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An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

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  • An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

    Hello again everyone! Let's get right to the topics that are on my mind today, starting with our team defensive structure.

    There have been many things posted, said, and analyzed about the Pacers defensive team concept. There have been lots of things said about players being good "team" defenders while not being good individually, and there has been lots of talk from Jim O'Brien about our players defensive rotations and the errors they are making. I wanted to talk about some of that in this thread.

    In my opinion, the concept of a good "team" defender does exist, but it is somewhat overblown. In any teams defense, the staff gives the players "rules" and concepts about how they want to defend a certain player or a specific situation. Obviously, there is such a value in having a player who recognizes and follows the rules set up by the staff on a consistent basis. I agree completely.

    However, it appears to me that with our team so far the "Harter" effect we were all hoping for simply isn't happening quite yet. Regardless of the team concept of all 5 men moving in conjunction with one another, we still are a mediocre defensive unit, and one I feel with little potential to get very much better. The reason is we simply have bad individual defenders guarding key spots, and many times in the fourth quarters, with the game on the line, we are much too easy to score on.

    I read and hear sometimes that the Pacers defense "isn't on the same page.". Ok, fair enough....so what exact page are we supposed to be on? I hear it said that the Pacers play defense essentially the same way against all opponents with few minor tweaks each game....ok, I agree that's what should be done. But what are we really trying to accomplish, and are we doing it effectively?

    The Pacers defense on the perimeter is flawed, based on what I see thru 15 games. I say that because while this consistent approach is what is supposed to eventually be saving us, in reality we aren't consistent at all in our approach or execution.

    Let's talk about some specific defensive situations and our problems:

    1. Defending the ball on the wings one on one. Ok, imagine us set up with the opponent's 3 man with the ball, and our wings guarding them (Dunleavy, Granger, Marquis, Williams, or whomever). Part of having a consistent concept is where to force this man to go with the ball if possible......Do you guard him straight up, and react to his dribble? Do you force him consistently to the middle towards your help, but also to where he might be more creative with a pass? Or do you force him baseline, essentially giving up the pull up jumper but also keeping the ball on one side of the floor predominantly?

    Really any of those is ok, as long as it's consistently done, so your help knows where to be in relation to the ball and their own men.

    But the Pacers struggle regardless of which way they try to defend the wing in many cases, and they aren't doing the same things consistently enough for the other 4 players to have a real clue on what to do.

    Now, maybe some of you can decipher what we are trying to do in this situation, but I can't. It is wildly random to me.

    The best way to guard a wing driver, if you actually had a really good individual defender (still my biggest pet peeve about our team) would be to APPEAR to guard him straight up, but in reality have it in the defender's mind to not get beat in one particular direction or the other....this way, the defensive help has to be aware of potential help, but doesnt have to overhelp or help too quickly, since it is at least somewhat likely that the dribbler won't beat our defender one on one of the dribble from this spot anyway.

    Maybe I am spoiled, but we've had some great wing defenders in the past here, namely Derrick McKey and Ron Artest. I miss watching that alot.

    And no, I don't see a potential lockdown perimeter defender on our roster. Granger isn't going to be one, Williams isn't, and Daniels isn't. This is a big hole on our roster that will need to be filled to eventually bring a championship to Conseco.

    2. Recovering to shooters. Because the Pacers are forced to help more than most teams, our opponents have had some success in spacing the floor and making the perimeter shot. We mostly all knew this would happen going in to the season, since the Pacers are built that way.

    And I will say this: The Pacers are putting forth more effort in their closeouts than they did last season, especially since they have more ground to have to cover. I have to applaud our staff for getting effort from this team on this technical point.

    However, our technique on closing out to shooters is pretty poor still, and the coaches have to take some blame here too. The Pacers defenders fly at shooters with either both hands down, or just one hand up, and often the one hand that is up is either too late, too low, or the wrong hand entirely to influence the shot at all. Teams rise up and shoot over the Pacers with entirely too much ease for my liking.

    You are supposed to close out on shooters with your butt low to the ground, and with both hands high..."high hands" is a fundamental you would hear defensive coaches yell alot in practices. The Pacers have no one on their team who has this concept down.

