Pack-line and Pack-line-like Defenses

[jwp91]

So the baseline Georgetown offense in the half-court is predicated on movement and cuts. It is beautiful when executed against an over-aggressive man on man defense. See the Duke home win from several years ago.

Defense, however, seems to be evolving. More and more teams employ a pack-line man-on-man defense or a zone that employs similar principles like the 1-3-1 that Xavier used against us in the Big East tournament. Both approaches make driving inside exceptionally difficult.

Historically, we have struggled greatly with teams that hold or bump our cutters, especially when we cannot hit the outside shot. These clog-the-middle defenses seem to facilitate that holding and bumping that knock off us our game. Think Pitt. Think Butler in the past. Think Xavier. Those back door passes just aren't there like they used to be. It is too crowded.

If the drift of defense is moving against us, does the Georgetown offense need to evolve? If so, how?

Of course, making outside shots always helps. That is sometimes easier said than done, and even when you recruit sharpshooters like Domingo and Cameron, who is to say the shots will fall?

I would be interested in your thoughts.

[aleutianhoya]

Mar 25, 2015 14:25:12 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

So the baseline Georgetown offense in the half-court is predicated on movement and cuts. It is beautiful when executed against an over-aggressive man on man defense. See the Duke home win from several years ago.

Defense, however, seems to be evolving. More and more teams employ a pack-line man-on-man defense or a zone that employs similar principles like the 1-3-1 that Xavier used against us in the Big East tournament. Both approaches make driving inside exceptionally difficult.

Historically, we have struggled greatly with teams that hold or bump our cutters, especially when we cannot hit the outside shot. These clog-the-middle defenses seem to facilitate that holding and bumping that knock off us our game. Think Pitt. Think Butler in the past. Think Xavier. Those back door passes just aren't there like they used to be. It is too crowded.

If the drift of defense is moving against us, does the Georgetown offense need to evolve? If so, how?

Of course, making outside shots always helps. That is sometimes easier said than done, and even when you recruit sharpshooters like Domingo and Cameron, who is to say the shots will fall?

I would be interested in your thoughts.

First, what we do against a zone (be it the Syracuse 2-3, the Creighton 3-2, the Xavier 1-3-1, or even that John Beilein half-court 1-3-1) has nothing at all to do with backcourt cuts, the "Princeton" offense, the "Princetown" offense, or any such thing. We run zone offense -- like every other team. Sure, Coach has his own zone offense principles (we don't screen the ball against the zone very much, whereas say a Tom Crean screens the ball constantly), and sure, sometimes the execution isn't terrific. But I don't think anything fundamentally needs to change. People moan about our zone offense a lot, but we've had an awful lot of recent success against good Syracuse teams that run a zone as well as anyone.

Against a man? If Govan can really hit a 15 foot jump shot and is otherwise ready to play (or if we go small with Ike), I think you'll see the offense hum a lot more next year. A lot of the clogged lanes is not so much "packline" principles as it is "we don't need to guard Hopkins outside of two feet and even then we don't even need to guard him" principles. So, hopefully, we'll see next year.

But I suppose at root I disagree with your premise, which is that the offense hasn't or won't evolve. We've gone to the low post a ton when we have guys there that can do damage, for example. If we don't really have that next year, you'll see a lot more of five-out type sets with cutting through a vacant lane.

And perhaps most to the point: packline defenses were certainly en vogue two years ago when we got a 2 seed in the tournament. And even this year -- with fives that couldn't operate outside of five feet -- we earned a four seed. It's not like we're foundering.

Finally, I think your point about sharpshooters is an important one. The game is just so much easier when there's a guy on the court that hits 40% (or more) of his threes and the defense can't leave him. It's so much easier to get a guy that can shoot semi-contested jumpers well an open look than it is to do virtually anything else on the court. So, any offense -- including ours -- would be so much better with that guy out there. We haven't been able to find him.

[b52legend]

I think the key is to just have 5 guys on the floor who are a legitimate threat to score the ball. Lubick was an absolute killer in that regard. To a lesser extent, same with Hopkins. Teams figured out he couldn't finish (he could be stripped or successfully challenged at the rim, and teams would take their chances with him at the line). In these cases you are basically playing 4 on 5 and defenses are simply too sophisticated and smart these days for that to consistently work.

