three point defense

3/22/2021 – Michigan 86, LSU 78 – 22-4, 14-3 Big Ten, Sweet 16

With apologies to Chaundee Brown and Eli Brooks, all hail the real MVP: regression to the mean.

Cam Thomas came out in full-on NBA Jam mode, and folks I gotta tell you it felt bad. After Thomas hit a one-footed fadeaway 18-footer around the midway point of the first half it felt like he would never miss anything. It felt like by the second half he would scorpion kick a ball into the basket for his billionth point and then fade into the background like the avatar of a fallen god. "Peace," Thomas would utter mysteriously, "basketball has been solved."

Meanwhile Michigan came out and hit one of six clean looks from three. Visions of Will Wade hunched over a cauldron full of booster cash and other nefarious reagents flooded my vision. This is how LSU gives up three after three and survives. This is occult, man. Why would LSU stop at strong offers or rampant, repeated institutional Title IX dysfunction? Satan! Satan is involved. I feel his presence.

These are the things you think in the first eight minutes of a basketball game when you're happy with almost all the shots both teams take and furious at the results.

None of these feelings show up in the box score. LSU shot 44% from two; Michigan shot 67%. LSU shot 24% from three; Michigan shot 40%. This game was only a single digit affair because LSU turned the ball over all of three times. This sounds weirdly disciplined for a team that frequently didn't bother to even raise a hand in the direction of three-point shooters, but then again only one guy on the team bothers to pass inside the arc. Water finds its level.

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With apologies to regression to the mean, all hail the real MVPs: Eli Brooks and Chaundee Brown.

Both are four-year college players, but other than that they could not be more different. Brooks has been at Michigan almost as long as D'Mitrik Trice has been an undead warlock. Brown is new. Brooks spent much of his career in a state of emotional precarity, one turnover or missed shot from a funk that would last games and games. Brown showed up determined to shoot every last plausible three he could get his hands on, no matter recent results. Brooks is listed at a willowy 6'1" and when he dunks a basketball everyone says "I didn't know he could do that!" even though he just did it a couple games ago. Brown is 6'5" and built like a linebacker. When he dunks I wince in case he does a chin up that destroys the basket.

But here they did the same things, more or less. They checked Cam Thomas, in their varied ways. They buried open threes. They ventured inside the line successfully. They did not stand around with question marks over their head when offensive actions were attempted. They led Michigan to a Sweet 16.

Remarkably, that's their sixth in the last eight tournaments. The two exceptions were years when Caris Levert got injured*. The only team that can match that claim is Gonzaga, which has morphed from a curious team into a dominant program over the last few years. Michigan will seek to match Gonzaga in that, too.

Brooks and Brown feel like the past and future of Michigan basketball. Brooks is a heady overachiever maximizing his talent. Brown is a physical marvel unleashed by newfound structure. This is not to say they are separate. The Venn diagram has some overlap here. As mentioned, Brooks has thrown down some rad dunks, and Brown is the kind of culture guy who might blow up on the sideline at Breslin. Together they spearheaded a second-round tourney win, and point the direction forward. Less a transition than an adaptation.

Right now Michigan needs both of them as they stare down the only chalk left in this bizarre tournament.

*[As is required by law, let us reiterate that LeVert was shooting 53/45 with a big free throw rate, a 33 assist rate, a 13 TO rate, on 26% usage when he was lost for the season. He had one bad game against a high major in there (SMU) but was more or less at that level of production in the other four A-tier games before he was lost.]

[After THE JUMP: heeeeeeeere's Willy!]

If you missed my previous post on the shift in defensive philosophy happening at both the NBA and NCAA level, you're going to want to take a look at that before proceeding since it provides the necessary context. A brief refresher:

• While recent conventional wisdom had been to suppress three-point attempts on defense, more NBA teams are packing the paint instead and forcing teams to try to beat them with jumpers.
• Both approaches can be successful but the very best defenses are mostly packing the paint.
• Those same trends held at the college level last year.

