Introducing the Defensive Rating

Awesome post Justin, many Dantoni supporters like myself have been saying for a while that its a myth that he doesn’t coach defense, and its good to have more numbers to back that up. Im shocked that Lee has the highest ranking however…

Justin brings up a valid point in recognizing the improved defensive efforts of this team. But to me, there is no question that Jared Jeffries and a slower paced game have been the biggest reasons.

Given Jeffries length, athleticism, and defensive smarts at the top of the 3-2 zone, the Knicks have become a pretty solid defensive team.

David Lee is not a good defensive player, regardless of what that statistic says.

I think it was GB Shaw who said;

“There are liars,
damn liars
and statisticians”

take all “stats” with a shaker of salt.

i thought that was Mark Twain

I’m not trying to use this statistic as a way of measuring individual performances, as in, who is better than who. Rather, I think it just shows that the coach knows how to make the necessary adjustments to the team in order to get results.

Yes, Lee isn’t a good defender, but playing Jeffries big minutes despite his lack of any offense, and utilizing the 3-2 zone takes a lot of pressure off Lee and forces opponents away from him.

I agree totally with both reasons mentioned. However, no one is speaking about the team is now packing it more in the paint now. If you observe the games, there are more players near in the paint or near the paint.

This makes sense due to our poor inferior defense and it dares teams to beat us from the perimeter. Duhon has been the person most doing the chasing on the perimeter.

To me, that’s a little innovative on the coach finally and Jeffries not only brings the defensive energy, he also communicates better with our other players in the zone.

Let’s be fair, For ANY coach in NY not to have gotten the message that we like DEFENSE is beyond stubborn.

This is not PHX. I truly hope this coach has gotten this message. There’s no need to reinvent basketball and it doesn’t take a genius to recognize what has worked for most successful teams.

Whether you agree that D’Antoni coaches defense id debatable but it should not be debatable that he doesn’t make his players accountable on the defensive end. Hopefully that changes

Im not sure I understand what making players accountable on defense entails in your opinion. He benched Nate for not putting in enough defensive effort along with other issues. He has a roster full of below average defenders, and he seems to hold them accountable?? Please explain, and Im not trying to fight with you I just don’t understand what you mean here.

Bottom line is that anyone who thinks a guy who played PG, had a successful professional career and has LIVED and ATE basketball for 40 plus years CAN’T adjust to teaching defense is an idiot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

It seems there is much debate over who actually coined the phrase, although Twain certainly popularized it. I always thought it was Disraeli, but as it says here it is not found in any of his works.

This may be a good measure for a team, but shouldn’t be used for individual players.

D’antoni is pushing defense more than I expected (especially when you consider his reputation). We should be happy. It only took 2 losses for him to realize that we should give the foul at the end of a close game when we have a foul to give. We actually did it in Atlanta and won the game. Amazing! But seriously, he does seem to be focusing on defense more than I predicted and I’m happy about it. Let’s hope the trend doesn’t change.

I assume you read the McCallum book.

When exactly did this coach have a rebirth as a defensively focused genius?

For as I know, N8 wasn’t benched for his lack of defense. I thought it ws his immaturity and etc. Regardless, we still don’t know what N8 was told as the reason he wasn’t playing

The pt I’m trying to make is this. Accountability means making your team put out the effort and attention to team defense since we don’t have many indidividual shut down defenders.

Remember, Isiah brought over Jeffries because he was suppose to be a key component of providing defense and he wa stated to be a communicator on the defensive end.

However, our defense sucked royally under Isiah.

Now to D’Antoni:

All last year our defense sucked under this coach as well. how many players were benched? Did you hear D’Antoni always talk about the offense being the culprit in the post game conference?

I’ve played this games for many years and ALL of my coaches made an attempt to focus on defense and give a shout out to the defense even when the offense might have carried the game.

WHY? Because coaches know that EVERY player can’t have the ball but they can play defense. There should be NO excuse for players missing defensive assignments routinely without the coach or other players calling them out.

This has to be a contract with the coach and his players that it is NOt acceptable or they ride the pine. NO coach should be shy about communicating that to the media or his players and etc. That is the one message a good coach should want to get across and have anyone spread the message.

