Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Season-Long Theme: Backcourt Defense


I looked at the Hawks' backcourt defense after the opening night win over Indiana. The parameters of this on-going survey have changed a bit. On opening night, Joe Johnson played at the 3 for just three defensive possessions. In the six subsequent games, he's played the 3 for 142 defensive possessions, thus, the three-guard lineups get their own chart in this edition. Also, Maurice Evans has played 14 defensive possessions at shooting guard (all of them alongside Jamal Crawford) so that tandem gets its own row on the chart. I'm not including Evans in the individual chart as his time at the 2-guard constitutes just 6% of his total defensive possessions played.

all data from BasketballValue.com

First, the two-guard lineups...

BackcourtDef PossOpp PtsDef Eff
Crawford/Evans14100.714
Teague/Crawford1231251.016
Bibby/Johnson2292351.026
Bibby/Crawford33351.061
TEAM6637151.078
Crawford/Johnson1071361.271
Teague/Johnson12211.75

It's interesting (though I'm not willing to draw any conclusions about it at this time) that Teague and Crawford have been fine while playing alongside each other but when either one plays alongside Joe Johnson (in a two guard lineup) those tandems have been terrible.

As the number of possessions under consideration grows, I'll examine whether the various backcourt combinations are getting unequal court time alongside the better or the worse post defenders.

Individual defensive ratings for post defenders, year-to-date...

PlayerDef PossOpp PtsDef Eff
Horford4524681.035
Josh Smith
4354671.074
TEAM6637151.078
Joe Smith
1321531.159
Pachulia1992451.231

An examination of Marvin Williams' offensive and defensive efficiencies at the 3 and 4 is coming in the next post

Now, the three-guard lineups...


BackcourtDef PossOpp PtsDef Eff
Teague/Crawford/Johnson31311.000
TEAM6637151.078
Bibby/Crawford/Johnson1141231.079

The best, offensively, of Atlanta's frequently used lineups has been Bibby/Crawford/Johnson/Josh Smith/Horford which has scored 99 points in 70 offensive possessions (offensive efficiency: 1.414).

Finally, the on-court defensive efficiencies for the Hawks' guards...

PlayerDef PossOpp PtsDef Eff
Bibby3763931.045
Teague1661761.060
TEAM6637151.078
Crawford4224591.088
Johnson4935451.105

No comments: