I thought this deserved it's own thread. We've had some minor discussions on the merits of the MDA system and
if you can win with it and to a large degree it's been assumed that he pretty much mails it in on D. I take the view that
he has some very clear concepts on D and that he plays it to his focus on Offense. He

Here is an excerpt from an article on the subject of his defense:
http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=514


January 22, 2009
Mike D'Antoni
Defensive Genius

by Kevin Pelton

The Suns' potent offense and their unconventional style made it easy to herald D'Antoni as an offensive genius.
Yet there is an unconsidered counter-argument that it was really just about the players. Nash led the league's
best offense every year from 2001-02 through 2006-07, and half of those--including the best in NBA history
relative to league average--came in Dallas before he ever teamed up with D'Antoni. Add in Amaré Stoudemire,
Shawn Marion and a host of capable role players and any semi-competent NBA head coach could have had the
Phoenix offense operating at a high level.

The question that was posed not only in the media, but also in front offices around the league, asked who was
most responsible for the Suns' success. D'Antoni's system? Nash? Stoudemire? Marion? This year is the closest
thing we've got to an experiment that answers that question, and D'Antoni's system is stumbling as the Suns
remain a very good offensive team with Nash, Stoudemire and Shaquille O'Neal leading the way.

For all the talk about the Phoenix offense, you never heard about D'Antoni's defensive philosophy. I don't believe
it's ever specifically mentioned in the 300-plus pages of :07 Seconds or Less, Jack McCallum's tremendous book
about spending a season with the Suns coaching staff. Yet D'Antoni's style is every bit as unique on defense as it
is on offense, as I laid out in a column for 82games.com three seasons ago. His teams offer relatively little ball
pressure, with defenders off the ball always ready to provide help. The goal at all times is to avoid penetration
and cover for a typical lack of height, turning the game into a jump-shooting contest that was hard to win against
Phoenix's shooters.

This style can be seen in the numbers. Trademarks of a D'Antoni defense include very low assist rates for the
opposition and few, if any, fouls. Both of these have carried over in New York. The Knicks are sixth in opponents'
assists per field goal made (surprisingly, they also ranked amongst the leaders in this category, which generally
matches up well with overall defense, last season) and third in opponent free throws made per field-goal attempt
(they were 15th a year ago).

If you're reading Basketball Prospectus, I hope you're already aware that D'Antoni's teams have never been the
defensive liabilities they were made out to be in the media. On a per-possession basis, the Suns generally ended
up right around league average. The natural conclusion was that D'Antoni was an acceptable defensive coach and
an elite offensive one. This year's results have undercut that position. D'Antoni still appears to be a terrific coach,
just not in the way we assumed. It's a thought that borders on preposterous, but perhaps D'Antoni's true genius lies
in his ability to take gifted offensive players without the same knack for the other end of the floor and cobble them
into a competent unit.

Kevin Pelton is an author of Basketball Prospectus. You can contact Kevin by clicking here or click here to see Kevin's
other articles.


here is something from the article the same guy wrote some yrs back:
http://www.82games.com/pelton14.htm

Every Play Counts: The Phoenix Suns Defense

by Kevin Pelton, 1/31/05

We know that the Suns were a below-average defensive team a year ago. Phoenix was 17th in the league
in Defensive Rating, allowing 107.0 points per 100 possessions, and the Suns d was torched by the San Antonio Spurs,
who averaged 108.2 points per game in defeating Phoenix in the Western Conference Finals four games to one. We know
that the Suns prioritized defense over the off-season, trading forward Quentin Richardson to New York for veteran big man
Kurt Thomas and signing perimeter stopper Raja Bell as a free agent. We know that Phoenix's plan to play Thomas at power
forward was blown up when Amaré Stoudemire underwent microfracture knee surgery in October, moving Thomas to center
and eventually Boris Diaw to power forward.

We know that the Suns have posted the NBA's fourth-best Defensive Rating thus far this season, cutting their points
allowed per 100 possessions to 103.6. We know they've done this in most unorthodox fashion; looking at Dean Oliver's
Four Factors, the Suns rank outside of the NBA's top 10 in effective-field-goal percentage defense (12), turnover rate (18)
and defensive rebounding (15). Much of of their defensive success, then, can be traced to a single factor: keeping opponents
off the free-throw line. Phoenix leads the NBA in this category, with opposing teams averaging one made free throw for every
five field goals attempted against the Suns (league-wide, the average is about one for every four).

We know that the plus-minus statistics on this site single out two players as key to the Phoenix defense: Diaw and highly-
regarded defender Shawn Marion. The Suns are 8.4 points per 100 possessions better on D with Diaw on the court, 4.0 better
with Marion.

SNIP some stats
What stands out to me here? Well, the number of possessions faced by Bell leaps off the page. Traditionally, defenses are
built from the inside out; the post players face the most possessions, guards handling only a few. The Phoenix defense was
keyed by wing players Bell and Marion (who did see considerable time at power forward). In Bell's case, that's because he was
defending Bryant (more on that later). In Marion's case, it shows his value as a team defender -- but also a certain weakness
defending one-on-one. Big men Diaw and Thomas were both effective in terms of the possessions tthey did handle, and no
one player was particularly victimized from the Lakers.

