PG: Win ugly

[Indomitable]

It really is. I've been tracking it closely, and he has the lowest defensive usage on the team pretty consistently. He contests shots fine, but not notably more successfully than anyone else.

This clearly a matter of choice. While the defense is sometimes going to be successful in targeting weak defenders, it's the defense's job to limit that.

Literally all of the Bulls other G/F defenders are capable of this. Okoro, Huerter and Matas all typically defend at average usage rates even though, theoretically, the defense would rather go at Coby/Vuc/Giddey.

Not Ayo though... he's consistently off defending the guy who's never gonna get the ball. He's basically the Demar position defensively. And he doesn't generate a lot of disruptive plays (steals, blocks, deflections, loose balls) to make up for it.

He's just a ghost, and makes it that much easier for offenses to go where they want.

I've speculated about why this is, but it obviously is.


Coby and Giddey, on the other hand, held up pretty well last night.

• Ayo got responsibility for allowing 10 points on 6 shots.
• Giddey gave up 15 points on 16 shots. Also had 3 steals, 5 deflections, recovered 2 loose balls.
• Coby gave up 11 points on 15 shots
• Matas, as usual, was also good, and gave up 11 points on 14 shots
• Vuc was bad. He defended 20 shots and gave up 26 points.

Basically Ayo is bad. I had thought that maybe he'd ramp up his usage and this was just some weird outlier, but this is the same trend going back a couple years and there's no sign of it changing.

What site do you use. I am here for real exchange.

stats.nba.com
I download the stats to compile defensive box scores but the individual stats are all available if you put in the effort to use them.

I use muse and eyeballs. I will compare and see.

[kodo]

Vooch has never been a shot blocker, but I thought we had a much bigger issue at the point of attack. Guys kept getting blown by with little resistance, constantly putting Vooch in a terrible situation as the last line of defense.
...

But Vuc isn't used as our last line of defense? On most teams that's the center but that's not how we play D. The rim protector is the weakside guard, and we leave the weakside corner undefended. Vuc generally just stays on his man and doesn't help D.

1Q score at the basket from Wizards, Corey Kispert blows by Coby White (probably an issue by itself there). Vuc doesn't rotate to the rim and Matas doesn't rotate to Vuc's man, instead we pull the weakside guard (Giddey in this case) to try and block the shot.


Other possession where the rim protection is Coby:


Another one where it's AYo.


This defense will never be a better than average D because the system:
- has the ballhandler defended by the center, Vuc most of the time
- assuming the ball gets past the center (which will be most of the time), the rim protection is a guard
- it leaves the weakside corner 3 wide open, which is probably the highest yield shot in all of basketball