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The SportVU Follow-up: Answering the Most Common Questions and More Ghost Players
I have a ton of cool information from the Raptors’ analytics program that didn't fit in yesterday's original big-picture piece, so I wanted to share at least some of it here. A roundup of leftover thoughts on analytics, the evolution of the NBA, and the Raptors:
• The two most common responses I got from both league executives and fans were versions of:
1. Holy cow! The Raptors are way ahead of (Insert Team X) in gleaning useful data from the SportVU camera systems.
2. If Toronto’s front office is so savvy, and so determined to combine traditional “eye test” analysis with the most advanced data available, why are they still a mediocre team? And why did they trade for Rudy Gay, an inefficient player whom a new, analytics-savvy front office in Memphis dumped within months of their ascension?
That question in part gets at the simplistic cause-and-effect assumptions that infect too much NBA analysis: A team is smart; ergo, it should be good. Or: A team is dumb; ergo, it should be bad. The real NBA doesn’t work that way over short time spans, and it’s especially strange to argue that it would in connection with a piece of technology that's practically brand-new. A bunch of key variables outside the smart/dumb continuum affect the success of an NBA team: geographic location, ownership, willingness to approach the luxury tax, injuries, and plain old luck. Yup, luck. R.C. Buford, Gregg Popovich, and Sam Presti are clearly three of the smartest basketball people alive, but the “models” upon which their long-term success is built collapse without a piece of insanely good lottery fortune at Step 1. They’d all happily concede the same.
All the advanced analytics in the world won’t change the fact that teams generally need a top-15 player, or multiple top-30 players, in order to seriously contend for the title. (We can argue later about whether Denver is bucking this trend now.) Houston probably has the largest team of analytics-oriented front-office people, and every time a franchise-level star becomes available, they chase them as giddily as I chased Swin Cash around All-Star weekend. (Note: Swin’s restraining order does not cover mentions on Grantland).
As for the proliferation of inefficient and overpaid players on Toronto’s roster — Gay, DeMar DeRozan, Andrea Bargnani, Landry Fields — it’s fair to question all of those signings and re-signings, all of which happened before Toronto had gotten this far along in the SportVU revolution. Front offices are not a monolith. It’s possible some within Toronto’s front office disagreed with general manager Bryan Colangelo when it came time to sign off on all these deals. And if you ask Colangelo about them, he’d probably cite a number of “traditional” variables that factored into each one — the desire for a star attraction (Gay), the team’s willingness to approach or pay the luxury tax, the time it put into developing a young player (DeRozan), the misguided signing of Fields to block New York’s pursuit of Steve Nash, and the goal of locking up a young asset in DeRozan at a tradeable (if inflated) price — just as Denver did with JaVale McGee. The Gay trade was a calculated risk that probably won’t move the needle much, but it represented an understandable move from a team that doesn’t attract star free agents and needed to monetize both an expiring deal (Jose Calderon) and a non-core asset about to go up dramatically in price (Ed Davis). Gay’s next contract will be telling, though.
They’re all questionable moves. But they don’t discredit the importance of analytics as a tool.
• The natural follow-up question: If teams need a franchise player (duh) and use all sorts of “traditional” criteria in making decisions, does all this fancy stuff even matter? Does it make any difference?
Of course it can, and it does. No smart person would dismiss any piece of information, which is why no NBA team is dismissing SportVU or analytics in general. Even the Knicks, long and justifiably derided as James Dolan’s brainless money pit, have invested in the cameras and hired well-qualified analytics people.
On the simplest level, the cameras will give coaching staffs much better information in preparation for specific opponents. The Raptors, for instance, have tracked how teams defend the pick-and-roll over tens of thousands of those plays: Do they have the big man defending the screener blitz out at the ball handler, effectively trapping him? Or do they prefer to drop that big man back toward the foul line? Is there a middle ground? And do they like forcing pick-and-rolls left and/or toward the sideline?
Toronto knows those answers, and even better, they know how effective teams are when they employ particular strategies. Miami, for instance, blitzes (or “shows”) on about 52 percent of pick-and-rolls — by far the highest percentage in the league. You probably could've guessed that, but it’s still good to know, and it’s interesting to think about the other 48 percent of pick-and-rolls.
