Don't forget you need 3 point shooters!! (High Perimeter)

I see many coaches with no outside shooters. They are easy to game plan against.

-5 FTW

fwiw, I've also seen teams with 0 made 3-pointers on the season in the Elite 8.

Except that -5 causes more fouls, which could mean that your offensive players are on the bench and not in the game.

That is one reason that several coaches who have good perimeter players do not shoot 3's to try and sucker coaches into playing -4 or -5 so they can play against their 2nd string.

Posted by hughesjr on 12/15/2012 5:15:00 PM (view original):
Except that -5 causes more fouls, which could mean that your offensive players are on the bench and not in the game.

That is one reason that several coaches who have good perimeter players do not shoot 3's to try and sucker coaches into playing -4 or -5 so they can play against their 2nd string.

Well the players guide says to use -4 or -5 vs teams that shoot few 3s.    So
1) how are you supposed to defende teams that do not shoot 3s?
2) when SHOULD you use the -4 and -5 settings?

Minus defenses are still the right way to defend teams that don't shoot threes, and generally it's quite effective. That doesn't mean that there aren't some occasional inherent risks. Same thing if you play a plus defense vs. a team that shoots a lot of threes -- it's the right way to go and in general will yield better results, but that doesn't mean it is (or should be) risk free. Same as real life.

I brought this up in a coaches corner where in my conference I didnt shoot the 3 very often but my guards were the leading scorers. Because of my low 3 pt shots, teams would always go -2 and -3 against me and they got torched. I think you need to look at the team, who is scoring and their shooting percentage not just the 3 point percentage.

On my 3 pt shooting teams, SFSU and Holy Cross, I have my teams just shoot away.

Even if my opponent is double teaming my two top perimeter guys and playing a +5, my guys will still hit quite a few threes and draw fouls. They might hit 40% instead of 48% but they will make up for it by drawing more fouls.  That is, if you dont have them at +2 for the threes.  I want my 95 PE guys still drive occasionally so I play them at +1.  If they get double teamed, they seem to drive to the basket more and draw fouls.  Plus, my SF's are usually decent at the peremeter as well.

So even if I know someone will DT my top two guards and play +5, I will still have them plug away, but nobody will be +2.  And I play Fast Tempo with everyone at fairly fresh.  (I mentioned this because I believe that the [Fast Tempo / Fairly Fresh] combo wins the fouls battle)

Posted by girt25 on 12/15/2012 6:55:00 PM (view original):
Minus defenses are still the right way to defend teams that don't shoot threes, and generally it's quite effective. That doesn't mean that there aren't some occasional inherent risks. Same thing if you play a plus defense vs. a team that shoots a lot of threes -- it's the right way to go and in general will yield better results, but that doesn't mean it is (or should be) risk free. Same as real life.

Agree word for word.

Posted by emy1013 on 12/16/2012 12:12:00 AM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 12/15/2012 6:55:00 PM (view original):
Minus defenses are still the right way to defend teams that don't shoot threes, and generally it's quite effective. That doesn't mean that there aren't some occasional inherent risks. Same thing if you play a plus defense vs. a team that shoots a lot of threes -- it's the right way to go and in general will yield better results, but that doesn't mean it is (or should be) risk free. Same as real life.

Agree word for word.

This was a big debate a few months ago.  I don't believe -5 should cause more fouls than a 0 or +2, but it does.  It doesn't make any sense that slashers can get to the basket/in the lane easier when the defender is slacking, but that's just the case in this game.  So when you have driving/slashing guards/SF, I don't believe a -5 is the most effective defense.  As garman said, he's amazingly effective against - defenses with slashing guards.

Posted by isack24 on 12/16/2012 12:23:00 AM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 12/16/2012 12:12:00 AM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 12/15/2012 6:55:00 PM (view original):
Minus defenses are still the right way to defend teams that don't shoot threes, and generally it's quite effective. That doesn't mean that there aren't some occasional inherent risks. Same thing if you play a plus defense vs. a team that shoots a lot of threes -- it's the right way to go and in general will yield better results, but that doesn't mean it is (or should be) risk free. Same as real life.

Agree word for word.

This was a big debate a few months ago.  I don't believe -5 should cause more fouls than a 0 or +2, but it does.  It doesn't make any sense that slashers can get to the basket/in the lane easier when the defender is slacking, but that's just the case in this game.  So when you have driving/slashing guards/SF, I don't believe a -5 is the most effective defense.  As garman said, he's amazingly effective against - defenses with slashing guards.

