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<\/p>\nThe Nigerian national men\u2019s basketball team was not a juggernaut. So its head coach, Mike Brown, reached out of his comfort zone and halfway across the world, scavenging for hidden advantages.<\/p>\n
A colleague with the Golden State Warriors, where Brown worked at the time, knew Paul Henare, who was head coach of New Zealand\u2019s national team from 2015 to 2019. If Nigeria wasn\u2019t a powerhouse, then New Zealand basketball was a home constructed with cardboard boxes. This was no breeding ground for NBA stars. Thus, New Zealand had to scrap. And in one particular way, the situation\u00a0signaled a change in the sport.<\/p>\n
Brown wanted to learn how an offensive rebounding strategy, one that went against basketball\u2019s norms, had become so successful. Henare\u2019s group with New Zealand was ultra-aggressive on the glass. For years, NBA teams had steered away from crashing too many players to recover their own missed shots. The logic went like this: If a player chased a potential offensive rebound, then he would be running in the opposite direction he would go if he were getting back transition. This would allow the opponent to rush the ball up the court quicker, leading to more fast breaks and more open shots.<\/p>\n
For years, NBA teams made a choice: Either go for offensive boards or favor transition defense. By the 2010s, just about every organization had chosen the latter strategy.<\/p>\n
This is why Henare stood out.<\/p>\n
Not only did his teams maul the offensive glass, sending all five guys to the paint when the shot went up, but they also weren\u2019t allowing easy buckets on the other end. So, leading into the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Brown set up a video call with Henare. He wanted to learn about the strategy referred to as \u201ctagging up,\u201d in which everyone crashes the offensive boards, though not recklessly. There are fundamentals behind tagging up, as Henare explained to Brown.<\/p>\n
When players crash, they aren\u2019t golden retrievers playing fetch. Instead, they approach defenders at specific areas of the floor, meeting from behind, pinning those defenders into wherever they\u2019re planted and blocking their pathways to leak out in transition or to retrieve long rebounds, which have grown more common with the popularity of the 3-pointer.<\/p>\n
The opposite effect held true, too. The more crashers there were, the more defenders had to stay back to box them out. Here is an example from a recent Cleveland Cavaliers-Golden State Warriors game:<\/p>\n
Henare showed clips of what tagging up looks like when it\u2019s executed best. Brown asked questions. Henare answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do remember Coach Brown being intrigued,\u201d Henare said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like he was taking this call just to ask a couple of questions. Like, no, no, he\u2019s legit interested in this.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t the only one.<\/p>\n
After a long video chat, Brown implemented some of those strategies into the Nigerian team, though his group never waded into the riskiest waters, crashing all five players. He continued to teach tagging-inspired rebounding after becoming head coach of the Sacramento Kings. Now leading the New York Knicks, he has zeroed in on offensive rebounding.<\/p>\n
Succeeding on the boards is the first step to winning the possession game. And never before have NBA coaches obsessed over the possession game like they do today.<\/p>\n
For example, Brown\u2019s Knicks are one of the league\u2019s top two-way rebounding groups this season, able to gobble up misses after all types of clanks. The Knicks create 4.6 more scoring chances per game than their opponents receive (let\u2019s call these \u201cnet chances\u201d), the most in the NBA, according to Second Spectrum. No other team averages more than four, though that\u2019s not for lack of trying. Think about it like this: Based on how many points the Knicks average, an advantage of 4.6 scoring chances spots them 5.6 points. That can be the difference between a win and a loss.<\/p>\n
Because of numbers like that, which also take turnovers into account, offensive rebounding \u2014 not just in New York but everywhere \u2014 is booming.<\/p>\n
In 2020-21, only one team offensive rebounded more than 30 percent of its own misses. The next season, five teams crested that number. As of Monday, 20 were doing it. Two more teetered just below.<\/p>\n
The NBA\u2019s approach to offensive rebounding has flipped seemingly overnight. Organizations are using G League teams as guinea pigs. For example, the Knicks\u2019 affiliate has been sending four players to the offensive glass this season. And it\u2019s not just that these teams are crashing with verve; it\u2019s how they\u2019re going about it.<\/p>\n
