The Charlotte Hornets made a splash at the trade deadline acquiring Davis Bertans, Vasilije Micic, Tre Mann, Seth Curry, and Grant Williams. Despite Williams being the only one of those players to have any sort of positive defensive reputation, the Hornets have sported the third best defense in the league during their three game win streak with those players in the lineup.
It’s simply been a matter of NBA players knowing where to be defensively, how to cover for each other, and how to communicate with one another. When the Hornets were playing with their mostly G League caliber roster, they were a disorganized mess that simultaneously left the perimeter uncovered and the basket unprotected. No one seemed to know what they were supposed to do. A three game sample is suggesting that was more an indictment on the players than on the system.
3-point Defense
We’ll start with this play against the Pacers on February 4th. This is a 3-point jumper that Aaron Nesmith is going to get with eight seconds left on the shot clock.
Granted, this was a somewhat busted play. Miles Bridges started the possession guarding Pascal Siakam, and both fell to the floor trying to corral a wayward dribble by Siakam. When Siakam got up, JT Thor drifted in his direction, leaving 45% 3-point shooter Aaron Nesmith unguarded. Not realizing this, Bridges recovered to Siakam as well, leaving Nesmith so open that he overthought it and missed the shot.
In the next game, the Lakers are able to get a similarly wide open look against a set defense. Seeing that the Lakers are about to run a guard-guard pick-and-roll, Nick Richards directs Leaky Black to set up to help. Black is guarding Rui Hachimura, who starts the play in the corner.
As soon as Black turns his back, Hachimura, who is a 40% 3-point shooter this season, rotates to the wing. The Lakers swing the ball around the perimeter, making Black cover about 30 feet to recover the shooter. Richards stays glued to 28% 3-point shooter Anthony Davis the whole time.
You’d probably want to see Richards at least stunt at Hachimura or something. Fortunately Hachimura ends up missing the shot anyway. See the whole play here.
This next play starts with JT Thor sprinting to make it out to Taurean Prince after Thor was late to recover from his help defense responsibilities. He and Nick Smith Jr. do a weird thing where they’re seemingly both trying to stop the roller–usually you’d expect one person to do that while the other zones up on the weak side. Thor ends up all the way in the paint and doesn’t start running back out to Prince until after D’Angelo Russell has already caught the pass and started to swing it.
To stop the drive of Prince, who rarely attempts shots at the rim, all of Nick Richards, PJ Washington, and Brandon Miller sink in. One of Miller or Washington should be staying home. Instead, neither is guarding anybody. Prince has his pick of kickout passes, and elects to hit the wide open Austin Reaves.
Lucky for the Hornets, Reaves ends up missing the shot.
Here’s one where the opponent actually makes the shot. On this play, the Bucks are running a pick and roll, and the Hornets are defending it in a way you’d more typically expect out of an NBA team, though it’s still a little hard to tell what the plan is. Richards has sagged way off into a drop coverage where he can contest a pass to the rolling Bobby Portis or jump out and contest a midrange jumper from Pat Connaughton if need be. That typically allows defenders away from the action to stay home. Still, Nick Smith Jr. has dropped down to tag the rolling Portis.
With Smith going to help the roller, you’d expect Leaky Black, who’s guarding Jae Crowder in the weakside corner, to be more ready to help should the ball swing to Patrick Beverley on the wing. Instead, Smith ends up responsible for both tagging the roller and getting back to his shooter that’s one pass away. That’s either bad defensive scheming or bad understanding of how to play basketball together.
Beverley cashes that one in.
Rim DEfense
As bad as the 3-point defense has been (was…hopefully?), the defense in the paint has been worse and more comical. We’ll go back to the Pacers game for the first example. The Hornets end up cross matched in less than ideal match-ups after Pascal Siakam quickly pushes the ball up the floor from a defensive rebound. Washington is guarding point guard TJ McConnell while Nick Richards is guarding the quicker Siakam.
A brush screen forces Washington and Richards to switch for some reason. You’d think that means the Hornets have established that they’re switching every screen action on this possession given the cross matches. Still, when Myles Turner sets a flare screen on Washington, Washington tries to fight over the top while Miles Bridges switches. It leaves Turner uncovered going towards the basket.
Ish Smith is too slow to react and too small for it to matter as Turner gets the easy dunk.
These next two plays might be my favorites. The first one made me laugh out loud when I watched it back. D’Angelo Russell just jogs past Bryce McGowens for an easy layup and none of the other Hornets budge to help.
It’s truly a work of art. And then Russell proceeded to do the same thing with Bridges guarding him about 90 seconds later. No communication. No understanding of what’s happening around them or what should be done to stop it. It’s just bad. Bad bad bad.
The Hornets ended up making a valiant attempt at a comeback in that game despite the shoddy early defense. However, that shoddy defense reared its head again late as the Lakers put the game out of reach. The Lakers run an inverted pick-and-roll where Russell kind of screens for the bigger LeBron James, but LeBron ends up rejecting the screen and Russell meekly backs out of the play. There is no reason for the Hornets to do anything to react to the half hearted screen, but they do. PJ Washington and Ish Smith guard it by like, vaguely pretending to double team LeBron in the way you’d expect young children to double team an opposing player.
LeBron swings it to the now unguarded Russell. Richards is forced to close out on Russell, who had been torching the Hornets all night. Smith is in no position to do anything at this point. Washington doesn’t sense the danger of Davis diving to the basket and simply watches it all unfold.
Bridges is also a step slow to react, but it’s hard to stop Davis from diving to the rim with that kind of runway. Easy two points for LA.
We’ll wrap up with an example of the Hornets inattention to detail when defending in transition. After a Cody Martin turnover, the Bucks get out and try to run without too much of a numbers advantage. However, it quickly turns into a 4 on 3 after Miles Bridges does whatever this is to try to slow down Damian Lillard.
So here’s the 4 on 3. Leaky Black seems to be directing Brandon Miller to close out to Jae Crowder. This is good. Black goes on to sprint to cover Malik Beasley in the corner. Also good. Behind the play, Cody Martin and Miles Bridges are jogging to get back. This is not good. Nick Richards is somewhere in the middle.
Richards is apparently completely unaware that Giannis is directly behind him. That is both a failing of his awareness and of his teammates behind the play that are not guarding anybody nor telling Richards that danger is lurking. He ends up sprinting out to Beasley as well, because why bother guarding Giannis. It’d be tough for the Hornets to get the stop at this point.
Giannis scores, believe it or not.
You could cut up clips of just about any NBA team making defensive lapses over the course of the season. It’s a long season and mistakes are bound to happen. But plays like the ones above have been the norm for the Charlotte Hornets for most of the season. The trade deadline infused some much needed NBA experience, and the defense has been significantly better since. Now the Hornets have 28 games left to prove that the defense is truly improved.
Related
jondelong42
Source link
