TAKE 2 Sill learning the red94 protocols.
We are all children at heart. And we all love presents. Preferably incredibly techie all out cool presents that allow our own personal hobbies to take a major step forward. My hobby, in case you had not noticed is NBA basketball. Rockets basketball in particular.
I do not know about you, but I personally find it difficult to completely track NBA offenses and defenses. Players are flying all over the court, movement is incredibly fast, and I easily lose track of who is exactly where. Frame by frame analysis is tedious and I find myself with a pen and paper drawing circles on the page.
Well on Christmas day I found myself futzing around with SportsVE data. Another hobby of mine. And then lo and behold I unwrapped my own very best Christmas present ever (except perhaps that $400 sous vide cooker my girlfriend got me this year). Let us take a peak.
I went and looked this morning at all of Smith's made shots in the Memphis game. Graphically. With each players number artfully painted on a little circle that I did not have to doodle on a piece of paper.
What actually happens on a Rockets fast break? Take a look at the image below at 1.9 seconds into the shot clock after a Memphis miss.
We can see clearly that Poindexter(8) has lost contact with Smith(5). If you get out a ruler you can see that Smith is being trailed by almost six feet while running towards the hoop. Uhrih(19) is over eight feet from Smith and not nearly wide enough to impede Smith's route to the basket. Harden(13) has already made the pass to Smith and there is no way that Poindester(8) can catch Smith and Udrih's(19) only hope is to intercept Smith at the rim. Smith then has a little lay in for the bucket.
What we see daily watching the NBA is not the chaotic tangle of athletes we imagine. It actually is more like a choreographed Bolshoi ballet. Every player has a position he must be at on the court. If one player fails to be there, the entire system quickly breaks down. The Griz almost never break down on defense. It is a beautiful thing to watch.
What do you see in the image above? I see an excellent Memphis defense that has collapsed into the paint while still maintaining the ability to close out on shooters. The classic Coach Thib 2.9. Four, count them four players in the paint, none of which is going to be called for a three second violation. The problem is that with even with four defenders in the paint the hard double has not yet come from Gasol(33), who is still standing weak side guarding no one. The result of this error is predictable.
Overall in the above image we see Brewer acting like a swivel for the Rockets almost at half court. Fast break protection and outlet target. We see Harden at the center of the offensive set at the FT line. Bev is camping out in the corner for the step back three. Dorsey is weak side and we have Smith with the ball near the restricted area. And there is that little gold circle that is the ball that is about to get flushed in 0.25 seconds.
I have seen some very explicit examples of what SportsVU offers to NBA teams. One of the most useful additions that we fans cannot access is the actual spacing between players. I am sitting at my monitor with a little six inch plastic ruler to indicate spacing to me. Knowing the overall court dimensions makes this actually pretty easy.
Shape. And spacing. That describes both the offensive and defensive strategies in the NBA. SportsVU is absolutely unparalleled at showing shape. The triangles, with two offensive players around the rim actually describe the vast majority of offensive sets in the NBA. The one set not dependent on that shape is the DDMO. No formation is better adapted to clearing out guard driving lanes than the DDMO. I will publish an image the next time I see one.
http://on.nba.com/1468v3g
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