But did you know that Portland is No. 2 so far this season, dispatching a big man in some form on 45 percent of opponents' pick-and-rolls? Or that most of the best pick-and-roll defenses lean toward a more aggressive style of play, pursuing opponents' point guards a bit farther from the hoop than less successful teams? Boston and Oklahoma City are both around Portland’s territory in this department, and the data shows that Boston is especially stingy when their big-man defender takes an aggressive stance. “The best pick-and-roll defense teams hardly ever drop [their big man back],” says Raptors director of analytics Alex Rucker. The exceptions, according to the data: Chicago and San Antonio.
• It might sound counterintuitive, but opponents of Boston and New York, respectively, have much more success generating points when they involve Kevin Garnett and Tyson Chandler directly in pick-and-roll plays by using their man as the screener, according to Toronto’s data. Why? Probably because doing so removes an elite defender from the back line, although there is still much to learn here. Wouldn’t you like to know this stuff?
• The Raptors have also studied the flip side: How does Opponent X do on offense when defenses blitz the pick-and-roll? What happens to their points per possession when defenses drop back instead?
• Most pick-and-rolls involving two wing players or guards — the Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook or LeBron James-Dwyane Wade versions, for instance — are devastatingly effective, according to Toronto’s data. This is partly because teams are using them judiciously, Rucker says, reserving them for elite player combinations. Should teams perhaps broaden their use of this type of play, given its effectiveness around the NBA so far?
• And now, since people really seem to like these ghost videos, a video interlude:
This is a pretty common NBA action, with John Lucas III (No. 5 in white) running a pick-and-roll with Terrence Ross (No. 31) on the left side of the floor while Alan Anderson (No. 6) curls around two screens and comes out on the opposite side for a possible jumper.
Ross, not exactly a thick man or a rugged screener, somehow destroys George Hill (No. 3) with his pick, allowing Lucas to approach the foul line unguarded. Here’s how the Pacers’ defenders (in blue) and their ghosts (transparent, same jersey numbers) respond to this semi-crisis:
That’s Ian Mahinmi, No. 28, in the middle of the paint, and he’s done an almost perfect job mimicking his ghost in order to contain Lucas in an emergency; he’s abandoned his original mark (Amir Johnson, No. 15 in white) in order to wall off the paint.
But look at Lance Stephenson (No. 1 in blue) and Ghost Lance behind him. The real Stephenson has continued along the path he’d normally take on this play, trailing Anderson wide around Johnson’s screen. But Ghost Lance has recognized that Mahinmi has called an audible and adjusted in kind — by cutting off his normal path, darting to the inside, and doing his best to contain the suddenly wide-open Johnson.
Real Stephenson’s failure to do this — a very difficult snap judgment, it must be said — becomes important when Lucas's shot misses, and Johnson winds up in total control of a large chunk of rebounding territory:
The Raptors can actually measure this. See that little “X” right above Johnson’s No. 15? That's the exact spot at which the ball will reach 9 feet in height after ricocheting off the rim, according to Toronto’s algorithms, which use the camera data to track speed of the ball, shot trajectory, and other variables to come up with that “X.” The different shadings correspond to areas of the court that individual players “control” when the rebound phase of a possession begins; that purple chunk of real estate belongs to Johnson, and the program can factor in Johnson’s length, height, and rebounding skills to determine the size of that chunk.
The implications of this are interesting, and lots of teams have already started using the camera data to investigate rebounding. They can evaluate individual players by figuring out how often a player actually nabs a rebound that lands within his controlled space. Wouldn’t you like to know that kind of thing before handing a power forward $10 million per year? “When we were growing up, you’d always ask, ‘Is this guy hustling? Is he playing hard?’ says Ed Stefanski, Toronto’s executive vice-president of basketball operations. “Now, with these cameras, you can’t hide.”
League executives, especially on the 15 teams who've purchased the SportVU system from STATS, hope this kind of data can work to put a dollar figure on work ethic, defense, and other skills beyond scoring.
