I have a good feeling about this mighty morphing defense that we have... it feels fresh and something the rest of the league is not yet prepared to go against nor emulate (similar to the ball movement, 3s, and pace of the '14-16 teams; see Abaddon's theringer.com link below).
These man-zone hybrid defenses really punish top-heavy teams that rely on 1 or 2 creators and 3-4 guys spotting up. And being able to switch defenses on-the-fly just to throw off the opposing offense for a handful of possessions per game is pretty huge, in addition to not giving them a static defense to fine-tune their attack in-game.
The video title is clickbait and only a little accurate, there's a little bit about Steph in here, but it is a GREAT interview of D Wade that is well worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz_t5bLUdPA
Someone at my work was asking for a good resource for Warriors X's and O's and another person brought up DNHQ's E1P series on Youtube as one of the first options. Your footprint is growing Apricot
Another great video, hitting your stride this season.
After Kerr mentioned that the rebounding this season "came out of nowhere", I checked out some of the rebounding rates compared to last season. There are a lot of standouts, especially Looney who is easily the most underrated player on the team this season imo.
Looney averaged 9.7 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 13.7 this season.
-Bjelica averaged 7.9 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 10.2 this season.
-Porter Jr averaged 6.7 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 9.4 this season.
-Curry averaged 4.8 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 6.8 this season.
-Wiggins averaged 4.5 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 5.5 this season.
-GP2 obviously has a more limited sample but averaged 6.6 rebounds per 36 in 808 minutes before this season, is averaging 8.4 this season.
-9.6 per 36 is not a career high rebounding rate for Draymond but his highest since 2015-2016.
Probably should have looked at Per 100 Possessions numbers given how fast the Warriors play but didn't think of it until now and don't want to look again.
We're forcing way more misses this year (<100 DRTG which is bonkers), so the per 36 rebounding numbers will be inflated. Better to look at rebounding % (which should still show a sizable increase).
This is even more surprising given how we're tossing in a lot of zone defense. Generally, one of the weaknesses of zone defenses is that it's not always apparent who to box out when the zones get stretched, so you end up giving up offensive rebounds... but we're #1 in DREB% right now...
The rebounding is insane and this post shows how its been a total team effort and not the work of one Drummond or Westbrook-like rebound inhaler. I think the team rebounding approach is more effective because it's much harder to neutralize than committing to boxing out just that one dominant guy. It also keeps everyone engaged to what's happening on the court even when they aren't involved in on-ball action. It has been one of my favorite parts of this team so far.
Nice post. On the rebounding and on Steph in particular, worth noting Steph has averaged 5.4 rebounds per 36 since Kerr arrived and 5.8 in the last four years. So it's a jump, but not as big a jump as looking at career numbers would suggest. We are playing with a bit more pace this year, but I don't think that's a big influence (without checking).
I think we're just a really good team rebounding team this year, with a lot of guys who are better at the dirty work of boxing out, tipping the ball etc. So I guess the tl;dr would be a rising tide that raises all boats...
Looking at the trailer of Garnetts Documentary, I'm still getting depressed at the idea that we could have traded for Garnett (adding him to the We Believe Warriors) until the Warriors owner nixed the deal. Honestly, we were so cursed.
We're living in one of the greatest eras of any team in any sport and you're looking back at what might have been's? C'mon man, bask in the present, don't despair in the past!
I see nothing but truth here. I was just salty about Garnett, since he was my first basketball love (and the inception of my obsession with switchable bigs who can pass/shoot and 5 out offense).
Nov 18, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball
“ For some time, it seemed the Warriors were losing their grip. They went from being innovators with their pace and 3-point shooting to falling to the middle of the pack as other teams began to play faster and shoot more. Kerr wasn’t adapting his system. Players were leaving or retiring. Bob Myers couldn’t find good young players. The rest of the NBA caught up, frankly. But things began to shift last season and now it’s all coming together because the Warriors have dramatically shifted their habits.”
