Tracking Duke's Defense - 2018-19

[uh_no]

I thought the defense was fine last night. Wake is pretty good at OR% (the one thing they do well) and Duke held them in check. I think the TO issue gets fixed when Zion returns, making the defense elite again.

there was one sequence that really stuck out for me when around the time when cam hit one of his threes when he just did a phenomenal job one-on-one, got the rebound, and hit the three (though I forge the exact order)

[English]

To be fair, Bede shoots 37% from 3 this year and 41% for his career (and was 2-5 against us). I think the first step in selling a shot fake is making enough shots that the defense respects you.

Huh, forgive my laziness, I didn't realize Bede shot almost(ish) 40%. The announcers for that game continued to remark, numerous times, on how bad a perimeter shooter he was. Serves me right for actually believing that they did their homework in advance of their job.

Anywho, back to the topic at hand.

[CDu]

Huh, forgive my laziness, I didn't realize Bede shot almost(ish) 40%. The announcers for that game continued to remark, numerous times, on how bad a perimeter shooter he was. Serves me right for actually believing that they did their homework in advance of their job.

Anywho, back to the topic at hand.

No worries. You are absolutely correct that the announcers did you no favors in that game. Not a great effort by LaPhonso in that one.

[jv001]

No worries. You are absolutely correct that the announcers did you no favors in that game. Not a great effort by LaPhonso in that one.

And the announcers last night didn't mention Bolden being absent from the game in the 2nd half. Then they showed a shot of D.Wade in the crowd and made mention of other people there, but failed to mention Michael Dunleavy sitting next to D. Wade. Most of these guys don't do their homework. GoDuke!

[English]

And the announcers last night didn't mention Bolden being absent from the game in the 2nd half. Then they showed a shot of D.Wade in the crowd and made mention of other people there, but failed to mention Michael Dunleavy sitting next to D. Wade. Most of these guys don't do their homework. GoDuke!

Funny you mention that...it was also LaPhonso on the call last night, too. Same guy! I don't typically have an issue with his calls, but he should probably take a bit more pride in studying up for his job.

[BandAlum83]

Funny you mention that...it was also LaPhonso on the call last night, too. Same guy! I don't typically have an issue with his calls, but he should probably take a bit more pride in studying up for his job.

LaPhonso also praised Cam and called him the most consistent shooter on the team.

Another poster pointed out his bi=polar performance history. Far from consistent.

[Kedsy]

dRtg: 1.03 (adjusted that's 0.88, can't complain about this)
eFG%: 48.6% (not good but not horrifying either)
3pt%: 38.7% (UNC averages 37.3%, so not much better than their average)
2pt%: 41.9% (strong)
%threes: 41.9% (too high if you're going to let them shoot as well as they did from three)
FT rate: 17.6% (very good)
DR%: 69.6% (this was acceptable; better than UNC did at DRs)
TO%: 13.0% (fourth poor TO performance in last five games)
a/to: 1.6:1
%assisted: 53.3%
fast break pts: 12 (15.2% of their points; not as bad as it seemed)
block%: 9.5%; 16.3% of 2-point shots (once again showing we're a really good shotblocking team, amazingly even without both Zion and Marques)
steal%: 6.5% (fourth pathetic steals performance in last five games)


Last time against UNC, we stifled their three-point shooting and gave up a lot of open layups. This time, they had their way from three but we bottled them up inside. Overall, our D was a little worse than it was last UNC game, but still very good (top 10) defense.

[Kedsy]

dRtg: 1.02 (adjusted that's 0.97, not horrid but not good either)
eFG%: 56.7% (somewhat horrid)
3pt%: 42.8% (2nd too-strong effort from behind the line in the three Syracuse games)
2pt%: 51.6% (weak)
%threes: 40.4% (too high if you're going to let them shoot as well as they did from three)
FT rate: 42.3% (way too high)
DR%: 73.5% (very good)
TO%: 23.8% (really good; I guess Zion does matter, huh?)
a/to: 0.41:1
%assisted: 28.0%
fast break pts: 10 (13.9% of their points; not great but not terrible)
block%: 7.7%; 12.9% of 2-point shots (even without Marques, this team can block shots)
steal%: 19.6% (with Zion back we once again looked like the best stealing team in the country)

Our defense was just adequate. We rebounded well defensively and turned them over really well, but but we let them shoot way too well both from three and from two, and put them on the line too much.

