Defense and Hustle Tracking: 2023 - 24 season

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Going off of @NBASupes comments of Hunter and his defense on Wednesday night, I decided to see if nba.com had their defensive game stats up.   I think I want to track this all year after each game, just to see if our perceptions while watching a game live, equal what was really going on.

 

Defensive stats

1)  Our guards got destroyed by Rozier - Trae gave up an unusually high number of points for him, while Dejounte gave up his share of points as well, with little resistance.  When you look at the made shots each one of them gave up, you'll see the problems they were having in that game with Rozier.  They also found themselves helping out too much, which left shooters open on the perimeter. Despite their close outs, they were too far away to affect good looks at a 3.  DJ also had a few possessions vs Gordon Hayward, and he offered little resistance in stopping him from scoring.  Both guys throughout the season, must put forth a mindset to be much more physical on the defensive end.  I will say that Trae got robbed for not getting that charge call against Washington. Refs let that go.

2) Jalen Johnson defended 20 shot attempts - On some possessions he deliberately attacked him.  Washington kind of had his number, whether it be shooting 3s in his face, or taking him off the drive, or cutting to the basket.  On other possessions, he played great help defense that caused missed shots.  Giving up 18 points on 20 shot attempts isn't bad at all, at a 40% clip.

3) Dre had a good game defensively - Only 9 points given up on 9 shot attempts.  Had 4 turnovers by the man he was guarding. Outside of the excessive fouling, this was a good defensive showing by Dre.  The question going forward will be how many multiple positions will Dre play this year.  The lineup of Trae - Dre - Bey - JJ - Okongwu is an interesting lineup to say the least. A lineup that has potential from a defensive standpoint, while still maintaining some offensive punch.

4) Bey had 5 steals - Bey was all over the place in that 1st half, grabbing 4 steals.  Despite giving up 50% shooting on the man he was guarding ( on low volume ), the steals he were able to accumulate we able to offset some of the lack of stops he had on the defensive end.  Overall he had a good and active defensive game.

 

Hustle stats

 

Hustle stats are something that we as fans need to pay more attention to.  Hustle stats tend to skew more toward frontcourt players, because they'll be in contention more to contest shots or get deflections out on the perimeter.  In that 1st half, Jalen Johnson was all over the place, and it shows up in the hustle stats.  Clint should always score high in the hustle category, due to his ability to protect the rim and help when people get beat off the dribble.

Overall, 22 deflections as a team is a very good sign of defensive activity. Normally when you get 20+ deflections, you should win the game.  Hawks just shot too bad to win.

 

[thecampster]

3 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Defensive stats

2) Jalen Johnson defended 20 shot attempts - On some possessions he deliberately attacked him.  Washington kind of had his number, whether it be shooting 3s in his face, or taking him off the drive, or cutting to the basket.  On other possessions, he played great help defense that caused missed shots.  Giving up 18 points on 20 shot attempts isn't bad at all, at a 40% clip.

Hustle stats

Hustle stats are something that we as fans need to pay more attention to.  Hustle stats tend to skew more toward frontcourt players, because they'll be in contention more to contest shots or get deflections out on the perimeter.  In that 1st half, Jalen Johnson was all over the place, and it shows up in the hustle stats.  Clint should always score high in the hustle category, due to his ability to protect the rim and help when people get beat off the dribble.

 

 

Comparison, John Collins, same night, 1 more minute of play

 

Defense

 

Hustle

 

Cost, $22 million more dollars.

 

All I need to know and I may track it all year. Opposing team shot 2/9 from 3 against Jalen.  3/6 vs Collins.

 

Jalen contests and gives help.  

Edited October 27, 2023 by thecampster

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Knicks game ( 10/28 )

 

Defense

 

 

1) Trae gives up 28 points - Most of us talked about this all game.  But Trae was constantly finding himself out of position, with him hedging toward anyone in the post and doing a lot of ball watching.  When he did this, his man would routinely find themselves open for catch and shoot opportunities.  He has to stop this. Divencenzo specifically got 2 wide open 3s, due to Trae watching the ball.

Also, the Hawks zone is not helping Trae at all.  On one play, Trae was on the opposite side of the court, staying with his man. Capela and DJ pose a weak trap on Brunson up top.  Brunson swings the ball to Barrett in the corner. Meanwhile, Robinson, who was Capela's man, was rolling to the rim the entire time.  Because of this Trae comes over to cover Robinson.  This is an easy play for Barret to make a pass to Robinson right under the rim.  Trae takes the hit for this, but WTF are we doing if Trae is the baseline backside cover man on this play?

