Defending in the Modern Game

Is traditional help-and-recover defense outdated?

Defense, or the lack thereof, has dominated NBA discussions this season, as scoring and offensive efficiency by individuals and teams has exploded. Some cite improving skills levels, whereas others point to the rules and referees rewarding flopping and foul-baiting with free throws as NBA skill trainers now focus on how to draw fouls, not how to make shots.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver added fuel to the fire over NBA All-Star Weekend:

"[Players are] coming into the league incredibly skilled," Silver continued. "But that doesn't necessarily translate to being team basketball players. And then what I'm hearing from some of those same coaches that may be complaining about inability to play defense is that these players are not as prepared as I'd like them to be, particularly as very high draft picks.”

Years ago, I spoke to an NBA coach who said the biggest deficiencies for rookies was defense. College coaches complain freshmen arrive to campus not knowing how to defend. Varsity high-school coaches will say their new freshmen and sophomores start the season not understanding defense. Nobody at any level, it seems, understands defense when the season starts. This is not new and has been a consistent chorus from coaches since I began coaching more than 20 years ago.

There is an adaptation as players move from level to level, which often explains the big improvements between players’ first and second seasons. They learn the new terminology, systems, and strategies, and adapt to the faster speed of play and stronger, more skilled opponents. The game slows, and they perform better because of this adaptation when they enter their second seasons.

There really is no way to avoid the adaptation period. Four years of college will not necessarily eliminate or reduce the adaptation process, as players go from playing against most of the best 4000 players between 18 and 23 years old in NCAA Division 1 to playing against the best 350 players in the world in the NBA. The court dimensions, rules, travel, coaching, preparation time, practice time, and more differ between college and the NBA. There will always be an adaptation. Victor Wembanyama is in the midst of one of the three best rookie seasons of the last 40 years, and he required some time (although not a full season, but he is an outlier) to acclimate fully, despite playing in the EuroLeague two seasons ago and for the French National team head coach last season.

Beyond the adaptation, which does not explain the overall offensive explosion, one thing largely left unstated is the difference between the game when most coaches learned to play and the current game. Offense has evolved over the last decade with teams playing faster, running fewer sets, and relying more on creating and exploiting advantages. Defense, however, has not evolved similarly.

Defensive strategy has changed over the last decade, as switching, for one, has gained prominence and no longer is viewed as bad, lazy defense. The defensive drills, instruction, and teaching largely remains the same as when teams ignored the three-point line. The same beliefs, concepts, and rotations do not work as well against modern offenses, as evidenced by the scoring.

The game is cyclical. A defensive evolution forces an offensive evolution, which forces another defensive evolution. Increasing three-point shooting volume and efficiency forced coaches to re-think the defensive closeout, with more and more coaches adopting the sprint-and-stop  and fly-by closeouts and moving away from stutter-step closeouts. We have reached the point where those teams that further modernize their defense, whether through strategy, personnel, or basic skills and instruction, will have the competitive advantage, just as the early adopters of the three-point shot and advantage basketball had a competitive advantage for a few years before most teams followed.

The below are screenshots of a clip from an early-season game posted by Joe Viray who covers the Golden State Warriors. Picture one (P1) shows the Spurs in drop coverage on a side pick-and-roll toward the two-player side. This is a common attack, and a common defensive strategy: The on-ball defender goes over the screen to prevent the three-point shot, and the drop defender protects the basket. The defender behind the ball sinks into toward the three-second area to tag on the roll if necessary, and the two defenders on the left side move into help position surrounding the three-second area.

P2 shows the defense just after the ball handler clears the screen. Nobody has moved much, although the top wing defender is rotating to the ball, and the on-ball defender has lost contact with the ball-handler. Traditional defenses break down here.

Traditional help defense asks the left wing defender (Moody’s defender) to slide to help on the ball. The initial starting position was too far from the ball; many defenses teach the defender to position himself on the nail at the free-throw line when the drive begins. Of course, the drop defender lacks a purpose when the help defender is on the nail: Two defenders help in the same area. In this case, Moody’s defender started outside the three-second area, but helped late as the drop defender dropped, and the on-ball defender died on the screen.

P3 shows the late help gave Moss Moody a wide-open three-point shot: He has started his shooting motion and the defender closing out still has two feet in the three-second area.

Many will suggest the defense played this poorly, and I agree. However, the basic strategy is similar to many traditional strategies, and I am not sure how different the result would have been even with the defense playing better. Moody likely gets an open three-point shot even if Moody’s defender started on the nail. The strategy also has not evolved for the modern game. Even 10 years ago, one of the two weak-side players would have been a non-shooter who the defense could ignore and help off. Now, typically, both players are average to above-average three-point shooters on most teams.

Only two defenders are truly involved in the play. Moody’s defender helps over and forces the pass, whether or not that was the best decision, and the screener’s defender stays with the screener and prevents a pass for a dunk. The opposite corner defender stands still the whole possession; the on-ball defender dies on the screen, then stands around; and Brandin Podziemski’s defender on the nearside stays close to him, but he is behind the play and fairly  uninvolved.

How can the defense improve?

Every coach has his own strategy and game plan. I am not concerned with whether or not drop coverage was the best strategy. My comments pertain solely to decisions or actions to improve the defense in this exact play.

Over the last few years, I realized coaches set up defenders to fail because we ask defenders to do the things we identify as the hardest to defend when talking from an offensive perspective. Offenses want defenses to defend two things in a row. Moody’s defender must defend two things in a row here! He slides over to stop the ball, and they leave him to close out to the wide open shooter. Nobody sees a mistake because this is traditional help-and-recover defense. Every coach at every level has practiced this exact slide and situation in their shell drills (Fake Fundamentals, Volume 3) this season.

Modern offenses have turned this help-and-recover defense into a mistake. Once Moody’s defender commits to the ball, the on-ball defender should sprint to Moody, rather than standing still watching the rest of the play (similar to Spanish nexting defense), or the bottom defender should rotate to Moody, which is termed the X-closeout, as Moody’s defender rotates to the corner. Asking Moody’s defender to stop the ball and recover to contest the shot is unreasonable. It is not possible for all but the absolute most elite defenders. We set up defenders and defenses to fail.

Many NBA defenses avoid the X-closeout in this situation because they fear the corner three-point attempt, as those are the most efficient three-point attempts. I do not have the numbers, but I would prefer to concede a contested corner three-point attempt than a wide-open above the break three-point attempt. It is possible NBA statistics suggest otherwise, which explains the NBA strategy, but no other league has a significantly shorter three-point line in the corner. Corner three-point attempts still tend to be the most efficient, even with a uniform distance, but most corner three-point attempts are stationary catch-and-shoot attempts, which are the easiest, most efficient jump shots. We cannot rely solely on statistics and analytics; we have to understand context as well, and nothing impacts shooting success as much as the distance to the nearest defender.

The game has changed, but we continue to see teams teaching the same basic defensive skills with the same shell drill without accounting for the offensive evolution. Defensive systems and skills that worked in the 20th Century when everyone got into triple-threat position on the catch (Fake Fundamentals), few three-pointers were attempted, and the goal was to pass the ball inside on each possession do not work as well in today’s pace-and-space era. Defensive drills, habits, instructions, and skills need to evolve for the 21st Century game.

Fortunately, NADA: The Antifragile Defense is now available. Just as SABA: The Antifragile Offense presented a new way to view offensive basketball, NADA presents a new defensive approach to combat 21st Century offenses.