    Last night's game gave us a good example of this, even though most of you, and even Clark Kellogg on the telecast, said this was good defense. When J.R. Smith hit his 3 point shot over Granger late, Danny (who has a height advantage over Smith) was in position to defend the shot. He was near enough, and had position when Smith began to rise up....EXCEPT that Granger had both of his hands down. Only when Smith was above Granger in his release did Granger's single hand rise up, and even then it didn't effect Smith's release at all, and he made it. You may have all thought J.R. Smith was defended well, but from my coaches perspective, he had a clean look he's made thousands of times before. It was good Granger effort, but poor Granger execution.

    Tinsley struggles with this too. I commend Jamal for playing much harder defensively than ever before, and I do think he is improved. But, there is a long way to go, especially when JT's man shoots over him, or he is recovering from help to an open spot up guy.

    3. Defending the screen/roll. I haven't seen the Pacers as much as I'd like all season I admit. I also admit that I don't recall us having many issues with this last night, but I think thats more an issue of our opponents not taking advantage of us as easy as they should in this matter. By and large, I think when faced with the ballscreen, our bigs have done ok in stopping the ball and forcing the dribbler to pass. But again, our recovery and help is so slow and stiff that we are very vulnerable to ballscreens in "pick and pop" situations, where the big doesn't roll but instead drifts out for a jumper.

    This hasn't been as much of an issue without JO in the game, but in the games he has played his inability to move has really hurt us on this regard. I should've posted this at the time, but there was one home game (I can't remember which one for sure, I think it might have been Toronto) that really hurt us with this bad. And it wouldn't necessarily need to be the defender who is involved in the screen/roll recovering, at times the spacing is such where one of our 3 help defenders has to rotate to the shooter, and we've been extraordinarily slow in doing that.


    I'm going to be really interested to see if we get significantly better in these areas or not, without personnel changes. I know we aren't going to change our philosophies, because Jim O'Brien is a true believer in his own system. But our defensive execution needs to get remarkably better, or we are doomed to be a team that is reliant on our offense to win, which is a recipe for inconsistency.

    I still believe we need an elite wing defender more than anything else we could get, followed by a point guard who can pressure the ball....although like I said, I do see some improvement by Jamal defensively.



    Ok, on to the end of game situations now, and the curious strategies I see us employ. Let's discuss this and see what we think.

    One of our best 4th quarters was the home game early against Miami, the one where Kareem Rush saved us, remember?

    What made that game unique to a degree for me watching it is that in the last few minutes of that game, Coach O'Brien went away from his motion tendencies somewhat and began calling almost every play from the bench....we ran lots of organized sets the last 4 minutes of that game. That night it worked, because Rush got hot and made shots, and Coach O'Brien recognized his hot hand and made sure he got the ball.

    Now, most nights, Coach doesn't call very much, instead choosing to rely on his motion game and the quick, free flowing nature of how we are playing. I'm ok with that.

    But what is curious to me is when we face a situation where playing quick and up tempo has gotten us the lead, but now we have the lead late, and it might be more prudent to run more sets, get more organized, and make sure we use clock and get a high quality shot.

    You can argue that both ways I know....playing quicker and more open is what got you the lead in the firts place, so stay with it.......or you can say taking a quick 3 with a lead late in the game is foolish, for example.

    Let's move on, as Bryant Gumbel would say.

    Let me throw out a few other curious moves that have to make you wonder some:

    1. What do we think about Coach O'Brien calling timeout with the pacers up 3 points, IN THE MIDDLE of 2 Shawne Williams free throws? In effect, he iced his own player, and Shawne did miss the second shot, which ended up putting us in danger. I'm sure there was a rationale behind that timeout, I'm just not sure what it was.

    2. Foul or not foul up 3 late? We are clearly not in the foul mode as a staff, as Coach O'Brien explained in his press conference after the Washington game at home that we won in OT, the one where Arenas hit the tying 3 pointer (where JT didn't rise up strong to defend the shot, by the way). Last night we didnt intend to foul, but were called for one anyway during the act of shooting and got away with it.

    Clearly, fouling a 3 point shooter is dumb and not recommended. But fouling before then to make it be just 2 shots is clearly something we should discuss. Really, in my view, Dunleavy should've fouled upon the CATCH last night, really giving Denver no way to tie the game (down 3, only shooting 2 free throws).

