Quietly, the Lone Ranger has now come to the fifth place in the West, the whole team is full of joyful atmosphere, if there is no accident, this wave of playoffs with a handle, more importantly, this year's first round of the high probability can change an opponent, a change of luck.
But in other ways, you can't ask for too much, for example, you can't ask Doncic to return to the MVP probability list given by the data website BBR now, the MVP candidate who was most favored by the gambling house owners before the season, in addition to the body management and dunk for the basket talent performance, did not receive much attention, the good news is that he is still self-aware, did not force 450 pounds of meat into the team when the team's legendary center retired jersey.
I mean, the Lone Ranger has only lost 3 of their last 15 games, tied for the league's first-place record with the Grizzlies, and won against strong teams like the Bulls, Grizzlies and Warriors, which can't be said to take advantage of too much schedule and more neat personnel.
Doncic has been involved in 11 of them since his return from the new crown on January 2, and his personal output is 25.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 9.2 assists, the difference between the three major statistics and the season average performance is not very large, 42% shooting percentage and 21.5% three-point shooting rate are even seriously declining. Needless to say, Doncic is the Lone Ranger's Optimus Prime, the most direct evidence, he missed the 15 games the team only won 5 games, but the Lone Ranger from the season in addition to that win rate will rise 50% of the team to a team of more than 50% of the winning rate of 7 games, you can hardly give all the praise to Doncic, Doncic is very stable, and even a little want to pass a banana ball, but he is not Jokic after the injury of Murray in the second half of last year to today, Teacher Jokic is a seahorse on the field, when the father is a mother, So far this season, Doncic has not come close to this level.
The way to observe the rise of the Lone Ranger, of course, is to defend. You don't have to analyze, just listen to the Lone Ranger's latest post-game interviews, and the word "defense" is absolutely impossible to miss. Ending the Bulls' nine-game winning streak, Doncic said the team "can compete with any opponent because we really have it defensively"; ending the Grizzlies' 11-game winning streak, Bullock said "We're always focused on the defensive end, and we know that this kind of defense helps us win a lot of these games"; by the last time he beat the Grizzlies again, Kidd was no longer satisfied with saying something about defense, and he started to laugh at the team's main player: "Doncic asked me to say that he was great defensively. ”
After Dong Ge's gun was lowered, Kidd said, "As a whole, our defensive level is very high. ”
How high? Defensive efficiency is 4th high in the league.
The problem is that the Lone Ranger's defensive level is not as consistent as the current league defensive top three Warriors, Suns, and Cavaliers, who have had a very conspicuous turn.
At the start of the season, Mavericks general manager Nick Harrison said: "After 20 games we will know the quality of this team. ”
Before December 1, the Lone Ranger played 19 games, 15th in the league in offensive efficiency, 9th in defensive efficiency, and 10 wins and 9 losses.
After December 1, the Lone Rangers played 28 games, during which their offensive efficiency fell to 21st, but the defensive efficiency soared to the 1st place in the league, and the net win score also reached the 4th place in the league.
And the most interesting thing about the Lone Rangers' defensive first is that they are the third-to-last in the league in steals per game, and the average block per game is the first in the league, compared with the Grizzlies, who are the second most defensive in the league during this period, are the 1st in the league, the Warriors are third in defense, the 2nd in steals, and the 8th in blocks. Some other major stats, the Lone Ranger's defensive secondary offense scores, midstream, penalty area defense, are also midstream.
Almost all the surface data related to defense is midstream, block steals two or even only the bottom level, and finally defensive efficiency league first?
So how did they do it?
One of the most core aspects of the Lone Ranger's defensive strategy is "contraction + defense". Then there are some specifications on the details, such as not allowing the ball carrier to take the middle road when the defensive sideline is blocked, trying not to change the defense, the big man forms a barrier to the ball carrier's attack frame route, the small man chases to form a bag clip, and the rest shrinks to protect the paint area; the arc top block demolition defensive assistant focuses on assisting the player after the cover is rolled; after the opponent begins to transfer the ball to the weak side of the outside line, perform a cross rotation outside, the player closest to the ball owner must expand out unconditionally, and the second closest person looks for the second point of the weak side to choose to continue to expand.
You can see that the Lone Ranger tried a defensive strategy that was both inside and outside, one of them did not like to use joint defense to empty three-pointers, only 59 joint defenses were placed in the 5015 defensive rounds of the whole season, and second, they did not like to relax the pressure on the outside line, this kind of double quasi-bag clip on the strong side of the three-point arc almost all over the three-point arc, coupled with the crazy expansion of the weak side, making the Lone Ranger the best team in the league to control the three-point shooting effect, the opponent only shot 33.2 three-pointers per hundred rounds, the league's fifth lowest, shooting rate of 33.6%, The 6th low, can be described as pressure quality and pressure.