To Henare \u2014 and to the others who teach these concepts, which now includes a slew of NBA coaches, such as the Memphis Grizzlies\u2019 Tuomas Iisalo, the Boston Celtics\u2019 Joe Mazzulla, the Houston Rockets\u2019 Ime Udoka, the Phoenix Suns\u2019 Jordan Ott, the Cavaliers\u2019 Kenny Atkinson, the Toronto Raptors\u2019 Darko Rajakovi\u0107 and more \u2014 this is not chaos. It is a science.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Mike Brown\u2019s Knicks have been a big proponent of crashing the offensive glass. (Al Bello \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The stripped-down Celtics were not supposed to get better offensively. With Jayson Tatum hurt, Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is, Jrue Holiday and Al Horford gone and many of their splashiest shooters showing up with frozen jumpers, an explosion was not on the table.<\/p>\n
This is why Boston plays the way it does. The Celtics have experimented with offensive rebounds for years. And now, they\u2019re better at it than ever.<\/p>\n
Boston is the rare team that doesn\u2019t shoot well but still scores often. The Celtics average 122.0 points per 100 possessions, second in the NBA heading into Monday\u2019s action. They make up for too many jangled shots in a few ways.<\/p>\n
First, they lift for an onslaught of 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
Second, they turn the ball over less than anyone.<\/p>\n
And third, a scrappy group devoid of conventional rebounders (which shows on the defensive side) is devouring offensive boards. The Celtics entered Monday seventh in offensive rebound rate. And before you ask, \u2018What depraved Boston homer could have seen this coming?\u2019 \u2014 the answer is Mazzulla.<\/p>\n
The science of crashing has haunted the Celtics\u2019 coach for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just another way to help control the shot margin,\u201d Mazzulla said.<\/p>\n
In July 2021, when Mazzulla was an assistant for then-head coach Udoka, the Celtics used their summer-league team to experiment with crashing three players per shot attempt, generally considered a no-no at the time. They liked what they saw. A year later, with Mazzulla stepping in as interim head coach, they took their trials to another level, deploying aggressive crashing strategies with their G League affiliate, the Maine Celtics.<\/p>\n
Maine went even more radical than the summer Celtics did, routinely crashing four guys for offensive rebounds, a strategy the squad\u2019s head coach, Alex Barlow, was hesitant to implement at first. With encouragement from a member of the Celtics\u2019 analytics department, Drew Cannon, as well as from his coaching analytics-focused assistant in the G League, Alex Merg, he changed his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur whole philosophy was, let\u2019s send everybody and let\u2019s see how it works,\u201d Barlow said. \u201cLet\u2019s see if the trade-off is a net positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The outcome was decisive.<\/p>\n
Maine won rebounding battle after rebounding battle, creating extra shooting chances more nights than not, all while its transition defense remained in the top half of the league. The team wasn\u2019t tagging up, the strategy where it pins those opponents from behind, but a stampede of crashers meant the enemy couldn\u2019t scamper in the opposite direction. Doing so would increase the chances of another offensive rebound.<\/p>\n
Now, Merg runs coaching analytics for the NBA Celtics. And the team is succeeding with its own version of glass gluttony.<\/p>\n
The Celtics crash the offensive boards with at least three players on 19.1 percent of their shots, the league\u2019s third-highest frequency, according to Second Spectrum. They are sixth in the NBA in net chances created, which also factors in their stingy ball security.<\/p>\n
Boston will tag up properly, though not with all five guys.<\/p>\n
The old-school approach to offensive rebounding was for perimeter players to sneak across the baseline and hope to leap in front of opponents for loose balls. But the game has changed. Because 3-pointers are so prevalent, the rock often hits the cylinder with more velocity, which leads to more long rebounds.<\/p>\n
This is where tagging up comes into play.<\/p>\n
In theory, and if done properly, pinning a defender into place doesn\u2019t just stop him from darting the other way in transition. It also gives a perimeter player time to slither in for a rebound that bounced beyond the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe misnomer of offensive rebounding negatively impacting transition defense, I think the data has caught up \u2026 where there isn\u2019t a significant difference whether you crash two, three or four and the transition rate or the points per possession based on that,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cAnd so, I think that with all the analytics and the data going on, you\u2019re seeing that there actually could be a positive correlation to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen in on a pregame coaching meeting, and offensive boards are a common topic.<\/p>\n