The Milwaukee Bucks under Mike Budenholzer have been at the forefront of the movement towards packing the paint the last couple years. Their approach and its success are discussed at length in the previous post and examined even deeper in a couple articles linked therein. If you prefer visual learning, there are a couple videos that clock in under ten minutes each with a great film room explainer—here's the link to part one, which mostly covers drop pick-and-roll coverage, and part two is below:

Now I want to dive into whether Michigan could be in line to change their defensive approach and whether it makes sense to do so. We start in the logical place: Miami.

What Have The Heat Done?

Howard's old team hints at a future shift in philosophy [Bryan Fuller]

Funny you should ask.

For much of Juwan Howard's time as an assistant with the Heat, Miami's defensive approach looked like Michigan's current strategy: suppress three-point attempts as much as possible. In 2016-17, they gave up the lowest opponent three-point rate in the NBA with only 27% of opponent field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc. They consistently posted top-ten defenses.

In Howard's final year as an assistant, however, Miami completely changed their approach despite returning most of the key players from the previous season's eighth-ranked defense. With threes now comprising nearly 40% of opponent attempts, the Heat moved up one spot in the NBA's defense rankings.

While the Heat defense fell out of the top ten this season while going even more extreme in their new pack-the-paint ways, injuries and personnel changes explain the dropoff. Stalwart wing defender Josh Richardson left for Philadelphia, and while adding Jimmy Butler helped cover for Richardson's absence, an injury to Justice Winslow meant 30 minutes per game of Duncan Robinson—a boon to the offense but not the defense. Meanwhile, they didn't adequately replace backup center Hassan Whiteside, who'd previously formed an excellent platoon with Bam Adebayo.

Given the seamless switchover in 2018-19 and the extenuating circumstances this season, I'd say Miami's shift to Milwaukee's general approach has been a success. Howard was on the bench for its implementation. That feels worth noting.

[Hit THE JUMP to see how Michigan already implemented a similar strategy last year and how it might fit with their personnel going forward.]

When I was putting together last week's mailbag, Brian forwarded along a question that both hit a topic I've wanted to cover for a while and required an extensive answer.

This seems so counterintuitive...wonder if college vs pro is different due to quality of shooters at pro level. @mgoblog https://t.co/H4L8lTxynY

— Peter Joseph (@PetejoeUM) April 28, 2020

The best defenses in the NBA this year, by and large, are allowing opponents to let fly from three-point range, which goes against the popular recent trend at all levels of basketball—prioritizing guarding the perimeter to help gain an advantage in three-point attempts.

Since John Beilein brought in Billy Donlon and then Luke Yaklich to be his de facto defensive coordinator, Michigan has been among the very best in the country at limiting outside shots, finishing in the top ten in 3PA/FGA the last four seasons. While that approach helped produce top-three overall defenses in 2017-18 and '18-19, the defense took a step back to 28th—not bad, but not elite—in Juwan Howard's first year.

While there were transition costs that helped explain the defensive dropoff, is there a better way to play on that end? Today, I'm going to look at the NBA's trend and whether it applies to college basketball. In my next post, I'll break down what it all means for Michigan and whether Howard's time with the Miami Heat signals that a change is coming.

Talkin' Bout The Bucks

The Milwaukee Bucks were the best team in the NBA in this thus far abbreviated season, going 53-12 with by far the league's best point differential. Having reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the league's ninth-ranked offense (by offensive rating) will make a team quite good on its own. What has made the Bucks great, however, is their historically good defense, which ranks nearly four full points per 100 possessions better than the second-best in the NBA.

They've accomplished this even though three-point attempts make up 41.1% of opponent attempts, the third-highest rate in the league. Even when accounting for their great defensive personnel, it's clear coach Mike Budenholzer's tactics play a huge part in their success. Above all else, Milwaukee wants to ensure that opponents don't get a clean look near the rim, and by packing the paint they've become remarkably effective at doing so.

