Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 3

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Admit it George Karl, there is nothing good you can do if Nowitzki is dropping more than 25. Or if it's Kobe Bryant. Or if it's any power scorer.

Come to reality. Basketball is not football where you can possibly limit a team to a field goal or two in a game. Nor is basketball baseball, where you can get a shutout with great pitching.

So basketball is actually more complicated than the other popular sports, because for one thing, relying only on defense is not an option. I hate to inform the Nuggets of this.

In basketball you can contain the scoring a player such as Mr. N does, but you can not stop it completely. And Mr. N has 4 other players out there with him, and the possession does not end just because he has been shut down on a particular play.

A basketball possession never ends until you miss a shot and the opponent gets the rebound, until your shot is blocked and the opponent gets the ball, until you get fouled and a ref calls the foul, or until you turn the ball over. Possessions do not end simply because the other team is doing some good, intense man to man defending.

So if you are a quality offense, you can do what you can do if and only if you keep stupid shots and turnovers down. No matter how good a defense is, a good offense maintains a lot of clout in a game if it simply keeps the stupid shots and the turnovers down.

The degree of difficulty to keep stupid shots and turnovers down against a really good defense is kind of high. So I realize this is easier said than done, but the great and experienced scorers, point guards, and coaches can get this accomplished. Therefore, this Dallas-Denver series is where the acquisition of Jason Kidd and/or the coaching change by the Mavericks can finally pay off big time.

This is one of the reasons why it usually takes years and years for even great players to win a Championship. They have to learn how, when playing a ferocious, intimidating defense, to avoid taking too many stupid, or "reach" shots, to keep the turnovers down, and to in general prevent that defense from "getting under the skin".

Chris Paul was learning these lessons in the Nuggets-Hornets series.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by DavidDaMonkey
I think you have to earn the respect from the refs in games like this. We drove to the hole alot early on, but then gave up on it. Even if you aren't getting the calls, I think you have to keep attacking. The refs can't ignore it all day.

Mavs have GOT to figure out a way to defend the paint better. That will kill us and wear us down faster than anything. We were hitting some jumpers tonight, but that wont keep up for 7 games and when that falls, we won't have anything else if we play like this.

This is very true. If the refs are going to let a lot of Denver fouls go uncalled, Dallas has to either keep driving to the hoop until the refs can't take the sheer number of missed Denver foul calls anymore, or else they have to get a lot more physical on defense, which will also eventually motivate the refs to take greater control over the game.

Or the Mavs should do both. Doing both would be the best.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by longsufferingmavsfan
Here are my thoughts: ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE REFFING!!!. Dirk and Co were getting pounded with no calls all game long. Any time the Nuggets Drove they either got the layup, got the call or got both. It was infuriating from my standpoint, the Nuggets overall are better than us, they were at home and they got all the calls as well. How exactly were we supposed to win?

But my main concern is : How the Hell are the Nuggets allowed to get away with sooo much contact?!

Well this may be a reach, but my latest theory is that Denver is a football town, but since the Broncos suck, the Colorado Sports Fathers (whoever they are, remember, this is just my wild theory to try to explain how the Nuggets are getting away with this) decided to remake the Nuggets in the football mode.

So at a secret meeting, they decided: "If the real football team sucks, then by God, we'll make the Nuggets a lot more like a football team!" "Nice thinking, Earl!"

Laugh out loud. But there is always some truth in humor, I warn you.

My brother told me years ago that he could not be a basketball fan because he thought the referees took sides, if not on purpose then by accident. I stubbornly didn't agree with him then, but his opinion is worth another look these days.

This Nuggets thing has become like one of those really bad and stupid movies that hardly anyone ever watches.

Tonight's feature: Can a thuggish but well meaning basketball team keep routing teams with a simplistic, but very disruptive style of playing the game? A style which is way out on the far outer fringes of the rules?

I hate bad movies.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by BGMaverick9
I don't really remember cases where refs do a 180 from total blindness to calling it right for a team IN GAME. There were instances where the Mavs weren't even all that aggressive and they were still getting called for chippy fouls.

At what price do you try to force the issue with physical defense on Denver? How do you throw that to your players and still hope the refs don't go overboard? You can try but it's still out of your hands, it's still on the refs.

Your question and explanation is right on point, and this is for the opponent the catch-22 or the horns of the dilemma, or maybe the damned if you do, damned if you don't of this series and of every series that the Nuggets are in this year.

But I keep watching these Nuggets not give a damn about how many fouls they commit, and I keep seeing all their stare downs and sick faces made at the referees after every single foul that is called on them. Every single Nugget, when he is called for a foul, is like: "You are a total loser and wuss for even thinking about calling a foul on me. Just stay out of the way and let me keep running around and being as rough as I damn well please."

