How can we measure defensive capability? Are "points allowed" numbers enough to measure it? Despite the fact that these numbers can tell us lots of things about defensive capability, it's still not enough. Say, Team X allows 60 points per game while Team Y allows 70 points per game.Yet, Team Y still could be better defensive team than Team X. If Team Y scored 100 points and Team X scored 70 points per game, then Team Y has better margin between Points Allowed and Points Scored than Team X. Now, here comes the one of the greatest devices of the modern statistics, possession. Don't worry,I won't say that I've just adjusted these numbers with possessions. Even though it's also a good approach to understand defensive capability, it's not enough too. Also, you can find these numbers in any site, no need for me to analyze it. How about some defensive statistics like steal,block or defensive rebound? Likewise,they aren't enough to understand defensive capability by themselves.
We just need to combine all defensive inputs to measure defensive capability. But again, they are different stats from each other, it won't be easy to combine them all. Thus, we need to bring them together to one,common base. I chose to value every defensive act with points. Let me explain. If a team didn't allow its opponent to score a three-pointer,that team deserves +3 points for its defensive effort. Let's say they stole the ball. Then, they would stopped their opponent to organize an offense. Yet, it is still difficult to assign any point to this effort. So let's think backward, if the team didn't steal the ball , opponent would attack as they attacked normally in the game. It means they would attack with their average field goal percentage in the game. Yet, would they go for three-pointer or send the ball to the rim for two-pointer ? It will be decided by their field goal tendency rate[1]. So if we multiplied opponent's field goal tendency rate for that particular game with opponent's average field goal rate -again,for that particular game- we could estimate that how many points the opponent can get from a standard offense. Let's assume that Team Y attacks with standard mean of 2,5 points. If Team X can steal the ball from Team Y, then they will be awarded with +2,5 points for their defensive effort. I applied same logic to every other defensive act.Thereby, carrying all the defensive inputs to the same base became possible. I made the analysis for every season since 2000-01. In this part, I'll show some some statistics from last season. Here are the best four defensive teams of 2011-12 Season.
Coincidentally -or is it?-, Final Four teams were the best defenders last season. It surprised everyone that Olympiacos won the championship, yet they were in fact one of the best defensive teams last season. Sure, it surprised everyone that they beat Barcelona and CSKA Moscow who look unbeatable -especially CSKA with AK47-. On the other hand, they were pretty good on the defensive side of the game. Let's look at how they improve their defensive rates.
Even though Olympiacos didn't start the season in a great shape, after Top 16 phase they speeded up their defense. It should have helped them to reach their dreams. It was kind of a fairy tale what they did in the Istanbul,indeed. However, it wasn't surprising at all that they reached to Final Four. Now, let's look at the worst four defensive teams.
Three of the teams above eliminated in the group phase. As for the only team didn't, which was Zalgiris Kaunas, they couldn't reach the playoffs. It's not sane to say defense is the only key to succeed. Yet, it's obvious that it's a huge part of it. If you could be a solid defensive team, chances for you to achieve something in the Euroleague become higher.
In the second part, I'm going to show the best defensive teams in the Euroleague history.
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[1] Field Goal Tendency Rate is used to define teams' tendency to choose 3-pointers or 2-pointers. If a team use 3-pointers more often, then their potential score in one possession would be higher. Because if they made the shoot,then they will get 3 points for a possession instead of 2 points. However, probably they would shoot with lower field goal percentage,so their potential score for one possession will multiplied with lower number. If you don't have couple of snipers, then going for lot's of 3-pointer would most probably hurt your points of standart mean for a possession.
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