Earlier this season, the Celtics bashed the Cavaliers, another team focused on winning the possession game. The fight on the glass became the main focus of Atkinson, who warned his crew at morning shootaround that Boston prioritized similar parts of the game that Cleveland did. The players drilled the ways that the Celtics crashed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did everything but fly a plane over with \u2014 what do you call those things? The banners? That\u2019s the only thing we didn\u2019t do,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cWe gotta win the possession game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Celtics snagged a dominant 18 offensive rebounds that night and won by 20.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers got out-crashed, which is rare, even if they\u2019re not one of the league\u2019s elite offensive-rebounding squads, mostly because of their personnel.<\/p>\n
No one crashes more than the Cavs or their offspring. The Cavaliers send at least three crashers to the glass on 27.4 percent of their shots, tops in the league, according to Second Spectrum. The only franchise that\u2019s close is the Suns (26.7 percent), whose head coach, Ott, was an assistant in Cleveland until last season. Phoenix and Cleveland are second and third, respectively, in net chances created, one reason why the Suns, especially, have outplayed expectations thus far.<\/p>\n
No NBA squad \u201ctags up\u201d in its most extreme fashion. Technically, \u201ctagging up\u201d requires sending all five players to the paint. But coaches are repurposing elements of the philosophy.<\/p>\n
Many teams tag only on 3-pointers, not on 2s, since the longer shot means the longer rebound and a chance for a feisty guard to chase down a board that looks more like a loose ball, the type of moment that particularly irks Rockets center Steven Adams, one of history\u2019s greatest rebounders.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get your guy. You\u2019re freakin\u2019 good,\u201d Adams said. \u201cYou feel like you have it, and then a f\u2014\u2014 guard just full jump comes and takes it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, neither Adams nor his Rockets are victims of the NBA\u2019s rebounding revolution.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Steven Adams, who is from New Zealand but has never played for the Tall Blacks, is one of the NBA\u2019s best rebounders. (Kenneth Richmond \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The following is an unreasonable claim: The best offensive rebounding team of its era should be better at offensive rebounding.<\/p>\n
Yes, the Rockets overflow with size and also employ Adams, another New Zealand native whose identity is intertwined with the offensive boards.<\/p>\n
Kiwis are somehow all over NBA\u2019s offensive rebounding revolution, and not even on purpose. Henare drew inspiration for tagging up from a coach in the Australian league, Aaron Fearne, who later coached New Zealand\u2019s under-19 squad. Ross McMains, an assistant with New Zealand\u2019s national team, now holds the same position with the Celtics. And then there\u2019s Adams, a long-haired, unmovable 7-footer who doesn\u2019t play for his country\u2019s national team, didn\u2019t know about its bold approach to the glass until asked about it for this article, and yet looks as comfortable down low as Aquaman does at sea.<\/p>\n
As of Monday, Houston had recovered 40.8 percent of its own missed shots, a rate that would annihilate the previous single-season record, which dates back to 1996, when the NBA began compiling reliable play-by-play data.<\/p>\n
But the Rockets should be even better \u2014 so says Udoka.<\/p>\n
Houston is overflowing with size, regularly leaning on lineups where the shrimp is 6-foot-7 Amen Thompson, who lives for physicality. A bunch of pseudo 7-footers surround him. And Udoka has encouraged the group to crash the offensive glass even more than it has.<\/p>\n
The Rockets crash at least three players on only 15.2 percent of their possessions, eighth in the NBA, according to Second Spectrum, though they are heading in the direction Udoka prefers. Only a couple of weeks ago, their internal metrics placed them in the middle of the pack in that statistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see the numbers and how it impacts us,\u201d Udoka said. \u201cAlthough we are getting a good amount (of rebounds) with two (crashers).\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s shown those numbers to the players, specifically to the veterans, such as Kevin Durant, a brilliant basketball mind and all-time great who isn\u2019t used to playing this way. Nearly two decades in the league molds habits, and flying into the paint for a faint chance at a rebound was not one of them for most of Durant\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