2) DJ and Hunter give up 10 threes - Despite both guys overall posting good Defensive FG% numbers, they were both horrible when it came to defending the 3.  Why?  Because they're doing the same thing that Trae was doing.

1st video of the 3's Hunter gave up, shows DJ and Hunter up top in what looks like a 2 - 3 zone. Ball goes to Randle with Bey guarding him about 17 ft away. BOTH Hunter and DJ sag BELOW the FT line, while Brunson is at the top about 30 feet away. DJ points for Dre to go toward Brunson, who I kid you not, is 15 feet away from Brunson. Randle makes the pass to Brunson, who has plenty of time to step in and shoot a 26 ft three, despite Hunter doing a hard close on the shot.

Hunter was flat out responsible for 3 of Brunson's 3s, because he's either ball watching, or sagging in the paint to help out on Randle . . who half the time was waiting on this to pass to a 3 point shooter.  Randle had 9 assists by the way, with 7 of those assists going for 3s.  Once the Knicks figured out what we were doing scheme wise, this was easy basketball for Randle, Brunson, and Barrett.

DJ was more in the vicinity of Brunson when he made his 3s, but DJ would be caught trying to help on Randle as well.  Brunson was rising up and shooting over DJ, once he had enough space to get his shot off. 

What we did last night is a part of our defensive scheme.  Either Quin doesn't trust ALL of our guys to guard their man, or Quin wants to send double teams at people to cause turnovers, to make up for our inability to guard people.  When it works, it's good.  And from watching NY's turnovers last night, it worked when we're pressuring the wing or the PG up top.  It doesn't work when a guy has established post position and we're sagging in hovering around the ball handler. When we do that, it's setting up wide open 3 point looks that we have to scramble back to.

 

Hustle

 

 

Only 11 deflections in this game. No charges drawn.  26 out of 44 contested 3 point shots, but a lot of those contests were late.

Hawks would've better served to try to make Randle beat them with individual offense, instead of turning him into a playmaker for 3 point shooters.

Edited October 28, 2023 by TheNorthCydeRises

[JayBirdHawk]

5 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

sag BELOW the FT line

I kept screaming move, move, move...but always too late on the close out.

[JayBirdHawk]

Lots of defensive miscues that I think can be corrected. Quin has lots of tape.

 

 

 

 

 

[Final_quest]

15 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Randle had 9 assists by the way, with 7 of those assists going for 3s.  Once the Knicks figured out what we were doing scheme wise, this was easy basketball for Randle, Brunson, and Barrett.

 

To me this is what cost us the game.  It was a nightmare.  Randle passing to wide open 3 point shooters who just didn't miss.  

[NBASupes]

Just now, Final_quest said:

To me this is what cost us the game.  It was a nightmare.  Randle passing to wide open 3 point shooters who just didn't miss.  

They were getting open 3s all night. The Hawks had a lot of issues with NY physicality 

[theheroatl]

8 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

To me this is what cost us the game.  It was a nightmare.  Randle passing to wide open 3 point shooters who just didn't miss.  

This was a big defensive scheme learning game

the zone implementations and probably the rules based defense is experiencing a learning curve early..

knicks took advantage of wide open 3 pointers out of Randle passes where we had defenders trying to figure out their role and caught between paint defense and the wide open 3 guy. 
 

you can see multiple guys commit this error throughout the game.. there must be some scheme learning they are trying to do

Edited October 28, 2023 by theheroatl

[Final_quest]

7 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

They were getting open 3s all night. The Hawks had a lot of issues with NY physicality 

They got wide open shots all night long, but the Randle double teams seemed to be the primary way it happened.  

Honestly it was amazing that the late game action with Trae and Capela towards the rim could have won the game.  We missed wide open dunks/layups.  The offense was pretty good last night.  

[JayBirdHawk]

3 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

They got wide open shots all night long, but the Randle double teams seemed to be the primary way it happened.  

Stuff like this....

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

7 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

This was a big defensive scheme learning game

the zone implementations and probably the rules based defense is experiencing a learning curve early..

knicks took advantage of wide open 3 pointers out of Randle passes where we had defenders trying to figure out their role and caught between paint defense and the wide open 3 guy. 
 

you can see multiple guys commit this error throughout the game.. there must be some scheme learning they are trying to do

We paid too much attention to doubling Randle. I'd rather live with him taking 2s than giving up these practice 3s

[JayBirdHawk]

This is a good thread.

[theheroatl]

28 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

We paid too much attention to doubling Randle. I'd rather live with him taking 2s than giving up these practice 3s

This is true but based on what I’ve seen so far there is some sort of rules based scheme the back court players are in the process of learning.