[CDu]

Yeah, when we weren’t turning them over, our defense was awful. Which isn’t good because Syracuse without Battle is a bad offensive team.

The Cuse did a good job of targeting O’Connell and Barrett and scoring on them fairly easily. That and occasionally punishing Jones whenever he got switched onto Brissett.

Hopefully we are much better tonight.

[Kedsy]

dRtg: 1.00 (adjusted that's 0.85, this was really good for the 3rd time out of three against UNC, especially considering they put up an unadjusted 1.33 in the first 8 minutes)
eFG%: 42.5% (really good)
3pt%: 14.8% (2nd fabulous number in three UNC games)
2pt%: 54.3% (weak)
%threes: 37.0% (fine when they're shooting 15%, especially since so many of their threes were poorly conceived shots)
FT rate: 20.5% (good)
DR%: 64.4% (not good)
TO%: 11.0% (very weak; my biggest disappointment of our defense tonight)
a/to: 1.65:1
%assisted: 44.8%
fast break pts: 20 (27.4% of their points; actually this is probably my biggest disappointment - I don't have the other numbers in front of me but this was one of our worst fast break defense performances of the season, if not the worst)
block%: 8.2%; 13.0% of 2-point shots (even without Marques, this team can block shots)
steal%: 8.3% (feh)

Turnovers much lower than we'd like, defensive rebounding much lower, and fast break points much, much higher. And yet, we held them to a low enough shooting percentage (and kept them off the line) that our overall defensive performance was quite good.

[JasonEvans]

block%: 8.2%; 13.0% of 2-point shots (even without Marques, this team can block shots)

I wish there was a way of measuring balls that someone (like Zion perhaps) gets their fingertips upon which causes the shot to miss. It is not a full block, but it is a shot where the defense causes the shot to miss. These quite often happen on shots close to the basket that would be high percentage buckets. Zion had about 4 or 5 of those last night but not a single one of them officially goes down as a block.

fast break pts: 20 (27.4% of their points; actually this is probably my biggest disappointment - I don't have the other numbers in front of me but this was one of our worst fast break defense performances of the season, if not the worst)

Full credit to Roy, but he knows how to get his team moving up the court fast. The play where they answered the Zion dunk with a dunk of their own in just 4 SECONDS!!! was among the most remarkable things I have ever seen on a basketball court. I mean, this was a play that would have made Paul Westhead jealous.

You can see it again at the 4:40 mark of this video:

[uh_no]

I wish there was a way of measuring balls that someone (like Zion perhaps) gets their fingertips upon which causes the shot to miss. It is not a full block, but it is a shot where the defense causes the shot to miss. These quite often happen on shots close to the basket that would be high percentage buckets. Zion had about 4 or 5 of those last night but not a single one of them officially goes down as a block.



Full credit to Roy, but he knows how to get his team moving up the court fast. The play where they answered the Zion dunk with a dunk of their own in just 4 SECONDS!!! was among the most remarkable things I have ever seen on a basketball court. I mean, this was a play that would have made Paul Westhead jealous.

You can see it again at the 4:40 mark of this video:

there's a stat for shots challenged or shots affected or some such

[Kedsy]

dRtg: 0.91 (adjusted that's 0.83, our 4th sub-0.90 defensive performance in our last six games; this would have been sub-0.80 if FSU hadn't made that meaningless three at the buzzer)
eFG%: 38.1% (really, really good)
3pt%: 40.0% (too high, but what can you do when a 6'10" guy nails three out of five and someone else tosses one in for no reason at the buzzer?)
2pt%: 27.9% (this is an OMG number; and is also our best 2pt defense of the season)
%threes: 31.7% (considering how well they were shooting, nice to run them off the line, at least a little)
FT rate: 25.4% (decent)
DR%: 70.7% (good, against a very tall team)
TO%: 17.3% (not bad)
a/to: 0.66:1
%assisted: 40.0%
fast break pts: 8 (12.7% of their points; this is acceptable)
block%: 9.5%; 14.0% of 2-point shots (once again we showed that even without Marques, this team can block shots)
steal%: 11.5% (good, not great)


Overall, this was great defense, against a team that came into the game on a hot streak. We play this well on D the rest of the post-season, we should be in pretty good shape.