So what are the Suns doing so differently than everyone else? ESPN commentator Steve Jones mentioned their pressure, but
the brief explanation I've heard of why Phoenix's defense improved after a slow start (a key to why I wanted to take a deeper
look) indicated the Suns have been playing more man-to-man and eschewing trapping. I did see Phoenix "digging down" with a
help defender coming to double-team the post on a number of occasions, but I wouldn't say they trapped a great deal more
than other teams.

Instead, what I saw was in some ways the opposite. It appears to me that the Suns put less pressure on the ball than any other
NBA team. With the exception of the Bell-Bryant matchup, Phoenix defenders were continually at least an arm's length away
from the player with the ball. Suns defenders rarely ventured outside the 3-point line, which made me think of this wonderful explanation of Washington State University Coach Dick Bennett's "pack-line defense" I recently watched. The system calls for defenders to stay within an imaginary line two feet inside the 3-point line, and I saw Suns players doing something similar ... except for one enormous difference -- Bennett's system calls for heavy ball pressure.

In practice, what does the Suns' lack of pressure do? It makes Phoenix much better at containing the basketball than their peers.
The Suns' defensive players, with the possible exception of Thomas, are notable for their quick feet. Playing a step off of their
opposing number allows them to stay between them and the basket at almost all times, which forces opposing teams to stay on
the perimeter and keeps them out of the paint -- which is, in truth, vulnerable because Marion is Phoenix's only shot-blocker. At
the same time, by playing off their playerrs, Suns defenders -- who are, with the notable exception of Nash, very "long" -- are always
in position to give help from the perimeter when one of their teammates is beaten. This is very different from the traditional NBA "funnel" defense, which directs all drivers towards a big man (or two), and explains why the Suns have more balanced help defense percentages than the Detroit and San Antonio defenses I looked at earlier this month.

The Suns' unorthodox style shows up a couple of places in the statistics. One, naturally, is in terms of keeping teams off the free-
throw line. Not only does Phoenix's system keep teams out of the paint, where most fouls are committed, it also keeps them from
being called for touch fouls on the perimeter under the new rules interpretations I discussed for SI.com last week. The other is in
terms of opponent assists.

Earlier this season, SI.com's Kelly Dwyer mentioned the Suns had the largest differential between their assists and their opponents'
assists in the league. This led a reader to wonder, "What would a team do to ‘prevent’ opponent assists?"

Well, the answer is you don't let teams drive and kick, and nobody does that better than the Suns. Phoenix's opponents have
assisted on just 44.9% of their baskets, which is not only the lowest mark in the NBA, it's the lowest mark in NBA history - and
by a wide margin. The only previous team in NBA history to have opponents assist on less than half of their baskets was the
immortal 1978-79 San Diego Clippers, whose opponents handed out assists on 49.5% of their baskets. (The Spurs would also
break this record if the season ended today, allowing assists on 48.2% of their baskets. San Antonio and Phoenix finished 1-2
in the NBA in that order last season, indicating to me this reflects something meaningful and is not merely random.)

Something else I was looking for is whether the Suns tend to switch more picks than most teams, which would make sense
given that Diaw and Marion are so versatile. This was a poor game to get a read on that issue, because the Lakers ran many of
their screen-rolls with power forward Lamar Odom, and the vast majority of teams will switch these plays. I did see Diaw switch
out onto guards a number of times in Sunday's Suns game against the Seattle SuperSonics, but overall it doesn't appear the Suns
switch that much more than most other teams.

Where the Phoenix defense is vulnerable is the low post, which isn't surprising given that the 6-9 Thomas is their tallest
rotation player and the 6-8 Diaw and 6-7 Marion often play together in the middle. To stop quality post players, the Suns
are forced to double-team, creating open looks on the perimeter. As good as Marion is defensively -- and I would rank him
with almost anyone in the league in terms of help defense -- he is often overmatched amongst power forrwards down low,
which explains why his Defensive Rating was the worst of the Phoenix starters and why his opponent statistics don’t reflect
an All-Defense-caliber player.

SNIP Stats
That's about as many shots as you'll see one player take against one specific defender in one game; Bell was on Bryant for
all but a quick rest for the last three minutes of the first quarter, when Marion had the defensive assignment. (Bryant also
sat out just over seven and a half minutes, most at the start of the second quarter.) For the most part, Bell did an exemplary
job. He is an extraordinarily physical defender in the Bruce Bowen mold, frustrating offensive players into several technical
fouls this season. Bryant joined that list, earning a T after Bell drew a second offensive foul on him in the third quarter.