I'm not saying the Nuggets don't do a lot of good defending without fouling: they do. But I am saying that the Nuggets are using their athleticism, their speed, their intensity, and even their facial expressions to intimidate the referees a little. And that is all it takes to swing a game sometimes: to scare the referees a little.

So I think the only way the Nuggets can be defeated is to scare the referees a little bit from the other direction.

I keep saying to myself: "No, what the Nuggets are doing is not exactly basketball, this is something a little different here. Yes, the Nuggets have some damned good basketball players, but since when does a franchise have the right to modify the game and expect the referees to go along? Who made the Nuggets' GM Co-Commissioner of the NBA?"

So I want a team to go all out to stop this, even at the risk of a technical and/or flagrant or two or three. I really am that pissed off.

This is what the Nuggets are thinking these days:

(1)They will beat down to submission (which on the court is turnovers and bad shot selection) any team that does not stand up for itself by getting rough and tough in response, up to and including actions that might cause technicals and flagrant fouls and

(2)A team such as Dallas will not have the gumption to do that, for whatever reason, or they won't have the means to do it, because they are like that Quest for the Ring guy, they think basketball should not be made more like football.

I want the Nuggets to be proved wrong as soon as possible; it's much better if the Mavericks can do it than if it has to wait for the Lakers.

Quote:
What are guys told usually or what do you hear:
If you aggressive you'll get rewarded or bailed out with the call. It's not supposed to be a cat and mouse game with the ref, It's not: "well, we are gonna test you, do it x amount times and THEN we'll give it to you."

You are exactly right again; it's not supposed to be a cat and mouse game, but what if in this particular series, against this particular team, it is a cat and mouse game?

Quote:
What you see all the time is a performance like this and coaches and/or players will talk about it in the media and you can usually see a change in the foul dynamics in the next game. If you put the onus on the refs in the game and it didn't work...it seems the next natural step is to do it even more after the game with calling them out. It'll hurt the wallet that way but it doesn't potentially run you the risk of getting ejected.

Yes, this is an excellent alternative thing to do if the Mavericks truly think that the referees will start tossing their players if they up the ante. Marc Cuban is going to have to get his wallet out again, but for an extremely good cause.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 2

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Here (the Dallas Mavericks forum) most are not worried about K-Mart on Nowitzki, especially since Nowitzki had few problems with him during this year's four regular season games.

But I would warn the Mavericks that if you can't keep Chris Andersen from camping out under the rim all night, you will have problems. Chris Andersen is like K-Mart on an illegal substance. And that reminds me, has anybody checked JR Smith's locker lately? There's no telling what might be in there. Laugh out loud.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
None of those "K-Mart becomes the other hero of Colorado along with Chauncey Billups" things is going to be happening very much with Dirk because he is not a rookie or a 2nd year man.

As the post just above stated, someone at Dirk's level would rather have a really good defender on him than a continual doubling. But he and his Coach (Rick Carlisle) can deal with either.

You know, you can have the best man to man defender on Planet Earth but you can not shut down a power scorer with just that. In football maybe but not in basketball.

And if you trap and double Mr. Nowitzki all night the Mavericks have plenty of other firepower to beat you with.

The Mavericks have a balanced offense and a power scorer, not just a balanced offense only! So do the Cavaliers and the Lakers! The Nuggets should try it sometime.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by alby
Dirk Nowitzki vs Kenyon Martin

ENOUGH SAID

Dirk N >>> K-Mart until the four regular season games this year, when it looks more mixed.

I am honestly not worried, because:

(a) Although K-Mart and Chris Andersen might limit Mr N to, at worst, about .400 and 15-20 points in roughly half the games, I am totally sure that won't matter too much due to the rest of the offensive firepower on the Mavericks. Jason Kidd and Rick Carlisle know what to do in this situation. Dallas will lose some games of this type but they could win one or two as well.

(b) In games when Dirk is at or above .500, I know that George Karl will stay with K-Mart on Dirk one on one for way to long. So if Dirk N is on and K-Mart can't keep up, it's almost an automatic Dallas win. When Mr N is totally out of control in a game, or in the series as a whole for that matter, Mr. Karl will not make any adjustments, or maybe its more accurate to say that there are no adjustments that will work in that case, so he and his Nuggets will repeatedly be torched.

I never knew you could do that at basketball-reference until now, nice to know that.

Does God get more of a say than usual in today's game since it's a Sunday? If so, I hope he watches over the Mavericks and helps them reach the promised land as they go in to the house of the devil.

I can't expect the Mavericks to win today, due to the high intensity with which Denver is trying to prove they can get into the Championship with their "defense drives everything including our offense" strategy. The way I see it the Nuggets have gone off the deep end with their defensive obsession and their over reliance on fast break and in transition scores.