[superdave]

In Ken Pom, Duke's adjusted D is right there with Uva. I will take that.

If this team is a defensive juggernaut like they have been the last 75 minutes of ACCT game action, I will gladly take that.

[MChambers]

In Ken Pom, Duke's adjusted D is right there with Uva. I will take that.

If this team is a defensive juggernaut like they have been the last 75 minutes of ACCT game action, I will gladly take that.

In T-Rank, Duke's D is slightly better than UVa's. Think about that. And adding Bolden back at some point (we all hope) will make the defense even stronger.

[duke4ever19]

In T-Rank, Duke's D is slightly better than UVa's. Think about that. And adding Bolden back at some point (we all hope) will make the defense even stronger.

Is this a possibility? That's amazing. I thought he was done for the year.

How far does Duke need to get to get him back on the floor? Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four?

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Is this a possibility? That's amazing. I thought he was done for the year.

How far does Duke need to get to get him back on the floor? Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four?

K was quoted this week as saying he might be back as soon as next weekend. I think this was a surprise to most of us.

[Kedsy]

dRtg: 0.87 (adjusted that's 0.84, our 5th sub-0.90 defensive performance in our last seven games)
eFG%: 43.1% (can't complain)
3pt%: 27.6% (good)
2pt%: 44.8% (also good)
%threes: 50.0% (I'm cool with this if they're shooting 28%)
FT rate: 24.1% (decent)
DR%: 83.3% (outstanding)
TO%: 18.2% (not bad)
a/to: 0.54:1
%assisted: 33.3%
fast break pts: 0 (0% of their points; literally can't get better than this)
block%: 12.1%; 24.1% of 2-point shots (big numbers against a small team)
steal%: 8.4% (not especially good)


Our defense tonight was outstanding in almost every area, after a slow start (we gave up 12 points in the first 10 possessions).

[Kedsy]

dRtg: 1.12 (adjusted that's 1.05, pretty terrible)
eFG%: 56.5% (also terrible)
3pt%: 50.0% (what's worse than terrible?)
2pt%: 47.2% (pretty good, especially considering that 9 of their 17 two-point field goals were dunks)
%threes: 33.3%
FT rate: 37.7% (poor)
DR%: 76.7% (outstanding, considering who was standing under their basket for much of the game; second straight great DR performance)
TO%: 16.3% (meh)
a/to: 1.45:1
%assisted: 61.5%
fast break pts: 2 (2.6% of their points; second straight great performance here)
block%: 5.6%; 8.3% of 2-point shots (uncharacteristically low for this team)
steal%: 11.8% (not bad)


Our defense was pretty awful tonight, but I guess just good enough.

[uh_no]

dRtg: 1.12 (adjusted that's 1.05, pretty terrible)
eFG%: 56.5% (also terrible)
3pt%: 50.0% (what's worse than terrible?)
2pt%: 47.2% (pretty good, especially considering that 9 of their 17 two-point field goals were dunks)
%threes: 33.3%
FT rate: 37.7% (poor)
DR%: 76.7% (outstanding, considering who was standing under their basket for much of the game; second straight great DR performance)
TO%: 16.3% (meh)
a/to: 1.45:1
%assisted: 61.5%
fast break pts: 2 (2.6% of their points; second straight great performance here)
block%: 5.6%; 8.3% of 2-point shots (uncharacteristically low for this team)
steal%: 11.8% (not bad)


Our defense was pretty awful tonight, but I guess just good enough.

that was a tournament-losing defensive performance that fortunately for us, didn't lose us the tournament. Bounce back next weekend.