Kings 3pt Defense - A Quantitative Scrutiny

[SacTownKid]

Temple has an odd obsession with cheating down to double-cover scrubs in the paint while leaving his man wide open at the 3-pt line.
It was REALLY exposed (and pointed out on the telecast) in today's game vs the Nets.

He HAS to stop doing this.
The whole team has to stop doing it.
The team does not get torn up by ballhandlers in one-on-one coverage in the paint.
Why they continually ignore the 3-ptr (invariably how they are beaten) to double-team nobodies ion the paint who aren't being successful is a bafflement to me.

Nice sign was that Joerger FINALLY mentioned it in the post-game comments.
So he doesn't have an excuse to continue the insane tactic after tonight.

That is what's frustrating because it's not odd, that is Joergers system. It was before he got to Sacramento as well. I watched an NBA TV thing on the Kings before the season started and they made it clear that his teams in Memphis were known to give up the 3 point shot. It's a reason why players play the merry go round of who gets torched tonight. Hopefully some adjustments are made but I'm not confident, it took him all of 2 games and 2 wins to go back to big ball and back on the path of the worst starting unit in basketball statistically.

 

[IfAt1st]

Updating:
stats.nba.com/Kings-3pt-defense/2016-17

Caution - very small sample size for the 2 extremes (Omri & Willie)

Notice there are only 5 Kings defenders who have a MINUS differential for 3-ptrs (meaning they are good against 3ptrs) :
Omri, Cuz, Afflalo, Collison, and Gay.

Coincidentally, those 5 COULD be a playing unit together, especially starting against good 3-pt teams.

Anyone holding their breath until Joerger gives that unit a try?

(BTW- does Ben's % count when he fouls the 3-pt shooter? Because he must do that more than most guys in the league, and it certainly leads to more points given up per 3-pt shot against him).

 

[Ron]

Another game that had us a bit too exposed to the rain of 3s...

Checking on whom did the Celtics score their 3s, you will find:

• 2 out of 2 shots (100%!) taken on Afflalo fell in.
• 3 out of 4 shots (75%!) taken on Barnes (who otherwise was our x-factor) fell in.

On the other hand:

• None of the 3 shots taken on Collison was successfull.
• Only 1 of the 4 shots taken on Temple was successfull.

See the full table below:

 

[Ron]

Just following up:

The Knicks game probably wasn't decided on 3-pointers (They only made 11 of them, and we only made 9),
but since the opponents' 3pt% (37.9) was again higher than ours (32.1)
and also slightly higher than the 3pt% we allow on average (36.7),
I thought it would be educational to split it by individual players again.

I sorted it by the number of 3pt attempt made on each Kings' player (see below):

There's not much to say about 1 shot that was either made (on Temple) or missed (on Casspi or Koufos).
The more meaningfull numbers are probably those I marked:

• Collison & Barnes yielded NO 3pt shot on the night (!!), though 5 & 6 of those were taken on them, respectively!
• Lawson and Gay had 3 threes made on each of them, out of 3 & 4 taken, respectively (That's 100% & 75%!..)

 

[Gliesian]

Notice there are only 5 Kings defenders who have a MINUS differential for 3-ptrs (meaning they are good against 3ptrs) :
Omri, Cuz, Afflalo, Collison, and Gay.

Coincidentally, those 5 COULD be a playing unit together, especially starting against good 3-pt teams.

Anyone holding their breath until Joerger gives that unit a try?

(BTW- does Ben's % count when he fouls the 3-pt shooter? Because he must do that more than most guys in the league, and it certainly leads to more points given up per 3-pt shot against him).

I was in favor of starting Omri too. But when you catch the ball at your spot behind the arc and you're out of bounds not once but TWICE in the limited amount of time you've played, you're going to royally pee off a coach.

 

[Ron]

3pt D went well tonight against the Mavs.
They took a large volume of 3s (30 shots, out of 78 FG shots total)
and only made 33% of them.
I can only guess they were forced to shoot from the utside
not having a good target for an inside game.

The shots were taken on almost everyone (except KK, WCS and Tolliver),
and here are the result:


Once more, the better or worse impact of a player on 3pt shots seems to be more stable than I thought,
with Casspi, Collison & BMac fairing better (tonight, like on average) than Barnes, Temple & Lawson
(and also Cousins, who would normally not face 3-pointers that often...)

(Below are the season averages, for comparison)


The only thing that bothers me is exactly that high frequency of 3s taken on DMC tonight.

A normal big would have 3-pointers comprising less than 20% of the shots taken on him.
DMC's usual frequency is 21.5 (KK - 16.3%, WCS - 18.2%).
(HERE'S A LINK TO THE FREQ OF ALL STARTING CENTERS)
Tonight, however, 58% of the shots taken on DMC were 3s!!

It shouldn't be that way! Does it have to do with our schemes?

 

[Bricklayer]

3pt D went well tonight against the Mavs.
They took a large volume of 3s (30 shots, out of 78 FG shots total)
and only made 33% of them.
I can only guess they were forced to shoot from the utside
not having a good target for an inside game.

The shots were taken on almost everyone (except KK, WCS and Tolliver),
and here are the result:
View attachment 6001

Once more, the better or worse impact of a player on 3pt shots seems to be more stable than I thought,
with Casspi, Collison & BMac fairing better (tonight, like on average) than Barnes, Temple & Lawson
(and also Cousins, who would normally not face 3-pointers that often...)

(Below are the season averages, for comparison)
View attachment 6002

The only thing that bothers me is exactly that high frequency of 3s taken on DMC tonight.

A normal big would have 3-pointers comprising less than 20% of the shots taken on him.
DMC's usual frequency is 21.5 (KK - 16.3%, WCS - 18.2%).
(HERE'S A LINK TO THE FREQ OF ALL STARTING CENTERS)
Tonight, however, 58% of the shots taken on DMC were 3s!!

It shouldn't be that way! Does it have to do with our schemes?

Mavs have no inside game whatsoever. Hence no inside attacks to water down the threes.

And yes, there is some scheme to it, as Cuz if often the last rotating man to go cover corner 3pt shooters after the other guys have rotated up top.