LOL. that article. Only partway through it, but it serves up this video to show how in-sync Curry and Poole are: https://streamable.com/b41dfu
The first clip from the video looks like just a regular split cut near the sideline, where Curry's gravity draws Poole's defender enough for Curry to get JP an open shot.
The second clip isn't Steph/Poole telepathy. It's Draymond-Steph telepathy with Dray giving JP3 instructions on what to do.
Here's the most interesting part i saw from that article:
>>Some teams have also been forced to adjust to the new rules designed to limit non-basketball maneuvers. But Steph and the Warriors never drew fouls like Harden or Trae Young did. From 2014-15 through 2020-21, the Warriors attempted 21.4 free throws per game, which ranked as the 26th-most in the NBA. This season, they’re posting 21.2 free throws per game, which now ranks fourth. They moved up 22 spots in the rankings despite a decimal difference
This shows the weakness of the use of rankings for assessing differences. If my average score is 100 and I rank first, that's only interesting if the second ranking is statistically different. If the second rank scores 99.9999, should they care they're not ranked first? OTOH, the Warriors have top rankings and significant differences in raw numbers. They are actually really good.
Nov 18, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball
I found this really interesting.
"According to Second Spectrum, Curry is one of 135 players this season to log at least 100 possessions defending an opposing ball handler running a pick-and-roll. On those plays, the Warriors allow just 0.77 points per pick-and-roll, which ranks ninth of all 135 players."
If there was a 3rd team all-defense, he could've been a legitimate contender due to the narrative. Alas, with only 4 (or fewer?) guard openings, that is not to be.
First off, that was extremely helpful. I now know what the box and 1 and the triangle 2 mean, which I certainly did not before. Thanks!
Two thoughts:
1. The Warriors got into foul trouble this game. Certainly, the refs are part of that, but could running these sorts of defensive schemes contribute at all to picking up fouls more easily? Really not sure on the answer to that, and this is certainly a causation vs. correlation sort of question, but I'm curious if there could be a relationship between the two (picking up fouls and these defensive sets).
2. It's great to see Klay on the bench with his teammates. How often do injured players actually travel with the team? It's just so obvious that Klay loves being with the team, on the bench, around the action. Little things like that just can't be overlooked when it comes to team unity, etc.
I am not certain, but I don’t THINK running zone contributes to fouling… I’d expect it to encourage more jumpers which leads to fewer fouls. Also, perhaps you move less far in a zone, so you get less tired, so you reach less? Speculation.
However, if you switch D schemes so often that it causes you to get mixed up or be bad at any individual scheme, that might lead to late rotations and fouling.
1.) The Nets are just a super floppy team. Then on offense, Harden, even with the new rule changes, is slowly working his way back into game shape.
2.) Klay (and Wiseman) didn't travel with the team on this road trip.
Klay has travelled on some road trips the last couple years, but usually, injured guys stay home to work with rehab guys and prep them for coming back.
Harden's again drawing fouls at comparable rates to prior years. He's currently sporting a higher FTr this year than in his 2018-19 season and last season (both of which were MVP calibre season for him). The problem is not rule changes, it's that he's out of shape and working his way back from injury.
Looking at Steph specifically, one of the fouls was trying to draw a charge which can happen from any scheme, the other was diving for a loose ball. If you take those away his two fouls wouldn't be unusual. I don't remember the fouls on other players enough to draw any conclusions.
I think the rest might have been charges. There were an incredible number of charges called on the Warriors in that game. Pretty much any time a guy with the ball touched a defender with a forearm, the defender flew backwards onto their back, and the refs were buying it.
Oh my. Brilliant work. I am so grateful to learn and understand more about the game.
I have a good feeling about this mighty morphing defense that we have... it feels fresh and something the rest of the league is not yet prepared to go against nor emulate (similar to the ball movement, 3s, and pace of the '14-16 teams; see Abaddon's theringer.com link below).
These man-zone hybrid defenses really punish top-heavy teams that rely on 1 or 2 creators and 3-4 guys spotting up. And being able to switch defenses on-the-fly just to throw off the opposing offense for a handful of possessions per game is pretty huge, in addition to not giving them a static defense to fine-tune their attack in-game.
