Doctor MJ wrote:This is the kind of analysis I'd like to see more of, and in more detail. What's clear to me is that the rotation of bigs of the Bulls is really having some great success. We see the rebounding for example - can it really be that the heretofore non-celebrated Deng is carrying a DPOY load on a team that just happens to have rebounding as a major calling card, which isn't exactly an area where he's spearheading the movement? Seems pretty unlikely.
But yeah, if you have links to nuanced analyses of the individual Bulls bigs, or really anything on the defense, I'd love to read it.
My spring break is coming up the week after next; I'll write a thread on the Bulls defense then with embedded Youtube videos of individual plays I will make up (just like I did with my Miami vs Chicago 4th quarter thread).
The basic idea of the Bulls defense is sidelines, walls, and baselines. The middle of the lane is the no fly zone; any player that penetrates there is a breakdown. The Bulls defense will be so tough in the middle of the lane that they will force player to drive into the wings. Here's the basic scenarios:
A) The ball handler is at the top of the key. The Bulls big men coordinate and set up expecting the drive to be steered wide enough so that the player cannot get to the rim through the paint. This part I am a little fuzzy on and need to look at more film, but I believe that the perimeter player here will play the ball handler nearly straight up, but he will definitely have a certain direction he wants to stop. Generally the idea is to force an isolation drive to drive into Noah. This next part is where Noah is our defensive MVP. On a high pick and roll, in order to preserve the middle of the lane, Noah has to guard BOTH players on the pick and roll for a short period. Once the pick happens, Noah hedges the player out just far enough to either force a WIDE drive towards the hoop or force a pass to the big man. While Noah does this, he has to maintain enough spacing between himself and the roll man to recover and stop the roll man on any possible pass. He does this exceptionally well. He is so good at it that he hedges, forces the hedge wide, shuts down the passing lane to the roll man, and recovers to the roll man before they can drive as well as shouting out where the drive should go. He is SO good at this. What helps him is that Rose and Deng are exceptionally quick at recovering from screens to get in front of their man. This is where Deng and Rose show their defensive skill; while Noah is great at what he does, Rose and Deng limit the amount of time Noah has to hold that position that increases in difficulty the longer the recovery takes.
B) The play starts at the shoulder of the three point line. This is the famous part of Thibs defense. You'll often hear Noah (and now Boozer) screaming out ICE to the perimeter defender. What this means is that the paint defender is taking over full responsibility for both his defender and the ball handler. In order to ensure this, the perimeter ball handler defender jumps out into position so that the only possible drive is baseline directly into Noah. You can now draw an arc/wall connecting the perimeter defender and the big man down low. This line will run from a step outside the three point line all the way to the baseline. It will be directly between the ball handler and the lane. The two defenders involved in the ICE defense will at all costs prevent the ball handler from crossing this wall. The ball handler can go over the top of the wall or underneath the wall along the baseline, but it takes so much time and dribbling to do that the play is killed. The ball handler will almost always drive towards the baseline where the big man defender lets him go underneath the backboard. This defense is practically impossible to score on because you can't shoot with Rose/Deng surgically attached to your shooting arm and you can't drive because Noah is waiting for you. They force pick and roll ball handlers to reject the screen and drive baseline because of how ridiculous the pick and roll is played by the perimeter player. Any passing lanes are shut down by the perimeter defender EXCLUSIVELY playing the shot and pass. By the nature of a pick and roll, a screen rejected towards the baseline eliminates all possible roll opportunities but leaves a long contested 2 point shot to the big man (exactly what the defense wants). However, this pass requires the ball handler to pass "cross court backwards" for the screener leaving the pass extremely vulnerable to being stolen by the initial perimeter defender.
C) It always happens. The above two scenarios run teams into the iso-defense. The Bulls break down all team offense and the team reverts to one on one offense. It happens every single game. The Heat love to get baited into this. The Bulls don't change anything from above, and because the team is no longer trying to make passes they are easily contained.
All of this is orchestrated by the big men in the paint who use the perimeter defenders as pawns for the defense. Rose, Deng, and Brewer are extremely good at funneling players to the right spots. THe difference between Rose and Deng/Brewer is that Deng and Brewer are not only able to deny the middle of the lane, they are also able to slow and impede drives towards the big men. That is why they are better than Rose. Rose is the best defender we have at the top of the key though and in pick and rolls; his speed, strength, size, and agility is unmatched on our defense. Opposing guards have extreme difficulty even getting shots off against him in the paint between his overwhelming physical talent and his excellent ball funneling. While Deng and Brewer show plus ability in funneling and even making what the defense WANTS the ball handler to do difficult, they are not our defensive best. That title belongs to Noah.
I'll have video to show all of this in a few weeks.
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