Posted by tomverve:
Great post by Dan Rosenbaum from the APBRmetric board about this, pasted below. In a nutshell, offense is NOT the problem whatsoever-- the offense was very good, it's just that the defense was drop-dead awful. Rosenbaum thinks we couldn't guard the pick and roll because coach K committed to a defensive style that relies too much on trying to force turnovers and doesn't feature enough help defense concepts. Chris Sheridan has been saying the same thing on ESPN for a while now.
Forget about blaming the loss on a deficiency in the offense, whether you think it's not enough shooting or too much one-on-one play. Maybe both of those areas could use improvement, but we're talking about the difference between "great" and "perfect." We don't really need to upgrade the offense from great to perfect, we need to upgrade the defense from putrid to at least acceptable levels. And it's not so much about one-on-one D as it is about play help D as a team.
According to my calculations, Team USA had an offensive efficiency of 128.1 points per 100 possessions in the loss against Greece. To put that into perspective, the difference between 128.1 and the best team in the NBA last season (Phoenix at 114.1) was larger than the difference between the best team in the NBA and the worst (Portland at 103.3). So, according to NBA standards, Team USA had a phenomenal offensive game.
But if you go to the polling at ESPN.com, most respondents to a poll are blaming "poor outside shooting" as the #1 reason Team USA lost. Of course, Team USA could have shot better from the three-point line, but with their off the charts offensive efficiency, it seems remarkable that most people are pointing to the offense as the excuse for the loss.
To further drive home this point, 62.2% of the respondents say that Michael Redd or another outside shooter would have made the difference in this game. Again that is remarkable.
Team USA lost this game because it could not defend Greece. Plain and simple. Our defensive efficiency was 136.2 points per 100 possessions. Greece did shoot the ball pretty well, but that was not the main story here. Greece got a lot of layups, mismatches, and wide open looks at threes. And they converted on those high percentage opportunities.
And this is not a matter of teams playing more efficient offense in international basketball. Spain and Argentina averaged 101 points per 100 possessions in their semi-final match-up, which is lower than that of any NBA team.
This was not a matter of Team USA not playing hard or even smart on defense. Or "a lack of fundamentals." To me it looked like Team USA was executing the defensive game plan, but the defensive game plan had no answer for the pick and roll. And with Team USA forcing just 4 steals for the whole game, the pressure defense that bothered lesser teams had no positive effect. What happened was that the pressure defense led to Team USA defending the pick and roll with no help defense and I just don't think there is much of a track record of that working well against skilled professionals.
Playing the type of defense that Team USA plays, it can be OK if they are able to force 10 or more steals a game like they did in the earlier contests. But against better teams where it is hard to force so many steals, this defensive strategy of pressuring the ball and playing the passing lanes makes it impossible for even good athletes like those on Team USA to play effective defense.
Remember at the end of the day, if Team USA was able to play defense at the level of the worst defensive team in the NBA last season - Seattle at 116.5 points per 100 possessions - we win this game by almost 10 points.
But before I close, I should add that it is possible that the type of defense that Coach K put in may be the best we can do in the short period of time we have to put together a team. Putting in a San Antonio-type keep-players-out-of-the-middle-and-off-the-three-point-line defense takes a lot of time, and maybe we don't have the time to do that on Team USA. Playing that type of defense may help us with the good teams, but against the lesser teams it may open us up to embarrassing defeats while we are still working out the kinks. There are a lot of tough choices to make - choices that need to be made by folks who know a helluva lot more about basketball than I do.
Tom--good piece and the final game proved it 90-47. I've also used the name Mike Redd, but there are two possibly three names that come to my mind for the future of this team.
A. Kobe Bryant--this may be cliche but I do believe that if we had him, we wouldve won. there were to many young guys who havent won anything--yes wade but thats not a team. Kobe is the leader --mentally physically that they missed.
I would like to see Greg Oden and either of Tim Duncan or KG play next time. I wasnt thrileed with either of Howard or Chris Bosh--especially defensively--i will even throw in a darkhorse name Joakim Noah of Florida. Id rather have the vets but I don't know if they will play--I think the young guys can. If anyone has seen Noah play, how perfect is he for this style of play? The guy is 7-1 and has every skill with tremendous length. He wouldve been the number 1 pick by a mile this year and really looks to be a unique type player you only see once every 5-10 years.If Oden wasnt coming out, Noah would go 1 next year. And Noah like KG can use that length on the perimeter--hes long enough to disrupt the pick and roll. I think what the USA was trying to do was score more than everyone like Pheonix.
9/3/2006 6:43 PM
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