The video title is clickbait and only a little accurate, there's a little bit about Steph in here, but it is a GREAT interview of D Wade that is well worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz_t5bLUdPA
Someone at my work was asking for a good resource for Warriors X's and O's and another person brought up DNHQ's E1P series on Youtube as one of the first options. Your footprint is growing Apricot
Am I a bad person for liking that E1P’s are getting more views than LGW?
Yes. But you're our kind of bad person!
You're an internet phenomenon! Great stuff.
Another great video, hitting your stride this season.
After Kerr mentioned that the rebounding this season "came out of nowhere", I checked out some of the rebounding rates compared to last season. There are a lot of standouts, especially Looney who is easily the most underrated player on the team this season imo.
Looney averaged 9.7 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 13.7 this season.
-Bjelica averaged 7.9 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 10.2 this season.
-Porter Jr averaged 6.7 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 9.4 this season.
-Curry averaged 4.8 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 6.8 this season.
-Wiggins averaged 4.5 rebounds per 36 in his career before this season, is averaging 5.5 this season.
-GP2 obviously has a more limited sample but averaged 6.6 rebounds per 36 in 808 minutes before this season, is averaging 8.4 this season.
-9.6 per 36 is not a career high rebounding rate for Draymond but his highest since 2015-2016.
Probably should have looked at Per 100 Possessions numbers given how fast the Warriors play but didn't think of it until now and don't want to look again.
We're forcing way more misses this year (<100 DRTG which is bonkers), so the per 36 rebounding numbers will be inflated. Better to look at rebounding % (which should still show a sizable increase).
This is even more surprising given how we're tossing in a lot of zone defense. Generally, one of the weaknesses of zone defenses is that it's not always apparent who to box out when the zones get stretched, so you end up giving up offensive rebounds... but we're #1 in DREB% right now...
The rebounding is insane and this post shows how its been a total team effort and not the work of one Drummond or Westbrook-like rebound inhaler. I think the team rebounding approach is more effective because it's much harder to neutralize than committing to boxing out just that one dominant guy. It also keeps everyone engaged to what's happening on the court even when they aren't involved in on-ball action. It has been one of my favorite parts of this team so far.
Nice post. On the rebounding and on Steph in particular, worth noting Steph has averaged 5.4 rebounds per 36 since Kerr arrived and 5.8 in the last four years. So it's a jump, but not as big a jump as looking at career numbers would suggest. We are playing with a bit more pace this year, but I don't think that's a big influence (without checking).
I think we're just a really good team rebounding team this year, with a lot of guys who are better at the dirty work of boxing out, tipping the ball etc. So I guess the tl;dr would be a rising tide that raises all boats...
"The People's Court" needs to be a regular feature!! Ha ha ha!
Freaking hilarious. "Tasty dime", "skanky".. how you can work these into a super-informative video is beyond me.
Baryshnikov, too.
James "Skanky Arms" Harden
Looking at the trailer of Garnetts Documentary, I'm still getting depressed at the idea that we could have traded for Garnett (adding him to the We Believe Warriors) until the Warriors owner nixed the deal. Honestly, we were so cursed.
We're living in one of the greatest eras of any team in any sport and you're looking back at what might have been's? C'mon man, bask in the present, don't despair in the past!
I see nothing but truth here. I was just salty about Garnett, since he was my first basketball love (and the inception of my obsession with switchable bigs who can pass/shoot and 5 out offense).
If they got KG, he probably would’ve butterfly effected them out of draft position to get Steph, Klay and Barnes. 🤷🏼♂️
Thank you! Totally can see those schemes now.
“ For some time, it seemed the Warriors were losing their grip. They went from being innovators with their pace and 3-point shooting to falling to the middle of the pack as other teams began to play faster and shoot more. Kerr wasn’t adapting his system. Players were leaving or retiring. Bob Myers couldn’t find good young players. The rest of the NBA caught up, frankly. But things began to shift last season and now it’s all coming together because the Warriors have dramatically shifted their habits.”