Bell did a commendable job of turning Bryant into a jumpshooter and giving him few easy looks aside from a couple of
scores in transition. Bryant shot just nine free throws, and those mostly came when he was fouled while shooting jumpers.
Bell also drew a pair of offensive fouls on Bryant, and a recent study on this site indicates that Bell has drawn more offensive
fouls than any other player in the NBA. (The Suns lead the league in this regard, which is probably related to their desire to
contain the ball and play a step off ballhandlers. This enables Suns defenders to position themselves in front of the ballhandler
and take charges when appropriate.)

At the same time, Bell's defensive statistics are somewhat mixed, and this game showed some evidence of why that's the case.
Bell is not good about remembering to keep his hands up at all times, and Bryant was more than willing to shoot 25-footers
without a hand in his face. He ended up shooting better than 40% on 3s against Bell, which is how he built up his point total
despite shooting just 36.4% from the field.

One notable play showed just how much defensive attention Bryant was drawing even before hitting for 81. After Bryant
twice hit jumpers on the left baseline on out-of-bounds plays in the first quarter, the next time the Lakers took the ball
out of bounds under their own basket, not one, not two but three defenders went towards Bryant -- Bell; the defender on
Lamar Odom, who picked for Bryant and the defender of the player throwing in the basketball. That gavve Odom a wide-open
layup under the basket.

Tell me what you think of all this.

[Edited by - nixluva on 08-27-2009 3:36 PM]

[Edited by - nixluva on 08-27-2009 3:48 PM]

[Edited by - nixluva on 08-27-2009 3:50 PM]

he's no jay triano...

Nix: still haven't heard it from D'Antoni's mouth

shouldn't it be "Mike D'Antoni or Defense?" haha.

[Edited by - eViL on 08-27-2009 4:18 PM]

Jeff Van Gandy and offense...

[Edited by - arkrud on 08-27-2009 11:08 PM]

Posted by EnySpree:

Good stuff. I think it's funny he gets a bad rap for defense, but in post game and pre-game he talks about how the team needs to dig down and play better defense. You see him chewing dudes out about missed assignments etc...its dumb.

It's just one of those perception things. He'll never be able to shake the idea that he doesn't care about D. He does, but it's just a different focus.

One Thing I found interesting is that Marion often had trouble when he got stuck defending in the post against bigger PF's, however Chandler is like a hybrid more powerful version of Marion in that he is strong enough to hold his own against bigger guys. The way the Knicks will likely play in the future will change if we can get a lot out of Hill and Darko. Both bigs are fairly mobile, can shoot with range and block shots. having guys that still fit the offensive needs but can also really play an effective defensive role will be huge. I think it's gonna be the difference between us and the Suns. They never really found enough size at the C spot. At least not a C that could still move, pass and shoot like MDA wants. I expect in time that this team will be much improved defensively and offensively at the C position.

Posted by nixluva:

Posted by Bippity10:

Nix: still haven't heard it from D'Antoni's mouth

Sorry about the formatting guys. I hope it looks better now and you can see more of the information I originally included. Also please read the full articles.

Bip I don't think it's necessary for him to break it down in order to see just what his defenses produce. The results show that he does in fact have a style that tends to produce signature results for an MDA team.

Don't take it personally man. Just pointing out that I have never heard him talk about it.

Posted by nixluva:

I'm not emotional about it Bip. Just my opinion that he has a clear defensive approach and has had one for a while. It's designed to work in support of his offensive approach.

I actually think this Knick team has a chance to be better put together with the right kind of players to play his style of ball. If Darko can find a comfort level here he's likely the best big for MDA. Due to his overall skill level and true center size. For that reason I can also see Hill eventually fitting in as well. We really need 2 way bigs that are skilled offensively and can also defend. I thought Gallo showed some signs of being a decent defender in this system. Due to his length and mobility.

I have a good feeling about this teams prospects defensively this year.

Nix: Every coach in the world has a "clear defensive approach". I would like to one day hear from his mouth what his philosophy is. For a guy that gets so bent out of shape when the media asks him what his philosophy is, you think he would talk about it at least once.

Bip not every coach has laid out in detail their offensive or defensive philosophy. Some coaches merely hire another coach or guru to handle the side of the ball they may not coach as well, ie Phil Jackson or Doc Rivers. MDA has a defensive philosophy that is at 1st hard to see if someone is looking for the TYPICAL defensive attacks most used. However his defensive system is as unique as his offense, which would make sense. An unconventional offense supported by an equally unique D. IMO MDA doesn't have to explain a thing. The proof of his coaching skill will be proven on the court. I see what he's doing and as we improve the talent his system will be more effective.

Posted by CrushAlot:

It reminds me a bit of the prevent defense in football.

ouch

There have been plenty of examples of great defensive teams that got pretty far but just didn't have the scoring punch to win it all. I have no problem with the idea of having a great offensive team that plays solid D. Many teams have succeded in the past playing that way. There's no single formula to winning a title. Most important is putting a superior talented team on the floor that has a great shot at winning period. Then the coaching can help push that team over the top. MDA can win with a great team. He's done a lot with a team that pretty good but not great.

What Walsh does over the next couple of years is more important than MDA's defensive philosophy.