When the Rockets do send at least a trio to the boards, there\u2019s no stopping them. They win the offensive rebound 56.3 percent of the time in those scenarios. As Udoka tells his players, the more often they send three, the more their already historic rebounding can shatter whatever the basketball world previously believed was possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certain guys that are a little older, more seasoned,\u201d Udoka said. \u201cThey are who they are at this point, but we still want them to go and be a body.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rockets\u2019 model to win the rebounding battle, and thus the possession game, is even more extreme than the Celtics\u2019. Houston scores the fourth-most points per possession of any team in the league, yet has treaded around the middle of the pack in shooting efficiency all season. Unlike Boston, the Rockets don\u2019t take many 3s and turn the ball over in bunches.<\/p>\n
Their best offense is a missed shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot sounding mean or anything,\u201d Adams prefaced, \u201cbut if you know your team isn\u2019t that great at shooting, you\u2019re gonna need more attempts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rockets are creating them \u2014 and those second-chance opportunities provide better looks, too. Offensive rebounds, which defenses scramble themselves to prevent, present ample opportunities for stand-still 3-pointers or open cutting lanes. All 30 NBA teams average more points per possession after offensive boards than they do in their first-chance, half-court offense, according to Cleaning the Glass.<\/p>\n
The league is changing, even for the guys who have been around forever.<\/p>\n
Teams have crashed at least three players on the offensive boards twice as often this season as they did only three years ago. The Rockets aren\u2019t the only ones who see obscene returns when they reach that threshold. Sending a third guy to the boards can make even the squad with the slipperiest fingers look like Houston does.<\/p>\n
Sixteen teams recover more than half of their missed shots on possessions that they crash three-plus guys, per Second Spectrum. Twenty-nine retrieve at least 40 percent when they crash at least three. The only outlier, hovering at 38.0 percent, is the Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n
The Milwaukee Bucks send three players to the offensive glass less than anyone, a staple of a Doc Rivers team, which subscribes to the old-school choice of transition defense over offensive rebounds. But on the few occasions the Bucks bombard the glass, they dominate. They have a 58.4 percent offensive rebound rate when they crash at least three guys, tops in the league. But they crash too little for numbers like that to matter.<\/p>\n
Of course, if crashing isn\u2019t reckless, if it\u2019s done correctly with the principles of tagging up applied, it shouldn\u2019t hurt the team in transition.<\/p>\n
Iisalo tagged up when he led teams in Germany and France before coming to the NBA. He\u2019s implemented many of those concepts in his new home. The Grizzlies send at least three crashers to the glass on 18.8 percent of their shots, the fourth-highest frequency in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to get into the low 120s in offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) without the offensive rebounding,\u201d Iisalo said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it takes to be an elite offensive team nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Grizzlies haven\u2019t sacrificed defense because of it. They allow transition opportunities approximately three times for every 10 defensive rebounds, the 12th-lowest frequency in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass. A scroll through the teams that crash frequently and also focus on pinning their defenders in shows a similar theme.<\/p>\n
The Suns are elite in this skill: Second in three-player crash rate and third in transition frequency following defensive rebounds. The Portland Trail Blazers, whose head coach, Tiago Splitter, ran the same system in Paris as Iisalo did not long ago, are fifth in both. The Raptors are ninth and 11th. The Celtics, just as Mazzulla would hope, are third and sixth.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all in the quest to create more opportunities to score, a pursuit that could become even more extreme if it continues to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will continue to go in that direction,\u201d Mazzulla said. \u201cHow can you just find different ways to win the shot margin, get more possessions, get more shots, get better shots?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nigerian national men\u2019s basketball team was not a juggernaut. So its head coach, Mike Brown, reached out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,1664,17603,7220,5851,590,1666,7185,85],"class_list":["post-339908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-houston-rockets","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}