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Stephen Noh made a short defense quiz. I thought it would be interesting to see our board's distribution

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/io6viq/take_the_nba_defense_quiz_how_well_did_you_do/

I got 9/10 and I disagree with the one I got wrong lol. Be honest!

Saw this on twitter, wanted to do it but forgot it. Thanks for reminding me!

Update: Finished 8/10, disagreed with the same play you did.

that test was humbling... (laugh...sigh...cry a little...)

Aced it, mother truckers.

9/10. I got one answer partially right because I jumped the gun before reading all the choices

I got a 10/10, but it's not really fair since I made the answer key.

7/10

The questions I got wrong were egregious. The question maker should've done better, but there's no shame in losing.

9/10

I got 9/10 and also don't know that I agree with the one I missed, but there were a few I could have gone either way on.

The thing that stood out to me was not how many points I was able to get but that I had to watch each play 3-4x in order to figure it out. It makes you realize that in real time watching a game, you probably aren't really gauging the defense super well when there is a screw up.

Obviously, these questions were put in to be not entirely clear, and there are very clear blown assignments defensively, but often it isn't easy to tell what happens on defense without reviewing game film later.

dougthonus wrote:The thing that stood out to me was not how many points I was able to get but that I had to watch each play 3-4x in order to figure it out. It makes you realize that in real time watching a game, you probably aren't really gauging the defense super well when there is a screw up.

This is so true and it's definitely something I want to get better at. There are so many things happening at the same time on every single possession on both offense and defense, it's almost impossible to see it all while watching it live. What helped to improve my eye for "the little things" is closely re-watching a game, or parts of it, and focus on one aspect of the game (PnR defense, for example). It's really impressive how much you can get out of it, especially when you watch what good teams do, how they respond to specific situations, to superstar players etc. This is a lot of fun to me, but man, it's really hard and time-consuming.

Little Nathan wrote:

dougthonus wrote:The thing that stood out to me was not how many points I was able to get but that I had to watch each play 3-4x in order to figure it out. It makes you realize that in real time watching a game, you probably aren't really gauging the defense super well when there is a screw up.

This is so true and it's definitely something I want to get better at. There are so many things happening at the same time on every single possession on both offense and defense, it's almost impossible to see it all while watching it live. What helped to improve my eye for "the little things" is closely re-watching a game, or parts of it, and focus on one aspect of the game (PnR defense, for example). It's really impressive how much you can get out of it, especially when you watch what good teams do, how they respond to specific situations, to superstar players etc. This is a lot of fun to me, but man, it's really hard and time-consuming.

When I was really into my blog and podcast, I would rewatch most games the next day to try and pick up on these things, but now I haven't really done so. Maybe this year I'll do it again since I have transformed to full time remote and save 2.5 hours a day on commuting.

9/10 but I don’t know about the first one.

What I liked about the quiz was that it emphasized what truly defines good defensive players.

I read all the time that this college kid has a long wingspan and is fast and can jump high so he should be an elite NBA defender. Lack of a few inches on wingspan isn't what breaks NBA defenses, it's things like what's happening on this quiz, players not reading the rotation quickly, even by a fraction of a second.

Tyrus has a immense wingspan and unreal hops, it all didn't matter and he couldn't even guard Big Baby in the playoffs because he was perennially out of position. 2" of wingspan doesn't make up for being 10' out of position.

Hey guys, part 2 of the quiz is out today. Glad people seemed to enjoy the first one.

https://stephennoh.github.io/nbadefensetrappingquiz/

-Stephen

got 7/10 on part 1. Like Doug I had to watch each 2-3x. Watching live and giving feedback to players seems like it would be nearly impossible.

It's hard for everybody. I talk to NBA coaches right after the game, and they will oftentimes readily admit that they have to look at the film before they can make definitive conclusions about what went wrong.

A good example of this is when Boylen called LaVine out for his "three egregious defensive errors" and pulled him early in the game. In the heat of the moment, Boylen thought he was right. Going back and looking at the film, the errors were not bad at all. These are the "errors" that Boylen was going nuts over

8/10. on that last one i thought that kemba's recognition speed was perfectly appropriate. it was a broken play and he got out to the top of the key as quickly as could reasonably be expected. as such, i chose the 'play was defended well' option

the other one i missed was the 7th or 8th one, where the guard defender on the baseline was somehow expected to switch and defend an open porzingas at the top of the key

dougthonus wrote:I got 9/10 and also don't know that I agree with the one I missed, but there were a few I could have gone either way on.

The thing that stood out to me was not how many points I was able to get but that I had to watch each play 3-4x in order to figure it out. It makes you realize that in real time watching a game, you probably aren't really gauging the defense super well when there is a screw up.

Obviously, these questions were put in to be not entirely clear, and there are very clear blown assignments defensively, but often it isn't easy to tell what happens on defense without reviewing game film later.

10/10, by running through each clip once and then replaying in stop-start mode to find the decisive moment in still images. I trusted the assumption that all the teams should follow same basic rules, such as not helping off the short corner, and clearly the test-maker thinks so. My preference would take into consideration who the corner shooters are, but that might be too difficult to implement, and certainly won't work in a test. I shudder to think what running through Bulls game film from last season would find based on these rules. Early on in the season, the common answer might have been "all 3 defenders screwed up".

Looking through the clips this way you notice a lot of other interesting details. For example in the first clip, Siakam makes his baseline cut several feet outside the court before curling back in, even running behind the baseline ref. This is illegal (intentionally leaving the court to gain an advantage) and wasn't called. Such fringe action isn't something I'd notice live on TV, so I wonder how common or planned it is.

on redick's pod with kevin durant they talked about this very test and about who in the media is right or wrong, the perception of defense etc etc

1....this guy who posed the quiz was wrong on 5 of the 10 questions. so i guess that means if you got them all right you'e half wrong . and now the guy is probably going to be perceived as some kind of guru

2...that there's a disconnect about who the media votes as a 1st team defender and who the players think are the best defenders. iggy, lillard, redick and kd think jrue is the best guard defender

I think there were multiple correct answers for a lot of the ?s in the first quiz.

The point of attack defense was pretty bad on a lot of the plays in quiz 1, but I was trying to teach help defense concepts and didn't spend a whole lot of time finding the perfect clip to illustrate that. I also didn't think the quiz would blow up like it did, and it wasn't really a finished product when it went viral. It was a practice project to learn coding more than anything else.

The second quiz is a lot better. I got a college coach to do the questions.

-Stephen