I agree with this 100% ... I think one needs to look at shot distribution AND percentage of 3 pt shots a team takes to decide the defense to play.

What I look at is this:

1. FG3A/FGA using this chart:

Defensive Positioning
Recommended	Basis	Max	Min
Positioning
+3	NA	100.00%	48.00%
+2	40.92%	48.00%	38.81%
+1	36.71%	38.81%	35.13%
0	33.56%	35.13%	31.67%
-1	29.78%	31.67%	25.48%
-2	21.19%	25.48%	18.86%
-3	16.54%	18.86%	8.27%
-4	NA	8.27%	0.00%

so, I recently played a team that shot 8.33% for FG3A/FGA, so that would be -3 from my chart.

2.  Points by Bigs, SFs, and Guards.  If everything was perfectly balanced, you would get 40% of your points from both Guards and Bigs and 20% from SF.  So I look at the actual points by Guards and Bigs, and the difference of those positions from 40% to determine a recommendation just based on points:

((-40%+Guard%)+(40%-Big%)/20)

So, that same team from above scored like this (on average):

Opponent's Scoring
Pos	Points		%		d40
Guard	30.0		37.0		3.0
SF	5.0		6.2
Big	46.0		56.8		-16.8
Total	81.0				-1.0

so based only on points scored by the team:

((-40+37)+(40-56.8)/20) =

(-3 - 16.8)/20 =

= -1 for recommended positioning

I would then use (2x the chart + the calc)/3 to pick my recommended postilioning, which would be:

(2(-3)+(-1))/3 =

-7/3 = -2.33 ... I normally just drop the decimal, so I would play them at -2.

This would be for a M2M defense or 2-3 Zone (-2) ... I never play outside +1 to -1 if I am running a press defense ... so if I had a press team, I would play them at -1.  I would not play that team with the 3-2 zone since they score more with their Bigs.

I would have to add something to that - defensive strengths and weaknesses play in too. If i have really strong post defenders and weaker guards i might still do the plus even if other factors suggest not to and trust in the bigs d ability while giving the guards the extra help.

So,  does this mean the players guide needs to be updated?  When discussing positioning it refers to the number of 3PT attempts only.  There is no mention of "where" the shots are coming from.

Yes, the players guide does need to be updated.  However, it should also only be a *guideline* for players to build on.

There are teams that don't shoot any threes, but still get the vast majority of its scoring from guards.  I think playing a -5 against a team like this would not be a good idea at all.  Just basing your positioning on three pointers is not enough, IMHO. 

Posted by milwood on 12/16/2012 12:56:00 PM (view original):
Yes, the players guide does need to be updated.  However, it should also only be a *guideline* for players to build on.

There are teams that don't shoot any threes, but still get the vast majority of its scoring from guards.  I think playing a -5 against a team like this would not be a good idea at all.  Just basing your positioning on three pointers is not enough, IMHO. 

I guess we would have to agree to disagree on the second part of your post because I wouldn't have a problem at all playing a -5 against that team.  Now, depending on the makeup of the rest of their team and the makeup of my team, that could possibly change, but were the teams fairly equal overall, I'd sag with a -4 or a -5 like there was no tomorrow and wouldn't think twice about it.

Posted by isack24 on 12/16/2012 12:23:00 AM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 12/16/2012 12:12:00 AM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 12/15/2012 6:55:00 PM (view original):
Minus defenses are still the right way to defend teams that don't shoot threes, and generally it's quite effective. That doesn't mean that there aren't some occasional inherent risks. Same thing if you play a plus defense vs. a team that shoots a lot of threes -- it's the right way to go and in general will yield better results, but that doesn't mean it is (or should be) risk free. Same as real life.

Agree word for word.

This was a big debate a few months ago.  I don't believe -5 should cause more fouls than a 0 or +2, but it does.  It doesn't make any sense that slashers can get to the basket/in the lane easier when the defender is slacking, but that's just the case in this game.  So when you have driving/slashing guards/SF, I don't believe a -5 is the most effective defense.  As garman said, he's amazingly effective against - defenses with slashing guards.

Isack, when playing a team with driving/slashing guards/SF's, what would your generic answer to your choice of positioning be (I say generic because there are obviously certain factors to take into consideration when choosing your setting)?