    I used to be like Coach O'Brien, a strict believer in not fouling and taking my chances on making them make a tough 3 pointer, but I've seen too many games lost because a team made a 3 late to tie the game that was unnecessary to allow to happen. I clearly am in the foul on purpose bandwagon now.


    Ok, so lot's of issues there to get off my chest....I feel better now.

    What do any of you think?


    The above is, as always, just my opinion....

    Tbird
    Last edited by thunderbird1245; 11-28-2007, 03:38 PM.

  • #2
    Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

    Originally posted by thunderbird1245 View Post
    1. What do we think about Coach O'Brien calling timeout with the pacers up 3 points, IN THE MIDDLE of 2 Shawne Williams free throws? In effect, he iced his own player, and Shawne did miss the second shot, which ended up putting us in danger. I'm sure there was a rationale behind that timeout, I'm just not sure what it was.
    I totally went ballistic after that time out when I realized that we called it. JOB iced his own player. Shawne knew it too, and tried to stay out at the line.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

      I agree the timeout was terrible but coaches are people too and he just made a mistake.

      I think the Harter effect will kick in. I think we have seen spots of it here and there. The team has had some great defensive stops they just have not been consistent.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

        always a great read

        totally agree with the end of game/qt situations - they've been just horrid in getting any sort of results - we either turn it over - jack up a shot with enough time left on the clock for the other team to get back and score or just have a really hard shot...which drives me bonkers

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

          Originally posted by rushmore View Post
          I totally went ballistic after that time out when I realized that we called it. JOB iced his own player. Shawne knew it too, and tried to stay out at the line.

          Now, what would have been a good time to call time out late would have been before Williams LAST free throw with 1 second to go or so. Then you could have reminded or told Shawne to MISS the last free throw on purpose, so Denver wouldnt be able to take the ball out of bounds and potentialy throw it long with the clock stopped. Denver was out of timeouts, so the only way they have any chance to beat us is by Williams MAKING the last free throw, letting Denver throw it long without the clock running. Kellogg was alert to this on the telecast, for those of you who remember.

          Denver wasn't able/chose not to throw it long anyway, so Williams making the last free throw (in error) didn't matter, but it could have.

          The Pacers staff may not have been aware that Denver was out of timeouts, which if true is another error by the staff....there are assistant coaches who are assigned those type of jobs, to alert the head coach of the situation.

          The Pacers coaching staff was poorly organized and somewhat sloppy at the end of the game, and it could have cost us bigtime. Fortunately, we got away with the mistakes.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

            TBird....from what I have read in your post and what others have mentioned.....it sounds like JO'B / Harter's defense is not something that can be picked up and immediately implemented effectively in training camp much less a month of regular season games.

            The impression I get is that there are set rules that everyone has to learn in order to properly execute the defense...if one player is out of sync....then it all falls apart.

            I think that it's been brought up in the forum before....but do you think that JO'B / Harter's defense is something that simply takes time to learn?
            Ash from Army of Darkness: Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

              As always a good post Thunderbird, and as always it is appreciated.

              This is a subject that has always, and especially throughout this season, has really interested me. I could not agree more with the need for an elite perimiter defender ala Ron Artest who can take that No.1 option on an opposing team and cause them problems, and as you say, i see noone on the Pacers particularly capable, not least at the moment, at doing this. Granger is our closest, and quite frankly, i dont think he has the foot speed or hand speed to really be an elite lock down defender, a good solid defender, possibly yes, but i think, particularly the way the NBA is with so many SF who require such intense defensive strategies (the likes of Lebron, Melo, Pierce, T-Mac to name a few), we will need to address this at some point in the future, if/when we are in a possition to look to contend again!

              As for the team defence on these players, i have been fortunate enough to watch every game, and so far my experience of how they match up shows them to do 1 of 2 things.

              1. When the player is at the top

              If the player (e.g. Lebron, Melo, Josh Howard to name 3 we have played recently) is at the top then the Perimeter player (usually Danny, if not shaun and sometimes Mike (although i cringe everytime i see Mike on a player like that but nevermined)) will try play straight up defence. Pressure the shot, trying to force the player to put the ball on the floor. At the same time, the 2 inside players will both slack off there players usaully coming to the edge of the Key.

              Then if the Perimeter defender is beaten, they attempt to step in and either take a charge or at least force a difficult pass.