“They’ve done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works, every time.”

–Brian Fontana

and I’m sure he’s the one who said it

Let’s pray he has gotten the message but it does concern me that this is suppose to be a seasoned coach not a rookie.

If a coach is this stubborn to change what should be obvious then it a red flag. But Late is surely better than never!

It’s kinda like us moving to Miami and pushing people there to wear a real thick coat.

The point im trying to make is that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. This is a team full of really crappy defenders to be honest. Dantoni has said several times, including recently, that Nate was sitting because of a lack of defense. While I agree that last year he maybe didn’t do a great job with defense, I would challenge even Greg Poppovitch to get a team with Duhon, Gallinari(last years version who couldn’t stay in front of anyone), Lee, Harrington, Nate, and Chandler(last years version who jumped at every pump and head fake known to man) to play decent defense. They were all awful defenders last year, and Jeffries was hurt for most of the year. I have said before that Dantoni teaches defense. The Suns also were full of really bad defenders, yet in their best year where they got screwed by the NBA suspension of Amare and Tim Donaghy, they were shockingly 6th in the NBA in defensive efficiency, a number they didn’t even come close to again when they got Shaq manning the center and a “defensive” coach in Terry Porter.

haha awesome, anchorman references are always welcome

I truly hear ya but don’t EVER accept that. In the NBA, you can play zone sorta of now. This is not the solely isolation league it was when MJ played. lol

Remember, these are some of the top athletes in the world. Do you ever watch college b-ball. Do you see these same players that are now in the NBA, played their a-s-s-e-s off on the defensive end?

Why, because the coaches would have their butts on the bench!

All players can play decent team defense and I know everything is relative but there is no reason for a player to continue to miss assignments or NOT communiciate on the defensive end.

Most surely know how to call for the ball on offense don’t they?

As for the Suns, they had a lot of very good athletes and that team really has no exuse other than it’s NOT the coach’s system. Did you see Don Nelson teams race up and down the court but somwhow they were’nt athletic enough to play D? Nonsense!

the problem with that frst sentence is we dont have any “old dogs” on this roster..

Even Harrington is relatively young and the oldest player..

Hughes has a long history as a strong defender.. Harrington HAS played good defense at times in his career..

Lee has zero excuse. Nate too.. Duhon — I thought — was known as a strong on ball defender (with Coach K?) who had unlimited energy..

the coach has made changes.. i get it.. time will tell when opposing coaches adapt to these changes and start hitting shots on us opening up the lanes for our Center’s matador D.

haha Thats like the definition of the Don Nelson team: Run for offense and play no defense. Dantoni does coach defense, as I said the Suns were 6th in defensive efficiency that year. No amount of communication and effort can cover for the fact that our pg is slower than most centers and can’t stay in front of anyone, Al Buckets has given up playing defense for the past 6 years or so, and Lee can’t block a shot and/or is too slow to draw charges. I agree with you, last year he did not do a good job with defense, but honestly a 32 win year with that type of talent and the constant upheavals through trades is not bad at all. If he can follow up this year with 30+ victories again, he has done his job well in my opinion. People have to remember that this is a makeshift team composed of expiring contracts who don’t fit well and the remnants of the worst gm in history who has us paying 18 million for like 2 points a game in Jeffries and Curry.

As you just said, Hughes is the only person with a history of playing good d on the roster (and even he was significantly overrated as was discussed on truehoop last year(I will try to find a link now). You are right, Duhon was known as a good defender, but that was mainly when he kept himself in good basketball shape and was playing limited minutes on Chicago. Its tough for career bench players to adjust to significant minutes, especially when those players have man boobs and spend most of their nights getting drunk and partying at clubs. As you said, Nate and Lee have no excuse, but its been that way for their entire careers, maybe they are just not good defenders. Harrington hasn’t played good defense in like 6 years since he was a young guy on the Hawks, maybe because of bad habits he picked up in Nellie’s no defense system.

In the playoffs, the Suns got exposed when they really needed to get a stop at key moments of games.