Teams, including the Raptors and a group of academics who presented at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, have also started looking at whether teams are too cautious in crashing the offensive glass, i.e., whether the gains in sending an extra guy to the boards outweigh the ground you might lose in transition defense. The MIT team recommended crashing more aggressively, and although the Raptors haven’t embraced that conclusion with quite the same gung-ho enthusiasm, they’re also leaning toward the idea that crashing the offensive glass more aggressively is a good thing — especially for teams with players capable of both chasing a rebound and retreating hard on transition defense on the same play. Among players who can do both very well, per Toronto’s data: Kevin Love and Amir Johnson.
• A lot of people asked about Rucker’s assertion that a 28 percent 3-point shot is better than a 42 percent mid-range jumper. That statement obviously doesn’t necessarily apply universally; personnel, time in the game, scoring margin, and the shot clock are all important variables. But three is greater than two, and every study of rebounding has found 3’s also lead to a much higher number of offensive rebounds than mid-range shots. They might also lead to long rebounds and fast-breaks for opponents, but the evidence of damage there is less clear.
• The Raptors have also started looking at which teams are best at using particular offensive plays to finish possessions. In other words, everyone runs a bunch of pick-and-rolls, but which teams most often gain an advantage via the pick-and-roll that actually leads to a shot — and not the resetting of the offense for some other action?
Golden State, for instance, runs relatively few pick-and-rolls in raw terms, but a whopping 67 percent of those pick-and-rolls start a cascade of events that lead to the end of a possession — the highest “conversion” rate in the league. Brooklyn ranks at the bottom of that list, meaning Nets’ pick-and-rolls are more likely than those of any other team to go nowhere and lead to the resetting of the offense. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; Miami's way down there, as well. But unlike the Nets, the Heat are ridiculously efficient on possessions where a pick-and-roll does lead to a conclusive event. This suggests that Miami is (a) just really good, and (b) smart about recognizing when a pick-and-roll hasn’t done enough, and something else, even another pick-and-roll, might yield something better, Rucker says.
• Tony Parker runs 36 pick-and-rolls per 36 minutes, or one per minute. Shaun Livingston runs about 14 per 36 minutes. Just a fun fact. Both have been among the league’s 15 or 20 most efficient ball handlers, in terms of team points scored when they run a pick-and-roll, and that pick-and-roll leads to the end of a possession.
• Here’s something interesting: Toronto’s analytics team believes isolations — those selfish and allegedly inefficient plays — might be very good things for some offenses, and the Raps’ current data suggests possessions that end via some event that results from an isolation are about as efficient as pick-and-rolls that do the same. This is where the SportVU data can go beyond something like Synergy, a stat-tracking tool every team uses. Isolations come out as very low-efficiency on Synergy, since Synergy measures only shots that come from the player isolating one-on-one. It doesn’t precisely measure what happens when that player draws help and kicks to a spot-up shooter, and when that spot-up shooter then drives, draws more help, and kicks to an even more open shooter who knocks down a 3.
The Raptors are doing that, and they’ve found isolations in that larger sense are quite efficient — at least for teams with the right personnel. “They’re fabulous for us,” Rucker says.
• The same is true of post-ups, which are low efficiency on their own, but much higher when you include shots that come via kick-out passes to open shooters and other trickle-down events — at least according to Toronto’s data. Post-ups are also more likely than other plays to lead to some end-of-possession event, and not to the resetting of the offense.
• One of the very best isolation players in the league, by this metric, is Clippers guard Jamal Crawford. According to Toronto’s data, Crawford runs about 8.5 isolations per 36 minutes. The Clips have scored about 1.36 points per possession on those plays, which is so far above the average isolation number (about 1.02) as to be ridiculous. Interestingly, Crawford’s pick-and-rolls have been among the league’s least efficient.
• The Raptors have filtered out garbage time, but they could also filter their numbers to include only garbage time, if they’re ever curious to learn the real garbage-time All-Stars. According to Toronto’s internal standards, the average NBA game contains just over 45 minutes of meaningful basketball, and 2.5 minutes or so of garbage time.