Milwaukee's defense allowed a league-low 29.1% of field goal attempts to come within six feet of the basket, and the gap between them and the #2 team was equal to the gap between #2 and #7. Opponents made only 50.7% of these shots, a ludicrous figure—the #2 team was at 57.3% and the league average if you remove the Bucks was 61.2%. 

nothing at the rim, ever. [via Mike Prada]

The clip above features one small window where it appears there's a quality look but even that is by design. Number eight in white, Moe Harkless, is a 32% career three-point shooter even though he's mostly taken catch-and-shoot attempts in quality offenses. As the great Mike Prada explained in December, it's all part of the strategy:

Allowing three-pointers doesn’t seem smart, but the Bucks do and still have the best defense in the league. Last year, 36.3 percent of opponent shots were threes, the highest mark in the league. This year, 38.7 percent of them are threes, which is third behind Toronto and Miami. In exchange for turning the rim into a fortress, the Bucks leave the three-point line comparatively unattended. They have transferred all power into the rear deflector shields, so to speak.

Why does this strategy work so well? One reason is that the Bucks allow “good” threes, to the degree that any team can control them. They rank closer to the middle of the pack in corner threes yielded, which are more dangerous, and instead allow the most above-the-break attempts in the league. They specialize in surrendering the semi-open 26-footer from an average stretch big man rather than the in-rhythm corner pop from whiplash ball movement that began with dribble penetration.

(Prada was furloughed by Vox/SBNation and has started his own newsletter. If you're into basketball tactics written for a broad audience, it's greatly recommended.)

There are times when you'll see all five Milwaukee defenders positioned below the free-throw line to stop a drive. Yes, the ballhandler can kick it back out to the top of the key, but firing it to the corner is much more difficult in that scenario. This results in a defense that gives up inefficient looks on average despite so many of them being three-pointers. There are other benefits, too. Here's The Ringer's Zach Kram discussing if the Bucks have the best defense in history:

Cleaning the Glass calculates a stat called “location effective field goal percentage” that asks “if this team allowed the league average FG% from each location, what would their opponents’ effective FG% be?,” which then “gives us a sense of the efficiency of a team’s defensive shot profile.” The Bucks rank third in this metric, narrowly behind Utah and Brooklyn—meaning they would still profile as an elite defense even if they didn’t also have the best defenders at altering shots at the moment of firing. Budenholzer’s game plan works.

A rim-centric defensive philosophy affords the Bucks more advantages than merely forcing opponents into lower-percentage shots; fewer shots near the basket mean fewer realistic opportunities for the opponent to draw a whistle or grab an offensive rebound. The Bucks don’t foul often, with the fourth-lowest opponent free throw rate, and they’re on pace for the best defending rebounding season in NBA history, with Giannis leading the league in defensive rebounds per game.

Milwaukee has elite defenders, but other than Giannis, the main figures weren't necessarily regarded as such until they played for the Bucks—twins Brook and Robin Lopez, for example, are the second- and third- best rim defenders in the league by shot percentage behind, naturally, Giannis. Brook, who's been a revelation as a drop coverage specialist that stonewalls drivers with verticality, was a league-average defender until becoming a top-ten player on that end the last two seasons by most any advanced metric. That directly coincides with his time in Milwaukee.

The Bucks are unique in having Giannis, who's responsible for taking their defense from great to historic. Their success in this approach isn't an isolated case, however. Here are the top ten defenses this season along with their rank in 3PA/FGA:

Four of the top five defenses are also in the top ten by highest opponent three-point rate. There's one defense in here—Philadelphia's—that's an extreme three-point prevention squad and there are two more in the bottom ten of opponent three-point rate. While both approaches can be successful, the very top tier of defenses are taking Milwaukee's approach. (Or they have LeBron James and Anthony Davis.)

[Hit THE JUMP to see how this applies to college ball.]