Piggybacking on our 'defense wins' post earlier

A while back we posted an article with the premise that whichever team plays the best overall defense in the WAC this season will win the conference. The 800-pound gorilla in that post was the improvement the Boston Celtics -- the defending world champions -- made in defensive effort.

Piggybacking on that post, here's some additional material about defensive play.

David Wharton
Los Angerles Times
November 29, 2008

It is true that the UCLA basketball team spent much of this week trying to improve its flow on offense. It is true the Bruins worked on passing and cutting without the ball.

But this is still a Ben Howland squad, which means that defense takes center stage.

"I think we're struggling defensively right now," center Alfred Aboya said. "That won't get you anywhere."

The 13th-ranked Bruins, who face Florida International at home this afternoon, have allowed opponents to shoot 45% from the floor, a few percentage points higher than last season. Not good enough to satisfy their coach.

Howland was particularly concerned about the last minutes of his team's loss to Michigan in New York, when the Bruins found some rhythm on offense but failed to get enough defensive stops.

So this week, swingman Michael Roll said, the team worked on "step-sliding on defense, keeping your man in front of you, a lot of box-out drills, help rotation. Just a lot of basics..."

...Senior point guard Darren Collison also figures it might take a while for the freshmen on the team to appreciate the effort and intensity required to play good defense.

"I know I didn't when I was a freshman," he said...

Go here for the full article.

Here's another article, this one featuring the Los Angeles Lakers, and a new emphasis on defensive play. The return of Andrew Bynum has certainly aided the improvement but it's been a team effort.

Putting the Lakers on defensive overload
Mike Bresnahan
Los Angeles Times
November 28, 2008

It was a given that the Lakers would score gobs of points this season, but Coach Phil Jackson wanted to put a stop to all the points being dropped on them (the team's defensive rank last season: 18th).

So Jackson gathered his coaches before training camp and told them he was appointing a defensive coach, something he hadn't done in his previous 18 years of coaching in the NBA.

"We didn't want to announce it and make a big deal about it like Boston did with their guy," Jackson said. "But Kurt [Rambis] is real good at this and he's willing..."

...The players have eaten it up, finding an appetite for steals (a league-best 10.4 a game) and blocked shots (6.2 a game, sixth-best in the league) that matches their zest for alley-oop dunks and three-on-one breaks.

"The thought process is that you want to win a championship. In order to beat a Boston, you've got to be a better defensive team than Boston," Kobe Bryant said. "If you want to hoist that trophy at the end of the year, we've got to be a great defensive team. That's the only way to get it done..."

The article concludes with this, "Perhaps Jackson summed it up best: "What I like to see is our defense consistently being the hallmark of what we do."

Defending will be THE key to a WAC championship

When is the last time (first time?) a defensive play -- other than a shotblock accompanied by the announcer's pet phrase -- has appeared on ESPN's Sports Center? Yet the Boston Celtics are the 'defending' world champions because of the commitment the team made towards making it as difficult as possible for opponents to score. Here's a snippet about that team metamorphosis:

Commitment to defense delivers title No. 17 for Celtics
John Hollinger
ESPN.com

...With the arrival of Kevin Garnett and the addition of ace defensive assistant Tom Thibodeau, the Celtics had the third-best defensive efficiency mark since the league began tracking turnovers in 1973-74, helping them to a league-best 66 wins despite fairly modest offensive numbers...

...Of course, the reason the Celtics' defense was such a huge factor was because their three stars bought into it. While Garnett has been a beast defensively his whole career, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen weren't exactly renowned for their defensive skills. When a pair of offseason trades united the trio in Beantown, the expectation was that they'd be a quality offensive team but wouldn't get enough stops to beat the Detroits and San Antonios of the world in May and June.

Yet defense is as much about effort as talent, and something clicked when the new big three got to Boston this fall. Garnett was the league's Defensive Player of the Year, while Allen and Pierce were the main defenders on [Kobe] Bryant, and kept the league MVP in check throughout the finals.

"We held each other accountable to get on the floor every time there was a loose ball, to help in rotation when somebody was beat," said Allen. "We didn't expect any less from Paul, they didn't expect less out of me. If Kevin was out of position we let him know, and everybody followed suit. It was that accountability all year long, that everybody knew when you came in here, we don't care about the offensive end."