Give ya an example in football:

Bill Parcells goes to a team and he lays down the law from day one. You know his teams will have a running game, good defense, big Linebackers and etc. A good vertical passing game is optional but Parcells wants to control the clock with the running game.

D’Antoni has his system in b-ball too! Yes he probably coaches some aspects of defense but you can that it is NOT his focus.

A good coach makes puts the team thru defensive sets and practice starting in training camp. It starts there. Players should be puking all over the place from running laps and etc for missing defensive assignments in scrimmages and practices.

So please don’t confuse when I say this coach doesn’t teach defense meaning he does not EVER go over defense. Mt pt really is that it is NOT his forte or focus! If it was, he would be LIVID in the post game interviews and players would be looking over at the bench when they missed an assignment because they know they would be called out or put on the bench!

My feeling is that he realized early in the season that we can’t hit open shots consistantly with this roster. He knows that we can’t depend on our offense to win games. It doesn’t matter if Jeffries is wide open, he will miss. We essentially only have 4 players on offense with him out there and he is a starter. He adjusted his gameplan to a defensive slowed down pace and it has worked. I find that very encouraging and give him credit for that.

My fear is that our roster is the only reason that he is coaching this way. Once he gets a new roster next year with “his guys” D’antoni may return to his old philosophy. I don’t think he changed because of the city. He doesn’t care what the fans think and I don’t believe he should either. Hopefully, he will surprise me again when the roster is different.

I completely understand where you are coming from, but the only time that defense really got exposed was against the Spurs. As far as gotting stops in big moments, I challenge any coach and any defense to stop Duncan and Ginobli, 2 of the most clutch players in the league. And of course, pretty much every other coach failed that challenge too as the Spurs were a dynasty.

WOW! You stated it better than I have ever imagined! lol I can’t even tell ya how your words are so on the money! Great Great Post!…and you didn’t even have to write a book like me to say it. lol I SUCK!

Justin –

How does looking at OPPONENTS points allowed divided by OPPONENTS possessions yield any conclusions about INDIVIDUAL defensive performance?

when you say “opponents” are you looking at the opposing Center vs our Center etc..? That seems to not make much sense especially with a team that practices a zone defense.

If your use of the word Opponents refers to the total team as it relates to plus/minus I woudl think that would be strongly influenced by a significant decline in the number of possessions.

its no secret that the possessions per game has decreased tremendously in the past 6 weeks. I think total possessions is down more than 15%.. assuming field goal percentage remains constant (or declines less than 15%) that would lead to your “improvement” in “defensive rating”

no shoits.. just trying to actually read the article rather than call people idiots.

lol, Dallas outscore them too! The Spurs beat them because they could score as well as defend.

Dallas and LA beat the Spurs!

Popovich would do a better job teaching defense to the players you listed. Gallo is an exception because of the back injury last year. But jumping at head fakes and pump fakes, teaching guys to stay in front of their man, etc?…that’s the coach’s job. The coach is supposed to teach them defense as a team. I don’t understand your arguement. On offense, D’antoni may have the advantage. But both of them had very talented teams and one guy cleary had the upper hand. PHX may have had a few bad breaks, but those are just excuses. Technically, Amar’e broke a rule that causes a suspension. I didn’t like that it happened, but it was the rule. Discipline is also the responsibilty of the coach. My main point is that the defensive coach had the advantage year after year. I do believe that D’antoni is capable to teach that type of defense if he desired, but don’t compare him to Popovich, please don’t .

IM having trouble with this sentence

Now, these ratings have a lot to do with the other players on the court at the time, and the total points per game the team lets up.

but the rating is clearly not position for position.. after looking at some numbers and examples on paper I think more and more that this stat can be skewed by a decrease in possessions per game.

You can never base an arguement on one statistic. It just doesn’t work that way. I’m with you on this one big.

And yes, you did poke a hole into the stat with the lower possessions with constant FG% scenario.

possessions isnt even wholely a defensive metric..

If OFFENSIVELY the team is shooting in 22 seconds vs. 12 seconds (or 7 seconds) possessions are going to decline… on both ends of the court.