• One more fun ghost video from a Pacers-Raptors game: Keep an eye on Kyle Lowry (No. 3 in white) and Ghost Lowry as Indiana swings the ball around. Real Lowry gambles for a steal, as real Lowry is prone to do, and Ghost Lowry frowns upon this risky behavior. Fun times.
• I could go on. The point is that even though the sheer amount of data can be overwhelming, if a team has the right people looking at it in the right ways — a task that will literally take years — it is clearly helpful. It won’t rig the draft lottery, land a franchise player, and eliminate bad decisions and bad general managers; Michael Beasley will still be drawing a paycheck years from now. Data will never replace watching games and all the dirty work of scouting, and no sane person has ever argued it could. But it can help on the margins, and the margins are very important as the level of competition tightens. It can help a team unearth bargains, identify market inefficiencies, serve as the final nudge toward a decisive lineup change (e.g., the Mavericks' decision to start J.J. Barea midway through the 2011 Finals), and guide a team toward players with specific skill sets it values highly because of the camera system. In other words, if you want players who defend like ghosts, find them and sign them, especially if the marketplace undervalues them.
I think Ghost DeRozan is still available.
So with the ghosts, they have to assume that the player hears or knows an audible, and adjusts himself to it, rather than continuing on with his current defense? Doesn't that get dicey?
So and so gambled for a steal, but he should have played back. What if that player read the passers eyes, or had timed the pass, just missed by an eyelash? I don't see how ghosting that helps determine anything, defensive is about being aggressive, ghosting seems like being cautious and safe.
From an excellent Grantland article about the Jazz.Dennis Lindsey is Utah's new GM, fresh from San Antonio (and Houston before that), which means things will start changing slowly in Utah. Among those changes: Multiple league sources who dealt with Utah ahead of the deadline insist the Jazz presented themselves as willing to take a step back next season and snag a solid pick in a loaded 2014 draft. That is in part Lindsey's influence, those sources say. And while that runs counter to the Jazz's desire to make the playoffs this season, this roster was already set when Lindsey arrived over the summer, and new front offices are sometimes cautious in flexing their muscles.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9042169/al-jefferson-paul-millsap-tyrone-corbin-future-utah-jazzThe team is probably already playing Jefferson too much, which brings us back to Corbin. Here's a remarkable thing: Utah's five most-used lineups this season have been outscored. Ditto for 17 of its 18 most commonly used three-man groups, and usually by margins much larger than Utah's overall negative scoring margin.
Only two of the 80 teams that have qualified for the playoffs in the last five years have done so with their top five lineups being outscored: the 2008-09 Bulls, and … last year's Jazz. This is very strong evidence that Corbin is basically just playing the wrong guys and wrong combinations in the wrong minutes distribution. His better defenders and all-around guys — Favors, Kanter, DeMarre Carroll, Gordon Hayward, et al. — deserve a larger chunk of the time going to Jefferson, Mo Williams (now back from injury), and others. Lineup data can be pretty noisy over short sample sizes, but the noise is getting really loud at this point.
So these overhead cameras just use the dots as action, they don't include actual video of the plays from above? So like if a player tripped, how does that convey in the vid?
I noticed in the first one the ball handler turned green as he went around the pick, is that in motion or something to the effect?
BTW, it's very comfy in here. Like it.
LinkThese Spurs Aren't The Same
Last season’s San Antonio Spurs had the best record in the Western Conference at 50-16. This season’s Spurs have the best record in the Western Conference at 52-16. It’s basically the same roster with almost the same exact record.
But it’s not the same team, really. And this Spurs team is better suited to win a championship.
Earlier this month at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Spurs general manager R.C. Buford was asked about how open-minded Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is in regard to analytics. Buford noted how Popovich liked how the numbers often confirmed his basketball beliefs, like the importance of corner 3-pointers. And then Buford talked about how the Spurs dug into the numbers in the offseason to see how they can get better defensively.
“This summer, we looked at our defensive efficiency, which for years had been very high. And last year, we went in the 10-15 range. And I think we were valuing some things that weren’t nearly as important as the data showed us. We learned from the Celtics.
“While they were really high in defensive efficiency, they weren’t very high in defensive rebounding. And that was a big part of where our emphasis was, and it made us question is that really where we should be paying attention. And those were discussions that were then brought to Pop from our coaches and from our analytics team. And some great discussions came from that, that ended up having us reevaluate what was important to us.”
The Spurs ranked 11th defensively, allowing 100.6 points per 100 possessions, last season. But that wasn’t just a single step backward for the their defense. When you compare their defensive efficiency with the league average, they had actually regressed each of the last eight years.
Spurs defense, previous nine seasons
View media item 325899
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
Now, the 2003-04 Spurs were one of the best defensive teams in NBA history, allowing 8.5 points per 100 possessions fewer than the league average. So there was nowhere to go but down. And San Antonio continued to rank in the top three on that end for four more seasons, winning championships in 2005 and 2007.
But continuous regression over the years led them to eventually drop out of the top 10 defensively, which is not where you want to be if you want to contend for a championship. Of the last 22 teams to make The Finals, only one – the 2005-06 Mavs – wasn’t a top 10 defensive team in the regular season. Six of the 22 ranked outside of the top 10 offensively.
The Spurs’ identity changed quite a bit over the years. And while they certainly became more enjoyable to watch as they improved offensively – they ranked No. 1 in offensive efficiency last season – they became less qualified to win a championship. So a change was needed to stop their downward defensive trend.
Better to be good at the right things than great at the wrong things
Better to be good at the right things than great at the wrong things
There are four factors that effect efficiency on either side of the ball: Shooting, rebounding, turnovers and free throws. Last year, both the Celtics and Spurs were top five in two of those four categories defensively, but Boston was a much better defensive team overall, allowing over five points per 100 possessions fewer than San Antonio.
Celtics and Spurs defense, 2011-12
View media item 325902
OppeFG% = Opponent effective field goal percentage = (FGM + (0.5 * 3PM)) / FGA
DREB% = Percentage of available defensive rebounds obtained
OppTmTOV% = Opponent turnovers per 100 possessions
OppFTA Rate = FTA/FGA
The Spurs were an excellent defensive rebounding team and did a great job of keeping their opponents off the free-throw line. But there’s a much stronger correlation between DefRtg and OppeFG% than there is between DefRtg and any of the other three factors. The most important thing you can do defensively is make your opponent miss shots from the field. And the Spurs just didn’t do that well enough.
So, using the Celtics for comparison, Popovich and crew went back to the drawing board, knowing they needed to adjust their defensive priorities. Contesting shots became the new focus, even if it meant more fouls or fewer rebounds.
And being more aggressive in challenging shots is logical, because league-wide free throw rate has dropped each of the last seven seasons and is now at its lowest mark (0.271) since the 1973-74 season. Whether it’s because teams are taking more threes or because fouls are being called differently the last few years, there’s less risk in contesting shots than there was 10 years ago.
More contested shots = better defense
The Spurs’ plan has worked. While they’ve regressed a little in both defensive rebounding percentage and opponent free throw rate, they’ve jumped from 11th to third in defensive efficiency, because they’ve defended shots better and forced more turnovers.
Spurs defense, last two seasons
View media item 325907
What’s interesting is that the Spurs’ defense isn’t forcing less efficient shots. Their opponents are actually taking a greater percentage of their shots from the restricted area and the corners (the most efficient shots on the floor) than they did last season.
But San Antonio is defending most areas of the floor better than they did last year. In particular, they’re defending the paint much better.
Spurs’ opponent FG%, by area, last two seasons
View media item 325909
The key ingredient comes from Brazil
A big key has been the improvement from Tiago Splitter, who has been the full-time starter next to Tim Duncan since mid-December, and whose minutes have increased about 5 1/2 minutes per game from last season.
With Duncan and Splitter on the floor together, Spurs opponents have shot just 43.7 percent in the paint. That’s the lowest mark for any two-man combination that has defended at least 500 paint shots all season.
Lowest opponent FG% in the paint, two-man combinations
View media item 325912
Minimum 500 FGA
The Spurs’ defense has allowed a measly 91.9 points per 100 possessions in the 648 minutes that Duncan and Splitter have shared the floor this season and just 87.4 in 477 minutes with Duncan, Splitter and Kawhi Leonard on the floor. That’s a ridiculously good defensive trio.
Opponents have scored 95.3 in Splitter’s 1,662 minutes total. Only five players who have logged at least 1,000 minutes (two for Memphis, two for Indiana and the Clippers’ Lamar Odom) have a lower on-court DefRtg.
It may all come down to defending OKC
Overall, this season’s San Antonio defense is 4.2 points per 100 possessions better than the league average. So they’ve finally reversed their eight-year, downward trend and are playing their best defense in five seasons.
Allowing 1.9 fewer points per 100 possessions than last season, the Spurs are the sixth most improved defensive team in the league. And while five other teams have made bigger jumps, the Spurs’ improvement could ultimately be the most important, because they already had a championship-caliber offense and it was on the defensive end of the floor where they lost the final four games of last year’s Western Conference finals.
In the regular season last year, 15 teams defended the Oklahoma City Thunder better than the Spurs, who allowed OKC to score 105.9 points per 100 possessions in their three regular season meetings and 110.4 in the playoffs. This year, only one team has defended the Thunder better.
Best defense vs. Oklahoma City, 2012-13
View media item 325914
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions
Oklahoma City has an effective field goal percentage of just 45 percent against the Spurs this season, down from 52 percent in last season’s nine total meetings. In particular, Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha have shot much worse against the Spurs than they did last season. Westbrook has shot just 5-for-16 in the paint with Splitter on the floor this season.
Splitter played just 53 minutes in last year’s conference finals, 10th most on the Spurs and 94 fewer than Boris Diaw. But he played 34 minutes in the Spurs’ 105-93 victory over the Thunder on March 11, and was a plus-24. OKC scored 41 points in his 14 minutes on the bench, but just 52 in his 34 minutes on the floor.
The Spurs’ defense against quality opponents goes far beyond their three games against the Thunder. In games played between current Western Conference playoff teams, San Antonio has been much better defensively than any of the other seven, including the Grizzlies, who rank second in defensive efficiency overall.
Best defense, games played between current West playoff teams
View media item 325915
Tony Parker could return from his sprained ankle on Friday, when the Spurs host the Jazz. With Manu Ginobili playing more consistently of late, San Antonio looks to be at full strength in control of the No. 1 seed in the West once again. And more important than what they’re doing offensively is how well they’ve defended this season.
So dismiss the Spurs as a regular season team at your own peril. They may seem like the same team on the surface, but the numbers tell a much different story.
I never was a Batum believer, but he was really good to start the season (legitimately the second best SF in the Western Conference). I think his decline the last few months is due as much to over-exhaustion as anything.When do we give up on the ceiling of Batum? Another year gone by, another year of him turning in random awesome performances, followed by "did he play tonight?" performances.
Hell, LMA gettin close to 30 already ain't he? And Batum isn't helping out full time, yet?
If Hickson leaves, but Maynor stays, are they even stepping forward? Losing Hickson will piss off LMA pretty good I would imagine, he'd have to do a lot more heavy lifting down low.
I've been wanting Splitter to get this much PT since last year, I wasnt a fan of the Boris Diaw thing at all. It just made us too small and for years I've wanted more size in the roster. I still think we need some but Splitter iaw and Blair combined.I could understand wanting to guide Favors and Kanter into more playing time instead of just throwing them into the fire. Make them learn a role from two good players, then let them have at it.
LinkThese Spurs Aren't The Same
Last season’s San Antonio Spurs had the best record in the Western Conference at 50-16. This season’s Spurs have the best record in the Western Conference at 52-16. It’s basically the same roster with almost the same exact record.
But it’s not the same team, really. And this Spurs team is better suited to win a championship.