A lot more at the link: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2021/11/18/22789074/golden-state-warriors-stephen-curry-draymond-green-title
LOL. that article. Only partway through it, but it serves up this video to show how in-sync Curry and Poole are: https://streamable.com/b41dfu
The first clip from the video looks like just a regular split cut near the sideline, where Curry's gravity draws Poole's defender enough for Curry to get JP an open shot.
The second clip isn't Steph/Poole telepathy. It's Draymond-Steph telepathy with Dray giving JP3 instructions on what to do.
Here's the most interesting part i saw from that article:
>>Some teams have also been forced to adjust to the new rules designed to limit non-basketball maneuvers. But Steph and the Warriors never drew fouls like Harden or Trae Young did. From 2014-15 through 2020-21, the Warriors attempted 21.4 free throws per game, which ranked as the 26th-most in the NBA. This season, they’re posting 21.2 free throws per game, which now ranks fourth. They moved up 22 spots in the rankings despite a decimal difference
This shows the weakness of the use of rankings for assessing differences. If my average score is 100 and I rank first, that's only interesting if the second ranking is statistically different. If the second rank scores 99.9999, should they care they're not ranked first? OTOH, the Warriors have top rankings and significant differences in raw numbers. They are actually really good.
OMFG that is funny. And plays into all my preconceptions.
Exactly how i saw it
I found this really interesting.
"According to Second Spectrum, Curry is one of 135 players this season to log at least 100 possessions defending an opposing ball handler running a pick-and-roll. On those plays, the Warriors allow just 0.77 points per pick-and-roll, which ranks ninth of all 135 players."
If there was a 3rd team all-defense, he could've been a legitimate contender due to the narrative. Alas, with only 4 (or fewer?) guard openings, that is not to be.
First off, that was extremely helpful. I now know what the box and 1 and the triangle 2 mean, which I certainly did not before. Thanks!
Two thoughts:
1. The Warriors got into foul trouble this game. Certainly, the refs are part of that, but could running these sorts of defensive schemes contribute at all to picking up fouls more easily? Really not sure on the answer to that, and this is certainly a causation vs. correlation sort of question, but I'm curious if there could be a relationship between the two (picking up fouls and these defensive sets).
2. It's great to see Klay on the bench with his teammates. How often do injured players actually travel with the team? It's just so obvious that Klay loves being with the team, on the bench, around the action. Little things like that just can't be overlooked when it comes to team unity, etc.
I am not certain, but I don’t THINK running zone contributes to fouling… I’d expect it to encourage more jumpers which leads to fewer fouls. Also, perhaps you move less far in a zone, so you get less tired, so you reach less? Speculation.
However, if you switch D schemes so often that it causes you to get mixed up or be bad at any individual scheme, that might lead to late rotations and fouling.
1.) The Nets are just a super floppy team. Then on offense, Harden, even with the new rule changes, is slowly working his way back into game shape.
2.) Klay (and Wiseman) didn't travel with the team on this road trip.
Klay has travelled on some road trips the last couple years, but usually, injured guys stay home to work with rehab guys and prep them for coming back.
Harden's again drawing fouls at comparable rates to prior years. He's currently sporting a higher FTr this year than in his 2018-19 season and last season (both of which were MVP calibre season for him). The problem is not rule changes, it's that he's out of shape and working his way back from injury.
Oh I thought I saw him on the bench. My bad.
Looking at Steph specifically, one of the fouls was trying to draw a charge which can happen from any scheme, the other was diving for a loose ball. If you take those away his two fouls wouldn't be unusual. I don't remember the fouls on other players enough to draw any conclusions.
I think the rest might have been charges. There were an incredible number of charges called on the Warriors in that game. Pretty much any time a guy with the ball touched a defender with a forearm, the defender flew backwards onto their back, and the refs were buying it.
Now that you mention it, that was pretty infuriating. I'd forgotten about it because we destroyed them, hah.
Thank you very much for the feedback. Without this kind of comment, I’m never sure what people are wondering about and what’s obvious or not.