Suppressing the three-point shot in place has obviously taken a big advantage in this era, and the lone ranger has performed mediocre in terms of basket protection, but due to the existence of the shrinking strategy, it will not drag down the overall defense too much. Another obvious defensive weakness lies in the crossover of the weak side, the opponent successfully transferred the ball after the empty opportunity, the lone ranger can not be defended in place, which can be said to be the lone ranger strategy must be abandoned part, belongs to the category of "defense can not be comprehensive".
The Lone Ranger has its own reason for implementing such a strategy, they want to put the best two players Doncic and Porzingis on the court, they have to bear the disadvantage of the relatively slow traverse speed of the two of them, Brunson looks positive, but the contribution on the defensive end is actually very limited in height, the team's real defensive elite level of players is Finney Smith, but the latter usually need to spend the vast majority of energy to take care of the key players opposite, functionally similar to the Suns Bridges and the Nuggets Gordon, The other player who has a fairly high contribution on the defensive end is Kleber, who is specifically used to use platinum, before the Lone Ranger used to use Powell, but Powell after the big injury is really a bit of a nightmare, the offensive end of the threat of Kleber will obviously be a better choice, two inside line plus Doncic, the Lone Ranger is one of the best teams in the league to protect rebounds, which also reduces the pressure to face the opponent's second offense.
After the personnel matching, we fixed our eyes on it, and it was not much different from last season. 3.5 of the 5 players on the court can't be said to be bad, and you can't lick your face and say they're good, for example, after the recent win, Finney Smith said that Doncic's defense is better than people think, if you think about this in terms of people's imagination of an ordinary fat man, you can't say that The electric fan's remarks are real praise. It can only be said that all these people are pinched together to perfectly execute the team's established defensive strategy, and such a defensive strategy is also suitable for everyone to play on the defensive end, cover up weaknesses, the simplest, if your strategy is to infinitely change defenses and take care of each vacancy without executing the auxiliary defense, the Lone Ranger lineup will only be exploded inside and out.
In other words, the real sense of collective defense performed by the Lone Ranger, Kidd said very clearly when he first came, we used to be an offensive team, but there were always times when the offense was inaccurate, but once the defensive system and defensive habits were built, they would be more reliable and stable than the offense.
Some friends like to say "defense depends on effort", hard work is of course to work hard, part-time work does not work hard how to make a lot of money, but defense can not rely on effort alone, and attack the same, defense should also pay attention to strategy, pay attention to details. Just like the Lone Ranger's strategy talks about "contraction", there are more teams shrinking in the whole league, and when you look at the Lakers' defense, the defenders often shrink to the basket, has the defense gotten better?
As soon as Kidd arrived at the Lone Ranger, he drew a gray semicircle on the training ground centered on the hoop and with a radius of 16 feet, and 16 feet was the distance from the free throw line to the rim, which basically included the paint area and the elbow area. Kidd asked all players to have it, pay attention to the contraction to step on this gray semicircle, not too deep, otherwise it can not be extended to the weak side in time, nor too shallow, otherwise it cannot protect the frame. The gray semicircle that audiences don't see in actual combat is the detail of the Lone Ranger's defense and the secret of their success on the other end of the field today.
Now, how good the Lone Ranger defense is, why it's so good, we've all said almost the same, leaving only one last question:
Why did they make such a big shift around december 1st?
When Harrison, the general manager of the Lone Rangers, first took office, in addition to making a prediction of "looking at the strength after 20 games", he also mentioned the new coach Kidd and said: "We are buddies." We can challenge each other. We have a different division of labor, he is the coach, I serve him, find him better players, more suitable players, and the players he needs. ”
After 10 wins and 9 losses, Kidd's challenge came as expected: "This is a team built on offense, not defense. ”
You don't know Kidd of the past, you just think he developed the alphabet, but you don't know how he publicly challenged management and players when he was in the Bucks and at the Nets. When I heard Kidd say this publicly on December 1st, the first reaction was that it was over, and the old boy began to divide the pot again, "My defensive strategy and training methods are correct, the team's defense is 9th from the bottom because the management gives me these people. ”
So it's hard to explain, after December 1, the Lone Ranger's defense suddenly began to sink and soar, like pressing a magic switch, you can say that this is the chemical reaction, there is strategy, there is execution, there is hard work, and there is a positive incentive to win, so the cycle is naturally getting better and better.
Perhaps, before something good really happens, you don't know which combination will lead to the ultimate success, and you always need time to try, but before you can really see the results, the biggest enemy of these attempts is always doubt, suspicion is maddening, suspicion makes people turn around, suspicion makes people step on the brakes, doubts make it difficult to persevere, otherwise you think that Kidd's gray circle was brought back from which defensive master?