I assumed that is was a team measure, which means that it can not apply to individuals. The individual’s supporting cast will influence his number more than the individual himself. Put jefferies out there with the knicks four worst defenders and put Lee in ther with our four best defenders and Lee could have a better number. Jefferies would help Lee’s number, but not the other way around. know what i’m sayin’

are you kidding me? A coach teaches players not to jump at pump fakes? Hes not out on the court with them, thats something young players learn over time. A coach’s main job is to make sure defensive rotations are intact, and that the players understand what is going on on the court around them. Thats on the player to learn over time, as Wilson has done. And no one compared him to Popovich, thats you adding your own interpretation. I said even Popovich would struggle to teach defense to a team of bad defenders. I never said Dantoni was as good of a coach as he was, thats another interpretation your adding. Is it a coaches job to stop a player from a gut reaction when he watches his teams mvp get tackled at the end of a game when it is already over?? No, and the guy barely stepped on the court, thats not discipline there, thats just a gut reaction that most teammates would have.

I just applied the common sense test. There is no way that Jefferies is only 2 points (<2%) better than Lee on defense. You can tell that by just watching the games lol

You just dont hold D’antoni accountable for anything do you? I understand.

true X, forgot about Dallas. But I don’t really count last year, as Ginobli was not close to 100% and anyway it seems as if they as a dynasty are finished, everyone is just a little old now. We will see this year I guess.

heh, thanks man

I never said that, again you just seem to really like to interpret arguments in your own way. Dantoni definitely is to be held accountable for a ton of mistakes that he has made. I don’t really understand what goes through your head when you read what other people are writing, but you should probably look more carefully next time. All I have said is that the Spurs were a superior team, especially in crunch time and that Dantoni does not have the correct roster to teach players defense, lets see when he gets some stoppers, which he has done this year and is doing a much better job at. Everything else is just you interpreting things incorrectly.

The stats above ARE ADJUSTED for possessions (pace).

The above stats are adjusted for pace/possessions. That means the Knicks actually are playing better defense over and above just slowing the game down.

What the stats can’t do well is give the correct amount of credit to each player because some players may be playing with good defenders and other may be playing with bad ones and they impact each other, but the general trend is positive across the board and that means something.

per 100 possessions makes more sense.

i would tink that it would be heavily weighted to your team mates..

A curious analysis would be to compare it to other TEAMS in the league — A look at the Celtics shows they are high 90′s

goes back to lies.. damn lies and statistics.

point taken

Sorry man, I didn’t mean to get you upset. It just seems that you make a lot of excuses for the guy, that’s all.

For the record, I do believe that D’antoni is a good coach. He seems to have focused more on defense lately, which I like. I hope he continues to do it.

Im sorry too, I just got extra upset. You are right, I do make a lot of excuses for him, and I admit that I love his offense and style of play(I mean 7sec or less). But this is on me, you are making good arguments, but at the same time you are kind of putting words in my mouth. Sorry man, I got way too upset while you stayed civil and reasonable. Good for you and bad for me. haha sorry bro.

np man, we cool

Aaaah man, I just told my buddies to come see a fight! Thx alot ! lol There just too much understanding in the world!

any formula that has Daid Lee ,the top KNICKS defender cant possibly be worth ANYTHING!

I THOUGHT IT WAS GRAIN OF SALT

I like D’Antoni as a coach. But let’s face it, he is an offensive-minded coach. Those of you looking for Bill Parcells or Popovic are dooming yourselves to disappointment – you should try to enjoy what Dantoni brings to the table. I loved the Oakley era Knicks as much as anyone, I used to just sneer when I saw run and gun west coast ball, but it’s time to open up and learn to love it. I wouldn’t mind having the Suns from 3 years ago.

His recent increased attention on D has been heartening – I am hopeful he is taking some important steps towards being a more complete coach, which he probably needs. To totally hate him just because his focus is offense is IMO self-defeating. There have been some fine offense-minded coaches who have won championships (Lakers era Riley, Phil Jackson, etc). The league rules currently favor offense; also we are in a recruiting phase, most stars prefer playing in offensive minded systems; if we have enough talent and our teams are failing to win a championship at some point in the future then we can call for Dantoni’s dismissal. In the meantime, can’t we just enjoy a bit of extra scoring?