[jwp91]

Mar 25, 2015 14:38:06 GMT -5 aleutianhoya said:

Mar 25, 2015 14:25:12 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

So the baseline Georgetown offense in the half-court is predicated on movement and cuts. It is beautiful when executed against an over-aggressive man on man defense. See the Duke home win from several years ago.

Defense, however, seems to be evolving. More and more teams employ a pack-line man-on-man defense or a zone that employs similar principles like the 1-3-1 that Xavier used against us in the Big East tournament. Both approaches make driving inside exceptionally difficult.

Historically, we have struggled greatly with teams that hold or bump our cutters, especially when we cannot hit the outside shot. These clog-the-middle defenses seem to facilitate that holding and bumping that knock off us our game. Think Pitt. Think Butler in the past. Think Xavier. Those back door passes just aren't there like they used to be. It is too crowded.

If the drift of defense is moving against us, does the Georgetown offense need to evolve? If so, how?

Of course, making outside shots always helps. That is sometimes easier said than done, and even when you recruit sharpshooters like Domingo and Cameron, who is to say the shots will fall?

I would be interested in your thoughts.

But I suppose at root I disagree with your premise, which is that the offense hasn't or won't evolve. We've gone to the low post a ton when we have guys there that can do damage, for example. If we don't really have that next year, you'll see a lot more of five-out type sets with cutting through a vacant lane.

I don't think that is my premise. Does the offense need to continue to evolve and how?

[aleutianhoya]

Mar 25, 2015 16:11:55 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

Mar 25, 2015 14:38:06 GMT -5 aleutianhoya said:

But I suppose at root I disagree with your premise, which is that the offense hasn't or won't evolve. We've gone to the low post a ton when we have guys there that can do damage, for example. If we don't really have that next year, you'll see a lot more of five-out type sets with cutting through a vacant lane.

I don't think that is my premise. Does the offense need to continue to evolve and how?

No, at least not based on any defensive counter-punch. It needs to evolve next year in the same way it's evolved continually in the last four-five years -- taking advantage of our offensive strengths. I can't tell you how because I don't yet know what those will be. If you tell me that Govan is going to come right in and be able to handle the ball at the pinch post or high post and, more importantly, will be able to shoot from there and pass from there, then I'll tell you that we may well see a very traditional Princeton offense with effectively five men outside of the paint for long stretches running motion. I think it's also possible you'll see Isaac playing that position, particularly if he grows a bit more in either height or weight. Either way, I think our offense would be very effective -- more effective than this year.

If you tell me that neither Govan nor Ike can really do that and we have Brad playing meaningful minutes at the five, I think you'll see a lot of screen-rolling options with Brad, with the hope being that he can use some dive cuts to get easy baskets. Using him as a screener is probably the best way to minimize his weaknesses in any offense. It would be somewhat similar to how we've used Mikael. That is, use him to get other guys open, and when he handles the ball, have it be primarily away from the basket so there's at least a chance his man gets somewhat away from the hoop.

I would love for Ike to be able to develop a bit of a post-game, even if it's really just collecting a pass in the low post and immediately facing the basket instead of playing with his back to it. He ought to be able to use a jab step to create space and hit little jumpers. Or explode by his man to the hoop from a short distance. I suspect you'll see us use Ike a bit in that way, assuming his skills can develop.

As I've said on other strings, the one major change I'd like to see is to every once in a while, particularly in situations where the defense is bottling him up, run DSR off some double screens for catch-and-shoot opportunities.

But a lot of this is dependent on what guys can do early next year, and that's just not predictable in any meaningful way outside of DSR.

[gutuna]

Defenses are evolving this way because the rule changes combined with poor referee training make it very difficult to guard competent players one-on-one. The NBA allows for verticality in defense, as well as allowing a defensive player to move parallel to an offensive player's motion. In college, those turn into fouls. I do not like seeing it. But reality.

As said above, the way to get past this is have five guys that can shoot. Especially in the 1-3 slots. Next year we should have this. Once you can make wide open shots, those lines can no longer remain packed.