So we are going out on the proverbial limb to say whichever team defends the best in the WAC this season is going to win the conference.

Our basis for such a prediction: there are a number of WAC teams this season that have the requisite firepower -- the scoring and shooting talent and skills -- to put up serious points on the scoreboard. They appear fairly equal in this strength. So the one squad pledged to focus the most attention on setting up roadblocks to opponents scoring will separate itself from the others and be the league leader.

However, there are a number of aspects to explore.

Before anyone replies that defending requires superb quickness and pogostick jumping ability so let's look at the rosters to see who wins there, well, just refer to this list of last season's All-WAC Defensive Team:

Matt Bauscher, Boise State
Matt Gibson, Hawai‘i
Lyndale Burelson, Nevada
JaVale McGee, Nevada
Fred Peete, New Mexico State

Granted, McGee was blessed with long arms and excellent athletic ability although he wasn't a solid man-to-man defender but Matt Bauscher, Matt Gibson, Lyndale Burleson and Fred Peete earned their spots through commitment and grit. They made up their respective minds to defend, did so and were awarded for there efforts.

But one of the problems in determining what constitutes good defense is how to document this points preventing passion. Is it simply the team scoring defense stat? Or the team field goal percentage defense number? Maybe a combination of the two? Plus other characteristics? Can it truly be reflected in measurements?

That's because what also has to be factored into the above is who is employing what ways to limit scoreboard fuse-blowing -- a slowdown a la holding the ball til the last 10 seconds of each possession, playing the variations of a zone, never fastbreaking. Heck, some squads probably also utilize prayer or the issuance of an opponent hex or spell.

So there's a lot to muddy the water.

Employing last season's numbers (not extrapolating them for 2008-2009 determinations but for illustration purposes) Nevada, Utah State and New Mexico State were in the top four in scoring defense, along with Fresno State. The remaining five squads had but 1.1 points a game separating them in their differentials but were a ways behind the four best.

But very curiously, Boise State finished last in scoring defense and yet won both the league championship and the conference tournament! So what gives? Is all of the above that's been written just so much manure?

Our take: let's count the BSU WAC tourney victory as at least partially an anomaly since almost anything can happen in a short series. But then how can Boise State winning the league be explained?

We call it a harmonic convergence.

The 2007-2008 Broncos were comprised mostly of very experienced seniors: a physical guy inside (Matt Nelson), someone who could defend in the paint and also further out (Reggie Larry), a veteran who was experienced at playing position and team 'D' well (Tyler Tiedeman), a stocky and strong player who led the team in steals (Anthony Thomas) and an underrated glue guy who was rarely out of position (Matt Bauscher). In this group, only Larry possessed great athletic ability.

Yes, experience definitely played a factor in Boise's success but it needs the accompaniment of maturity. The knowing what to do, the accepting of it and the doing it.

Here's another somewhat contradiction of figures -- last season's team scoring defense numbers in the WAC -- note the caboose here:

SCORING DEFENSE
Team Avg/G

1. Nevada 69.8
2. Utah State 70.7
3. Fresno State 70.8
4. New Mexico State 72.4
5. San Jose State 74.6
6. Louisiana Tech 74.8
7. Hawai`i 75.4
8. Idaho 16 1208 75.5
9. Boise State 16 1211 75.7

But look at shooting percentage defense -- where Boise jumps from last to fourth, a statistic that tells the most compelling portion of the Broncos 2007-2008 tale:

FIELD GOAL PCT DEFENSE
# Team Pct

1. Nevada .430
2. Fresno State .441
3. New Mexico State .442
4. Boise State .442
5. Utah State .442
6. San Jose State .466
7. Idaho .482
8. Hawai`i .482
9. Louisiana Tech .529

Greg Graham's team did have so many things fall into place but credit is also to be given for the taking advantage of such.

So that's last year's statistics. We don't have this year's -- at least not yet. There have been tremendous personnel changes for Nevada, Utah State, New Mexico State and Fresno State. San Jose State has added talent and realistically lost nobody of critical importance. Louisiana Tech is basically fielding an entire new team so simply toss out last year's numbers as invalid.

So does anyone have predictions as to which squad will set the pace defensively in this year's WAC?

Just who has the necessary combination of skill, effort, commitment, understanding and experience?