If Denver does lose today their confidence will take a huge hit, and they probably will not be able to fully recover.

God, please smite them, if not today then on Tuesday.

Regardless of who wins today, I am confident that Dallas will win this series. Denver's strategies are not reliable enough to ensure they can simply win all 4 home games and take the series that way.

What redemption for the Mavericks it will be when they win this series. They lost the 1-8 to Golden State a couple years ago and now they can make up for that by winning a 6-2 that almost everyone expects them to lose.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by Five-ofan
The mavs are the older less athletic team in this series after being the younger more athletic team in the last one.

True to a limited extent; but Chauncey Billups and KMart are not spring chickens.

I think that Carlisle has to know not to use JJ Barea in this series. They have the bigs to stop his penetration and there is no one on their roster he can guard. I dont want him getting more than 10-12 minutes a game in this series.

This is very true; the Nuggets think you can stop penetration, that the refs won't call all the fouls, and that the players they are roughing up will miss more free throws than they usually do.

I think the mavs should run a good deal of 4/5 pick and roll with Dirk and either Bass, Singleton or Hollins with Jet and Josh in the corners and Kidd on the wing. I really dont think the Nuggets can stop that play, especially when bass is the other big.

Yes, this is exactly what the Nuggets can be beaten with.

More generally, they can be beaten with the experience and passing of Kidd.

I dont think its that important to try to keep a great defender on Smith. I think hes one of those guys whose either on or not. I dont think wrights good enough to stop him if hes on and if hes not then its not worth wasting a good defender on him. Id prefer to try to let jet match him shot for shot.

I could not agree more. But I would add that if ever JR Smith is hitting almost every single three, you would be forced to put Wright on him no later than halfway through the 3rd quarter.

I think the pg matchup is very interesting. Billups is going from the best possible pg matchup for him to the worst(he could use his size against Paul) Kidd is going from the worst possible matchup to the best. I think this ends up being very close.

[I agreed with a smilie.]

I think the series ends up being decided by who does a better job defensively out of Dirk and Melo. I think everything else matches up fairly evenly so as long as dirk does a better job on Kmart (Kenyon Martin)than Melo (Carmelo Anthony) does on Howard we should win. I expect that to happen.

I'll take Howard in a playoff game over Melo any day of the week. Melo hasn't done much of anything in the playoffs up to and including this very moment.

Don't tell me about how wonderful Melo was in the Hornets series. That series was a waste of time given how the Hornets were the walking wounded. The Hornets would have had at least as good of a chance to compete in the games in that series had they benched all the starters and started the bench!

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 1

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
A few random points:

The easy Nuggets win over New Orleans means very little or nothing, because the Hornets were very dinged up. Byron Scott pointed out that only one of the starters (Butler) was healthy. Dallas is the first real test for the Nuggets in the 2009 playoffs.

Billups can beat the Mavs if and only if he is shooting and making threes. Sometimes he doesn't even hardly shoot them, in which case you have to worry about Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith. Billups gets first choice but he can pass off the shooting to Melo and JR if he chooses.

If the refs are not calling Nuggets fouls Dallas may have to get rough on the Nuggets so that the refs pay more attention to the Nuggets' fouls and call more of them. The Nuggets will beat down any team that does not stand up for itself.

Chris Andersen, Dahntay Jones, and Renaldo Balkman, if he ever plays, would be almost nothing on offense were it not for fast breaks. To stop players such as these from scoring, you need to keep the turnovers down. The Hornets made an insane number of turnovers.

To keep turnovers and the Nuggets fast breaks that result from them down, you have to avoid being intimidated and you have to avoid a lot of stupid, contested longer jump shots.

Dahntay Jones is a punk and he will play dirty if he thinks that will help the Nuggets get a win.

But Chris Andersen is more of a miracle pickup for the Nuggets than a punk, and if you don't keep track of him and keep boxing him out from under the rim he will burn you over and over again.

Dahntay Jones is a punk, pure and simple. Oh yeah, I already said that, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by sefant77
Jones may be a punk, Paul is the bigger punk and little bitch. He started trash talking to Jones in that embarressing lost and Jones answered and Hornets got their asses kicked to the moon.

I hope and expect that CP3 has learned a valuable lesson. If you are a major star in the NBA there will be times when a defender's only purpose is to get under your skin any way possible. If you are CP3, and you encounter such a player, you say to yourself "What a damn punk" and then prove that you can still, punk or no punk, keep running the team without making a lot of stupid turnovers and without needing to do any trash talking.

But having said that, CP3 was boxed into a corner, because the Nuggets were dominating the paint and the whole damn Hornets team was dinged up. D West was atrocious. Still, I hope he learned the lesson anyway.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
This is the 6th season for Carmelo Anthony. This year his overall rating, according to both Hollinger at ESPN's and my own calculations, dropped back to in between what it was on average in the first two years, and what it was on average in the next three. But it was closer to the first two, so it was a substantial decline in the value of Carmelo Anthony to a basketball team this year, following three years at the highest heights of the League.