A whole new coaching staff, clearly a new rules based scheme.

My first hunch is that it is some zone based hybrid.

Its clearly not “you take this guy and I got this guy”

It seems that our back court players are trying to think through or read something and that’s why there are delays closing out a 3 point shooter..

Knicks and Charlotte have been taking advantage of our learning curve 

Edited October 28, 2023 by theheroatl

[NBASupes]

7 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

This is true but based on what I’ve seen so far there is some sort of rules based scheme the back court players are in the process of learning.

A whole new coaching staff, clearly a new rules based scheme.

My first hunch is that it is some zone based hybrid.

Its clearly not “you take this guy and I got this guy”

It seems that our back court players are trying to think through or read something and that’s why there are delays closing out a 3 point shooter..

Knicks and Charlotte have been taking advantage of our learning curve 

Good post. 

[RedDawg#8]

Agreed. If us fans can see the same problem that multiple players are making, then it clearly is a scheme thing.

Every perimeter defender was collapsing in on the post. This wasn’t on one player.

Teams have shot 38% on 81 3pt shots through 2 games and most are wide open.

We have a problem here.

We are outscoring them in the paint, we are forcing them into more turnovers than we are committing.

This seems like a focus area. 

We have to start communicating better. Guys cannot be this lost on defense up top. We can’t be hugging non-shooters while letting guards and wings take open shots.

The frustrating part is that we were making a lot of the same mistakes at the end of last season. Communication breakdowns leading to open looks. We have to turn the corner at some point.

Hopefully sooner than later.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

10/29 @ Milwaukee

 

Defense

 

 

1) DJ and Trae only gave up 11 points - Masterful job by DJ on Lillard, who pretty much settled to take 3s all night. DJ made sure he was in his face or at least in the area all night.  The block he got at the end of the 2nd quarter, which led to Trae's fast break 3, was outstanding.  I think DJ took it personal to not have Lillard have a huge game on him.  He looked to be very engaged all night. 

Trae's best defensive attribute last night, was that he stayed in the area where his man was.  Some of those Bucks players just missed open shots when Trae was in the area.  Other times, it was Trae with a great closeout, like the one he had on Connaughton in the 4th quarter.  Just give the effort, stay within closeout distance of your man, and everything is all good.

 

2) Johnson and Hunter held their man to 7 - 22 FG ( 32% ) - Good defense by JJ on Giannis, holding him to 2 - 6 FG. And he had the great chase down block that the refs tried to call a foul on.  He defended 15 shots and gave up 5 FGs for 33% FG shooting.  Once again, an outstanding effort by JJ on that end.

Hunter may have had a heavier workload if Kris Middleton played.  But he didn't, which saw Hunter guarding a variety of people from Giannis to Lillard. He didn't look lost in the zone, like in the New York game, and had a good game on the defensive end.

 

3) Bogi and OO struggled on the defensive end - With the men they were guarding shooting 17 - 24 for 48 points, it was not a good night defensively for Bogi and OO. Some of Bogi's struggles was being in the wrong place around the rim with GIannis.  Other times, he was late on a close out on 3 point shooters.  Either way, he gave up 9 - 11 FG for 22 points

OO struggled with Portis, getting a few nice jump hooks over him and driving past him for scores. Even gave up some and-1s. It's strange how OO can guard Giannis pretty effectively, but struggles with Portis.  Crazy Eyes can either take him out to the 3 point line and shoot, or take him into the post and score. 8 - 13 FG for 22 points given up by OO.  Luckily for us, both Bogi and OO had outstanding games offensively to offset the points they gave us.

 

Hustle

 

 

27 deflections in a game means that your team is creating havoc defensively.  OO ( 6 ) - Hunter ( 5 ) - JJ ( 4 ) led the charge in that category.  Hawks contested 25 out of the 44 threes Milwaukee shot ( 57% ).  This is maybe another metric that should be tracked ( contested 3s % ), and see what is normally the barometer between wins and losses.

[NBASupes]

Keep this up @TheNorthCydeRises, I love it

[theheroatl]

1 hour ago, NBASupes said:

Keep this up @TheNorthCydeRises, I love it

Agreed.

 

Being that our defensive end of the floor has always been the big weakness, seeing the improvements via stats will be the best measure of how good or bad this Hawks team is. 
 

I for one am hopeful the new defensive scheme makes us a powerhouse in the east since we already have offensive weapons and scoring.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NBASupes]

4 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honestly, this is JJ biggest growth area. He got a lot stronger. I remember his rookie year, he was getting bodied by every 4 or 5 he guarded. Now he's sticking with em