              My views of this is it has, undoubtably, had some success. However there have been times when these Fowards/Centres simply havn't realised they need to do this, and left the lane open, other times they have been to slop to react after the drive is made and get called for blocking, other times they seem almost to forget that the superstar player can not only score but also pass and find themselves court in no mans land! Other problems include the fact these superstars tend to be quite good, and therefore able to stop up and shoot in the defenders face, even if they are playing tight defence ala Kobe did against Danny a few times. I have to say, as frustrating as this is, i prefere that to allowing drives. I feel the players need to improve there challenging of shots as TBird said, but that is the difference between average pressure defense and good pressure defense.

              My personal view on this is it can work. Just right now there is far far far too much thinking going on. This kind of defence has to be instinctive. If it isn't, people get court out. I can only hope that sometime soon it will become instinctive, otherwise we may see a lot of blocking fouls and superstar SFs at the Free Throw line!

              2. When the player is on the wing

              In this situation, we have tended to double using a big from the baseline and get the defense to rotate round and cover the others, this has allowed open 3's at times. I attempted to run through this post Cav's game when 2 Key 3's were scored as a result of doubling Lebron on the wing

              The post is here, post #37
              http://www.pacersdigest.com/apache2-...t=34968&page=2


              Obviously we havn't quite got this right yet! But from the post game press conference it appears JOb is attempting to sort it. I only hope, again, that the players can get the grasp of it fully.


              As for the Pick and Role defense, the improvement upon last year, i think, has been huge. It's far from perfect but it certainly isn't as ugly as it has been, the bigs are jumping out forcing the ball handler out fairly well in all (i have been impressed by harrison doing this, last year he looked so clumsy!)

              However, i think, that Pick and Role defending isn't just about those 2 players on D. It requires the other 3 to be totally aware of the need to help at some point, this is, again, difficult, but some kind of awareness needs to be gained to avoid a situation where the ball can be wipped out to a wing then back in to the roling player for a lay up with easy (something that i have noticed happen a few times)

              Everytime i talk to anyone about Pick and Role defense i always feel it necessary to say it is VERY difficult. There is a reason why the pick and role has been used so often and for so long ........ it works. And, when run effectively, it can be very difficult to stop!





              I feel that the O'Brian / Harter defense can be hugely effective, and i have seen spells and combinations where it has shown huge promise. The difficulty is, it's a system that requires a HUGE amount of work and knowledge, the players have to react instinctivly, without delay, IN THE SAME WAY EACH TIME so that the other 4 players dont get left stranded!


              Anyway, i have rambled on for far too long,
              Above is JMO obviously
              'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.'
              Animal Farm, by George Orwell

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              • #8
                Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                tbird, I love your posts, but they are so long anf full of great stuff I want to comment on, I usually forget most of what I want to say by the time I finish reading.

                I want to cdeleve into the defense, but I don't have the time right now.

                In general I am against fouling when up 3 points late in a game. There might be some situations where I might be tempted to foul - depending on how the game is going and who the opponent is. But I do know fouling isn't just something a coach tells his team to do, it must be practiced and and coached and worked on.

                I have no idea why OB called that timeout - because he knew the Nugs had a timeout left and that they were going to call one. The only thing I could think of, is that he wanted to toughen up Shawne. (sort of like he did the game before by letting JT shoot the Technical FT's. But I'm sure he had a reason I doubt it was just a "mistake"

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                • #9
                  Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                  Let me try to address a few things about the defense - I love the system - the only thing I don't love about it is we don't presure the ball enough - but then again we don't have enough good perimeter defenders to do so.

                  Tbird, I think you are selling Granger's defense a little short - sure he won't ever be McKey or Artest - but Granger is pretty good and geting better and better.


                  tbird - I really disagree with you about the value of good team defenders. I think that are extremely valuable. certain players have an inate ability to instinctively know where they should be. Dunleavy and Marquis are probably the best in this area. (Mckey was probably the best I've ever seen) But this is different from "following the gameplan" Foster I think is excellent at following the game plan and locking in on his man at the same time, but he doesn't have that special instinctive gift of just knowing where to be.

                  I need to stop here, but maybe I'll complete my thought a little later
                  Last edited by Unclebuck; 11-28-2007, 02:42 PM.

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                  • #10
                    Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                    oh and about fouling late in the games...its always tough with these refs....that 4pt play will haunt me all my life as a Pacers fan.

