You Play It Hard, You Play It Tight

The Indiana Pacers On Lockdown D (long)

Monday's Pacers-Wolves game was meant to be some kind of early season test for both teams. Are the Wolves for real this year? Can the Pacers actually beat someone good during their creampuff early season schedule? I don't think these narratives are particularly useful, in part because the results of one game are a pretty poor barometer of that kind of stuff. However, a matchup like this can serve as a laboratory of sorts in that Minnesota's high powered offense (though down to 10th in PPP after this game) ran into Indy's staunch D.  Obviously, on the night, the 

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Pacers' D won out, but I'm less interested in the what than in the how and the why? How did Indiana defend Minny and why did it work? Taking some specifics from the game illustrate eight main reasons why Indiana's defense is so rightly feared.

#1 Guard Your Guy.

At risk of being tautological, good defenders play good defense. But the Pacers' scheme starts with knowing that they start 5 guys who are plus or better defenders for their position (though West may have slipped a bit as he ages.) A lot of the principles that follow flow naturally from the belief that for the most part, the Pacers will defend the ball and their man well.  I'm not sure I need to give an example of the Pacers playing good individual defense, because watch the game, watch the guy with the ball, and watch him not beat his man to the basket. And then watch the same thing the next possession and the possession after and the possession after that.

But if specific examples are needed of great individual defense are needed, there's this, or this, or this:

Note especially how Lance keeps his hands back and up so as not to foul (more on that later). 

#2 Defend the Pick and Roll

The pick and roll is a staple NBA play, and defending it well goes a long way towards playing good overall defense. I've looked a little at some of the things Phoenix has done wrong in pick-and-roll coverage, and the comparison with Indiana cannot be more stark. While Phoenix's perimeter players tend to die on screens, Indiana's fight to give themselves space to defend:

Indiana's bigs recognize screens early, allowing themselves to get into proper position to either hedge:

or drop and contain:

And the players not involved in the PnR crash the lane and rotate to cover for their teammates with regularity and quickness:

#3 Guard The Paint

The easiest shot in basketball is right at the rim. It stands to reason that placing as many defenders as possible near the rim is desirable in order to stop this shot.  The Pacers are excellent at protecting the paint with five players, while still not leaving excessive gaps on the perimeter:

#4 Don't Overhelp

The play above demonstrates this principle nicely, but there were many other instances of Indiana "staying home" and forcing Minnesota to make tough shots to score, whether it is Hibbert helping but not fully committing himself towards driving guards, or the Pacers not collapsing towards Rubio on his drives as they knew he was looking to pass not score.  And of course no treatise on not overhelping would be complete without admiring the covered corner shooter:

#5 Don't Foul

Indiana, despite their physical style of defense, is one of the very best teams in the NBA at keeping the opposition off of the free throw line, currently ranked 5th in the ratio of FTA/FGA for their opponents. Roy Hibbert has practicality trademarked verticality, but the rest of the Pacers defenders are excellent about playing physical defense without being "handsy":

#6 Get Back

The Pacers don't give up a ton of looks in transition, and when they do, those shots are well defended.  While there has been a lot of discussion over teams (such as Doc Rivers' Celtics) eschewing offensive rebounding in an effort to guarantee good transition defense, the stats are equivocal on this front as the Pacers are firmly middle of the pack in OREB% - though given the size and athleticism of most of their lineups I one could propose that this is evidence of excessive caution going to the boards. However, the more likely cause is discipline and floor balance:

The ability to guard in the open floor doesn't hurt either of course.

#7 Slow the Ball Down

This is a distinct point from transition D. Indiana's perimeter players are excellent at first shrinking the available court the offense has to work with, and then once the ball gets on a side, keeping it on that side. The importance of slowing the ball down and keeping it on one side of the floor is most easily illustrated by showing what can happen if the ball is allowed to move freely, and switch quickly from one side of the floor to the other (note for example that Portland's offense makes extensive use of side-to-side ball movement to force defenders into awkward rotations and positions). In this example, Ian Mahinmi is pinned in poor defensive post position through no fault of his own, as Minnesota's unusually quick (for this particular game, anyway) ball movement left him helpless:

More usually, Indiana is able to almost herd the ball into areas on the court:

In the above, Indiana actually got a deflection, but this ball denial much more often results in a pass not being thrown, or if it is thrown, it is late and/or leading the recipient away from the basket, both of which help the defense greatly.  In addition to deflections and general disruption, hands in passing lanes also lead to extra steals that aren't the result of gambles, just good defensive positioning.

#8 Roy Hibbert and Paul George

It's a heck of a safety blanket to know that even if you do get beat, well, there the big fella is.

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Tomorrow being Thanksgiving (and there being no NBA games), probably no post or a brief post.  Stuff I'm working on include a look at Jeff Teague and the Atlanta offense, a comparison of Demarcus Cousins and Blake Griffin as primary offensive weapons and finally getting around to finishing up on Phoenix's pick-and-roll D.  Tonight's match-up with Portland will prove an interesting test to see if there have been improvements since we last checked in. 

Enjoy the turkey!