Earlier this month at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Spurs general manager R.C. Buford was asked about how open-minded Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is in regard to analytics. Buford noted how Popovich liked how the numbers often confirmed his basketball beliefs, like the importance of corner 3-pointers. And then Buford talked about how the Spurs dug into the numbers in the offseason to see how they can get better defensively.
“This summer, we looked at our defensive efficiency, which for years had been very high. And last year, we went in the 10-15 range. And I think we were valuing some things that weren’t nearly as important as the data showed us. We learned from the Celtics.
“While they were really high in defensive efficiency, they weren’t very high in defensive rebounding. And that was a big part of where our emphasis was, and it made us question is that really where we should be paying attention. And those were discussions that were then brought to Pop from our coaches and from our analytics team. And some great discussions came from that, that ended up having us reevaluate what was important to us.”
The Spurs ranked 11th defensively, allowing 100.6 points per 100 possessions, last season. But that wasn’t just a single step backward for the their defense. When you compare their defensive efficiency with the league average, they had actually regressed each of the last eight years.
Spurs defense, previous nine seasons
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
Now, the 2003-04 Spurs were one of the best defensive teams in NBA history, allowing 8.5 points per 100 possessions fewer than the league average. So there was nowhere to go but down. And San Antonio continued to rank in the top three on that end for four more seasons, winning championships in 2005 and 2007.
But continuous regression over the years led them to eventually drop out of the top 10 defensively, which is not where you want to be if you want to contend for a championship. Of the last 22 teams to make The Finals, only one – the 2005-06 Mavs – wasn’t a top 10 defensive team in the regular season. Six of the 22 ranked outside of the top 10 offensively.
The Spurs’ identity changed quite a bit over the years. And while they certainly became more enjoyable to watch as they improved offensively – they ranked No. 1 in offensive efficiency last season – they became less qualified to win a championship. So a change was needed to stop their downward defensive trend.
Better to be good at the right things than great at the wrong things
Better to be good at the right things than great at the wrong things
There are four factors that effect efficiency on either side of the ball: Shooting, rebounding, turnovers and free throws. Last year, both the Celtics and Spurs were top five in two of those four categories defensively, but Boston was a much better defensive team overall, allowing over five points per 100 possessions fewer than San Antonio.
Celtics and Spurs defense, 2011-12
OppeFG% = Opponent effective field goal percentage = (FGM + (0.5 * 3PM)) / FGA
DREB% = Percentage of available defensive rebounds obtained
OppTmTOV% = Opponent turnovers per 100 possessions
OppFTA Rate = FTA/FGA
The Spurs were an excellent defensive rebounding team and did a great job of keeping their opponents off the free-throw line. But there’s a much stronger correlation between DefRtg and OppeFG% than there is between DefRtg and any of the other three factors. The most important thing you can do defensively is make your opponent miss shots from the field. And the Spurs just didn’t do that well enough.
So, using the Celtics for comparison, Popovich and crew went back to the drawing board, knowing they needed to adjust their defensive priorities. Contesting shots became the new focus, even if it meant more fouls or fewer rebounds.
And being more aggressive in challenging shots is logical, because league-wide free throw rate has dropped each of the last seven seasons and is now at its lowest mark (0.271) since the 1973-74 season. Whether it’s because teams are taking more threes or because fouls are being called differently the last few years, there’s less risk in contesting shots than there was 10 years ago.
More contested shots = better defense
The Spurs’ plan has worked. While they’ve regressed a little in both defensive rebounding percentage and opponent free throw rate, they’ve jumped from 11th to third in defensive efficiency, because they’ve defended shots better and forced more turnovers.
Spurs defense, last two seasons
What’s interesting is that the Spurs’ defense isn’t forcing less efficient shots. Their opponents are actually taking a greater percentage of their shots from the restricted area and the corners (the most efficient shots on the floor) than they did last season.
But San Antonio is defending most areas of the floor better than they did last year. In particular, they’re defending the paint much better.
Spurs’ opponent FG%, by area, last two seasons
The key ingredient comes from Brazil
A big key has been the improvement from Tiago Splitter, who has been the full-time starter next to Tim Duncan since mid-December, and whose minutes have increased about 5 1/2 minutes per game from last season.
With Duncan and Splitter on the floor together, Spurs opponents have shot just 43.7 percent in the paint. That’s the lowest mark for any two-man combination that has defended at least 500 paint shots all season.
Lowest opponent FG% in the paint, two-man combinations
Minimum 500 FGA
The Spurs’ defense has allowed a measly 91.9 points per 100 possessions in the 648 minutes that Duncan and Splitter have shared the floor this season and just 87.4 in 477 minutes with Duncan, Splitter and Kawhi Leonard on the floor. That’s a ridiculously good defensive trio.
Opponents have scored 95.3 in Splitter’s 1,662 minutes total. Only five players who have logged at least 1,000 minutes (two for Memphis, two for Indiana and the Clippers’ Lamar Odom) have a lower on-court DefRtg.
It may all come down to defending OKC
Overall, this season’s San Antonio defense is 4.2 points per 100 possessions better than the league average. So they’ve finally reversed their eight-year, downward trend and are playing their best defense in five seasons.
Allowing 1.9 fewer points per 100 possessions than last season, the Spurs are the sixth most improved defensive team in the league. And while five other teams have made bigger jumps, the Spurs’ improvement could ultimately be the most important, because they already had a championship-caliber offense and it was on the defensive end of the floor where they lost the final four games of last year’s Western Conference finals.
In the regular season last year, 15 teams defended the Oklahoma City Thunder better than the Spurs, who allowed OKC to score 105.9 points per 100 possessions in their three regular season meetings and 110.4 in the playoffs. This year, only one team has defended the Thunder better.
Best defense vs. Oklahoma City, 2012-13
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions
Oklahoma City has an effective field goal percentage of just 45 percent against the Spurs this season, down from 52 percent in last season’s nine total meetings. In particular, Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha have shot much worse against the Spurs than they did last season. Westbrook has shot just 5-for-16 in the paint with Splitter on the floor this season.
Splitter played just 53 minutes in last year’s conference finals, 10th most on the Spurs and 94 fewer than Boris Diaw. But he played 34 minutes in the Spurs’ 105-93 victory over the Thunder on March 11, and was a plus-24. OKC scored 41 points in his 14 minutes on the bench, but just 52 in his 34 minutes on the floor.
The Spurs’ defense against quality opponents goes far beyond their three games against the Thunder. In games played between current Western Conference playoff teams, San Antonio has been much better defensively than any of the other seven, including the Grizzlies, who rank second in defensive efficiency overall.
Best defense, games played between current West playoff teams
Tony Parker could return from his sprained ankle on Friday, when the Spurs host the Jazz. With Manu Ginobili playing more consistently of late, San Antonio looks to be at full strength in control of the No. 1 seed in the West once again. And more important than what they’re doing offensively is how well they’ve defended this season.
So dismiss the Spurs as a regular season team at your own peril. They may seem like the same team on the surface, but the numbers tell a much different story.
I never was a Batum believer, but he was really good to start the season (legitimately the second best SF in the Western Conference). I think his decline the last few months is due as much to over-exhaustion as anything.When do we give up on the ceiling of Batum? Another year gone by, another year of him turning in random awesome performances, followed by "did he play tonight?" performances.
Hell, LMA gettin close to 30 already ain't he? And Batum isn't helping out full time, yet?
If Hickson leaves, but Maynor stays, are they even stepping forward? Losing Hickson will piss off LMA pretty good I would imagine, he'd have to do a lot more heavy lifting down low.
Aldridge is 27, going on 28 in July. I don't think they have to make a move involving him until the middle of next season to avoid a Carmelo Anthony hijacking the season situation (smaller scale of course).
I think Hickson will leave for the money elsewhere. I'm thinking management hopes Leonard is ready to be a serviceable starter next season.
So that's hopefully:
Leonard
Aldridge
Batum
Matthews
Lillard
Freeland
Claver
Barton
Maynor
They should figure to have a low lottery pick and around $13 million in cap space to round out the roster. I don't think they'll get a star by any means in free agency (see 2009), but I think a reliable rotation player can be had.