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                    • #11
                      Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                      Originally posted by bellisimo View Post
                      oh and about fouling late in the games...its always tough with these refs....that 4pt play will haunt me all my life as a Pacers fan.
                      One good about not fouling is at worst the game goes into OT. if you foul and something bad happens, they could win the game

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                      • #12
                        Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                        Originally posted by tbird
                        2. Foul or not foul up 3 late? We are clearly not in the foul mode as a staff, as Coach O'Brien explained in his press conference after the Washington game at home that we won in OT, the one where Arenas hit the tying 3 pointer (where JT didn't rise up strong to defend the shot, by the way). Last night we didnt intend to foul, but were called for one anyway during the act of shooting and got away with it.

                        Clearly, fouling a 3 point shooter is dumb and not recommended. But fouling before then to make it be just 2 shots is clearly something we should discuss. Really, in my view, Dunleavy should've fouled upon the CATCH last night, really giving Denver no way to tie the game (down 3, only shooting 2 free throws).

                        I used to be like Coach O'Brien, a strict believer in not fouling and taking my chances on making them make a tough 3 pointer, but I've seen too many games lost because a team made a 3 late to tie the game that was unnecessary to allow to happen. I clearly am in the foul on purpose bandwagon now.
                        Statistically, the argument about "to foul or not to foul" has long been decided. You should foul.

                        I used to think you shouldn't foul because on the possibility of a "Free throw make, intentional miss, offensive board, kick out for three" situation where you actually lose, but this is such a statistical improbability that it doesn't make sense to put your team in a worse position to win based solely on an irrational fear of that possible scenario.

                        Sure, anecdotally we can all think of times the foul strategy has backfired. But these two statistical studies make it pretty clear that fouling is the way to go in terms of probability.

                        http://www.82games.com/lawhorn.htm

                        http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot....u-foul-in.html
                        Read my Pacers blog:
                        8points9seconds.com

                        Follow my twitter:

                        @8pts9secs

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                        • #13
                          Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                          Originally posted by rushmore View Post
                          I totally went ballistic after that time out when I realized that we called it. JOB iced his own player. Shawne knew it too, and tried to stay out at the line.
                          I found it a curious call, and in hindsight it didn't pan out well. But I think the time out was to talk about defense. I don't remember exactly the sequence, but didn't this foul happen immediately after 2 of the 3 threes they hit down the stretch? It might have been after the third one. In either case, I wonder if JOB was thinking, "@#$%, if Shawne misses the second they are going to run this right down and shoot another." Those threes came in a hurry. I can't help but wonder if he was trying to do a little end of game strategizing to take away the three or to burn more time off the clock on Denver possessions, etc. It's the best thing I've come up with, because I definitely found it out of place otherwise.

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                          • #14
                            Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                            Originally posted by JayRedd View Post
                            Statistically, the argument about "to foul or not to foul" has long been decided. You should foul.

                            I used to think you shouldn't foul because on the possibility of a "Free throw make, intentional miss, offensive board, kick out for three" situation where you actually lose, but this is such a statistical improbability that it doesn't make sense to put your team in a worse position to win based solely on an irrational fear of that possible scenario.

                            Sure, anecdotally we can all think of times the foul strategy has backfired. But these two statistical studies make it pretty clear that fouling is the way to go in terms of probability.

                            http://www.82games.com/lawhorn.htm

                            http://sabermetricresearch.blogspot....u-foul-in.html
                            In light of all that, is it possible that some coaches just feel it is contrary to the spirit of the game? I know I've talked to fans who feel that way. They would rather see good defense and someone make a tough shot than "cheat" that way. I'm not saying it is cheating, nor am I saying I feel this way, but it's the closest thing I can compare it to in the sense they described it.

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                            • #15
                              Re: An examination of the Pacers team defense, and end of game strategies

                              Originally posted by Rinuven View Post
                              In light of all that, is it possible that some coaches just feel it is contrary to the spirit of the game? I know I've talked to fans who feel that way. They would rather see good defense and someone make a tough shot than "cheat" that way. I'm not saying it is cheating, nor am I saying I feel this way, but it's the closest thing I can compare it to in the sense they described it.
                              Hack-a-Shaq anyone?
                              I doubt coaches care much about the spirit of the game...

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