Finally, let me say that Dantoni is in my top 5 for NBA coaches:
1. Phil Jackson
2. Riley
3. Jeff Van Gundy
4. Popovic
Noone else is clearly better IMO. The folowing are maybes:
Rivers
Adelman
Larry Brown
Stan Van Gundy
George Karl
Nate McMillan
Sloan
None of the above was available when we hired him.

So those of you who hate him, I’d be curious who you rank ahead of him.

Just to clarify a few things: This stat takes into account the amount of possessions a team has – the rating is essentially the amount of points let up every 100 possessions

So, yes, it is hard and almost not relevant to look at defensive production only by position, i.e. Duhon’s rating is not based almost on the opposing point guards offense. If it was, the ratings would be skewed, as when Jeffries shuts down an opposing PG, Duhon gets credit. Rather, the stat is based on how the entire other team fares when that player is on the court.

So, yes, as I mentioned in the article, the stat is clearly skewed by the other players on the court with the player being rated, as well as the entire team’s defense. However, in this case, the fact that the other 4 players on the floor are selected by the coach and asked to play a certain way shows an improvement in our defense. I know that Lee posting a career high in this statistic doesnt mean he suddenly understands post defense, but it means that the Coach understands how to best mask his deficiencies while assigning him a different role. I mean, that 2007-08 team that I compared most of these Knicks too had Jeffries, too. You can’t just say, oh, he’s playing Jeffries now, thats the difference. Jeffries has been playing 20 minutes a game since he got here, no team has looked as good on D as this one.

I’m not trying to use this stat to say, look Lee is really a top 5 center, or, hey Harrington isn’t so bad. I’m just trying to show that you can’t argue that all of these players, together, are holding there opponents to less numbers than they have before, on previous teams, with different coaches. You can’t just compare them to the Celtics, who are a defensively minded team: Garnett, Rondo, Perkins, Pierce are all better defenders than anyone on the Knicks not named Jeffries. You have to compare them to themselves, what did they do before this coach.

Another thing, I heard a lot of people in this thread talking about accountability. As in, in college, players play tough defense because they know if they dont, they will be benched. Is that not what this coach is trying to institute here? He is trying to not treat guys like Larry Hughes and Nate like superstars – If you can’t contribute, you can’t play. Hughes was issued a public warning – in a post game interview a few games before the benching, Coach said Hughes needs to step it up. He didnt, so he got benched. But everyone criticized the move, which D’Antoni defends as trying to create a winning atmosphere – by benching those who dont try hard, on both sides of the ball.

My understanding is that teams are using the stat they are calling “Adjusted +/-” these days to measure defensive and overall player effectiveness, so as to remove the skew that comes from who else tends to be on the court at the same time as any given player. I believe it’s a regression analysis that controls for other players who are on the court at the same.

I guess the one challenge from that is that it woudl remove “interactive effects”, which are added bonuses that come when two or more players play particularly well (or worse) together, independent of their own individuals contributions. Basketball is so dynamic, stats are always going to be tough.

That said, when Raymond Felton gets by Chris Duhon every time, and David Lee also said Raymond Felton to get layups every time, it’s clear those guys just aren’t that good.

PS I disagree that Jeffries is the best defender on this team. Tony Douglas is amazing. Watching him play D gives me more pleasure than anything else this team does.

I would put almost ALL of your “maybes” ahead of D’Antoni!

Please do not put Phil Jackson and Riley into the category of D’antoni! Although these coaches had teams that had a good offense, those teams played Defense and could get a stop when it counted.

Chicago would used their 1,2,3 to trap teams before getting across the half court line.

LA under Riley played excellent defense put the marketing of “showtime” took the attention away from this.

As it stands now, D’Antoni has had one successful team he has coached that won a lot of regular season games but couldn’t get out of the West!

We should want a coach that can get us a ring otherwise we’re just bringing “SNOWTIME” to the east. After Isiah, being snowed should be avoided again!

I agree about chicago or LA. Both were fantastic defensive teams, especially chicago IMO. But they were known for their offense.

Even with all those maybes ahead of him, that still leaves him as an upper echelon coach. And those maybes weren’t available anyway (or had already blown their chance with us).