyler, who doesn't stay in front of his man so well but is a great help defender. Either way, at least in the sample of games Tommy has charted, our defense performs significantly better with Tyler on the floor than it does when he's not on the floor, and he's the only current Duke player about whom we can say that.

Is it a problem that our team only stops the opponents 52.4% of the time? Probably. That's why we're all talking about defense. If the entire team's stop percentage was 55.8% (Tyler's stop percentage) instead of 52.4%, that would mean we'd prevent an additional 2.4 scores per game, and we'd probably be a top 20 defense on Pomeroy right now.

Thanks much...appreciate the explanation.

[dukebluelemur]

	Stops	Hoops	Stop%
Curry	26	28	48%
Rivers	34	35	49%
Dawkins	29	31	48%
Mason	31	31	50%
Thornton	13	8	62%
Kelly	28	28	50%
Miles	8	10	44%
Cook	6	12	33%
Gbinije	0	0
Hairston	5	7	42%
TEAM	36	38	49%

Great work on the whole analysis! One question, I assume this chart includes possessions that ended in FTs? I didn't see anything that specifically said so, but maybe I missed it, there was a lot of text. Fouls having been a bit of a problem for TT, I just wanted to confirm that FT trips were included in "Hoops."

[El_Diablo]

I really don’t understand why Miles didn’t play more, again. He wasn’t great defensively in this game, as he was responsible primarily for 2 hoops and another several plays that resulted in St. John’s free throws, in limited action. But still – I know Mason was dominating the boards, but to have the big man minutes have as big a disparity as they did between Mason and Ryan, on the one hand, and Miles on the other? Miles is our strongest interior defender and it’s not like Mason was killing it offensively like he did against Maryland, and Ryan was playing well, but not so great that Miles should be nailed to the bench. So what gives?

The bolded part probably says it all. There was one particular moment in the first half that sticks out in my mind. Miles failed to box anyone out on the defensive boards--he just turned towards the rim and watched it bounce over his head. A St. John's player grabbed it and either scored on an easy putback or was fouled, but either way, Coach K was noticeably peeved and had him yanked immediately. He rarely speaks directly to players when they're subbed out (it's usually Wojo or Capel doing the on-the-spot "mentoring" when they sit down), but he let Miles know how he felt about his effort on that one.

Then again, maybe Miles was a little under the weather or something as well.

[airowe]

I just thought of something else. Andre's stop percentage has declined precipitously since he was reinserted into the starting lineup. Tyler's stop percentage has improved since he started coming off the bench again. Coincidence? Possibly. Or does substitution pattern make a big difference in "plus-minus style" statistics like this? Is it possible that the mix of opposing players the sub encounters are slightly less capable of scoring than the mix of opposing players the starter encounters? Something to think about, anyway.

Well, in this game in particular he was sinning in for offense and (I think) out for defense at the end of the game. This would give him less possessions on defense than most players, thus more room for error. Also just a thought.

[tommy]

Great work on the whole analysis! One question, I assume this chart includes possessions that ended in FTs? I didn't see anything that specifically said so, but maybe I missed it, there was a lot of text. Fouls having been a bit of a problem for TT, I just wanted to confirm that FT trips were included in "Hoops."

Yes. Whether the opponent makes a 3, a 2, or a free throw (even if it's just one free throw), I count that as a "hoop" because it's not a stop.