Point Blank – February 22, 2017
Keying in on the Wednesday ACC showdowns….On why Rick Pitino doesn’t like his defense, though it has been good, and on why Jim Boeheim likely won’t like his defense tonight…
Wednesday night brings back-to-back ACC showdowns in front of the ESPN cameras, and it is fitting to bring them front and center because there are some major handicapping elements in play.
Item: Louisville does almost everything right on defense (but what the Cardinals do wrong matters)
Louisville/North Carolina brings all of the ingredients to be a classic tonight – two teams with legitimate Final Four aspirations will play at a high level of energy, and attack aggressively. On paper there would also appear to be one of the better “Game Inside the Game” matchups of the season, with the Tar Heels bringing the #4 offense into the #5 defense of the Cardinals.
Earlier in the season there was a take here on that North Carolina offense, noting that while the Tar Heels do share the ball well, in particular with good passing from the front-court, they are nowhere near being #4, with so much of their production coming from offensive rebounds (#1 in the nation) for easy put-backs. They are only #73 in effective FG%, and rate #81 in 3-pointers (37.2) and #76 in making 2-point shots (51.8), which shows how misleading the overall #4 is.
But today the focus goes to the other side of the equation, and why the Louisville defense is also not as good as the base numbers would call it, which may be an important issue at the tempo tonight’s game will be played, and for the long-term it is another Case Study in Basketball Consciousness.
One would think that Rick Pitino would be thrilled to be in late February and have his team sitting were it is, especially on defense -
Louisville 2017 Defense
Overall #5
Blocked Shots #7
Effective FG% #9
SPS #347
That last category “Seconds Per Shot”, shows how difficult it is to get a good look, opponents needing 18.5 seconds on the average possession before they fire. Note that a big part of that also stems from the Cardinal presses, which force a significant part of the shot clock to be burned up before the opposition can even get into their half-court offensive sets, while the use of more zone in the half-court is also a clock eater.
Yet Pitino has not been entirely happy because there is one area that his teams have often struggled, fouling too often through their aggressiveness, and it has been a genuine weak spot this season. Despite opening 10-4 in ACC play, Louisville has seen the opposition get to the FT line for eight more attempts, and while that looks bad on the surface the reality is even worse – the Cardinals have out-scored those opponents by 141 points, for 10.1 per game, which means that there were not many late-game fouls involved, an important consideration to isolate.
Let’s go to Pitino’s own words, and then to where you can find this in the statistical tracking this is available - "I've been telling you guys all along and you keep looking at the stats and think, 'Oh, our coach is wrong. He just keeps geeking us up.' But no, we are not a good defensive team. We have to become that. You've got to play good help defense, and we get beat a lot ... on straight-line drives...it's the whole team. It's something we've worked very, very hard on – helping – and we're getting better at it."
Where is the best category to get a handle on this? The ratio of FTA/FGA by opponents, which can be readily found, in particular at KenPom. This tracking takes all shot attempts by the opposition and breaks down what percent come from the FT line. Ideally you want to make the other team earn their points by making guarded FG attempts, not standing alone at the line. Want some prime substance behind Villanova being #1 in the nation? The Wildcats are #1 in this category, opponents only getting 22.0 percent of their shots at the charity stripe.
So where does the Louisville defense rate? How about #243 in the nation, and #13 of the 15 teams in the ACC. To consider how dubious their position is nationally, lets look at the ballpark:
#241 BRYANT (38.7)
#242 SOUTHERN (38.8)
#243 LOUISVILLE (38.8)
#244 VCU (38.8)
#245 BOSTON COLLEGE (38.9)
In terms of ACC play the Cardinal opponents are getting 21.5 FT attempts per contest, which is awfully high for a team with the collective scoreboard margin they have had across those games.
That sets up tonight to be an ideal opportunity for the Eye Test to bring back something productive, while also watching what should be an entertaining affair. Louisville has not had to play an uptempo road game since losing at Florida State a month ago - can Pitino’s team play defense at this pace, and vs. the class of athletes that North Carolina brings, without getting into foul trouble?
Item: Can the Syracuse zone stay with the Duke shooters
One of the reasons why Jim Boeheim’s 2-3 zone defense has been so effective through the years is that it has defied basketball convention. The old rule of thumb was that a zone would be weakest vs. perimeter shooting, hence a dangerous tactic in the era of the 3-point shot, but Boeheim built his designs around being better at defending that arc, not weaker. It has been something consistently lost on the Sports Mediaverse and hence a false influence to the batting markets, which has often left windows open to take advantage. I believe tonight there may be a window to take advantage the other way, because this time around it is a much different matchup.
Let’s take a look at where the Syracuse defense has rated in recent campaigns, both overall and in guarding the perimeter -
Overall 3-Point
2009 #39 #8
2010 #15 #22
2011 #14 #29
2012 #16 #47
2013 #7 #3
2014 #13 #173
2015 #19 #43
2016 #17 #13
Note that consistency, except for the 2014 slide against 3-point shots. Now look at this season -
2017 #95 #123
This time around the zone has been ineffective at getting out on shooters, and it raises two particular problems tonight – A. This defense is more likely to get worse instead of improving because of fatigue; and B. Duke is one of the worst teams in the nation to face if guarding the arc is a weakness. Let’s deal with those notions.
What has made the Boeheim 2-3 so different is the energy it calls for – this is not a passive zone, but one that gets out aggressively to shooters and anticipates passing lanes. You need depth for that, and the current Orange roster doesn’t bring much of it. Andrew White is at 39.9 minutes per game in ACC play, not having left the floor over the last eight games, which includes a pair of overtimes, while Tyler Lydon is at 38.9, and has gone the distance nine straight times. Tyus Battle checks in at 34.7 and John Gillon at 34.1 in conference, and each has seen their minutes pick up in recent games.
To their credit the Syracuse players have scrapped hard, almost remarkably so in their February games – in all six of them they trailed by at least seven points in the second half, yet they managed to go 3-3 straight-up across the stretch. Those legs should show signs of wear not only from the high minute counts but also how many of those minutes have been spent chasing, so now the double problem tonight – the Duke shooters open up the prospect of them falling behind again, and the Blue Devil end-game makes them so difficult to chase.
Mike Krzyzewski’s team leads the ACC in 3-point shooting at 40.1 percent (conference games only), which is substantial against that class of competition, while Syracuse is #11 in allowing 40.0 in league games. It is rather rare this late in the season to find a 40/40 matchup across those categories, in particular in this low of a spread range.
Then there is the matter of chasing down from behind, which Syracuse has had to rely so much on lately. While the ACC stats show Duke a solid #4 in FT percentage at 77.0, the end-game reality is even better than that. Who will be touching the ball for Duke if there is a late lead?
ACC FTs
Luke Kennard 65-78 (83.3%)
Jayson Tatum 57-67 (85.1%)
Grayson Allen 46-57 (80.7%)
I am going to use the matchups to put #723 Duke (7:00 Eastern) into pocket, with a shift from the morning markets offering plenty of -3 (call it good to -4). The Orange will again scrap and play hard, but this time the matchups are ominous, and the recent success at playing from behind is unlikely to hold up against this particular opponent.
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