This year, although his assisting and especially his defensive rebounding were above career averages, his offensive rebounding was down and his accuracy inside the 3-point arc was down substantially. 3-point shooting was improved to what you might call the "almost dangerous from 3-point range" category. Overall shooting effectiveness was down substantially, as Carmelo Anthony dropped out of what I call the "power scorer" category of players.

As for the playoffs, it's a good start for him, but it's way to early to judge for this year, especially since the Hornets were the walking wounded. Looking at the first five years, in all of which the Nuggets were washed out in round 1, and everytime by 4 games to 1, Carmelo Anthony has had only 1 year in which he was in the playoffs about as good as he was during the regular season (2007).

And there was one year in which he was down but not by a large amount (2005). But in 2005, year #2, he wasn't great to begin with. In his first two NBA years, Carmelo Anthony was neither a superstar nor a star. He was a star or superstar, and one of the best 25 players in the League only from 2006 through and including this year.

In the other three playoff years (2004, 2006, and 2008) Melo was, in the playoffs, far worse than he was in the regular season.

In summary, as of this time, except for the Spurs 2007 series, the NBA playoffs have been miserable for Carmelo Anthony. He has not, except for that one single series, been even remotely as good as he has been for Team USA in the Olympics, nor as good as he was for Syracuse University.

In games in which Chauncey Billups can not hit threes, Carmelo Anthony may or may not be able to answer the call. It will be a roll of the dice, since in the playoffs, Melo has been almost as inconsistent and unreliable as JR Smith!

Carmelo Anthony is not even close to being the kind of go to guy that Dirk Nowitzki is. And he is less so this year than in the last three.

There are those, Jim Boheim and myself included, who blame the Nuggets' managers and coaches for the failure to make Carmelo Anthony all that he can be.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by CadBane
All I'm saying is that most Nuggets fans and NBA analysts (including myself as I watch a lot of Denver games) prefer his current play to his past.

The majority of Nuggets fans you have mentioned, and I too think it is a majority or close to it, do not understand that having a power scorer (like Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and so on and so forth) and having a balanced, good chemistry offense are not mutually exclusive things. In other words, these Nuggets fans (and of course George Karl) think that having a power scorer means you can not have a good, balanced offense.

Unfortunately for them, they are wrong.

You will not be seeing a Nuggets-Cavaliers Championship this year, as you probably would if they were correct. After all, although they have no power scorer for this year's playoffs, the Nuggets have just about maxed out in terms of balance and chemistry. And their defense is ferocious. So they should be heading for the Championship this very year if they are correct about how to coach Carmelo Anthony.

I hope and expect that this series starting on Sunday shows them that they are wrong, long before the Championship.

Meanwhile, Carmelo Anthony is over there in the corner saying "It's alright with me if you don't ever need me to be able to score 30 or more in a game. Nooo problem man. I'll just spend less time practicing shooting and more time at my barber shop".

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Correct Team Offensive and Defensive Strategies Regarding Getting Fouled and Fouling

DEFENSIVE QUALITY IN GENERAL
The best team defense is characterized by high effort, high intensity, high energy, and high skill. These characteristics will produce high rankings in any or all of the following key defensive parameters of winning basketball games:

KEY DEFENSIVE PARAMETERS
1. Opponent Effective Field Goal Percentage
2. Opponent Free Throws / Field Goals Attempted
3. Defensive Rebounding Percentage (of available rebounds)
4. Opponent Turnover Percentage (% of opponent possessions ending in turnovers. Turnovers include clock violations)
5. Disruption of Opponent Playmaking (prevention of assists etc.)

NOTES
Number (1) Is the opponent scoring per shot percentage adjusted to weight three-point shots and two-point shots correctly.

Number (2) is, in plain English, a ratio between opponent free throws and opponent field goal attempts.

Number (4) Opponent turnovers, include opponent shot clock violations, which high quality defenses get much more often than do lower quality defenses.

In this report we are focused like a laser on (1) and (2). Of all of the components shown, (1) the effective opponent field goal percentage, is the most important one of all; it is the one most highly correlated with overall defensive quality and results.

(2) is less correlated than (1) with defensive quality in general. But, and this is a big but, (2) is very highly correlated with teams that have the very highest quality defenses, and therefore it is highly correlated with teams that win the Quest. Simply put, if for whatever reason your defense is a high fouling rate one, you will most likely not be winning any Championships, even if you manage to win a few playoff games.

Also, because #(2) can be directly controlled by a team, it can be used to improve performance in the even more important but somewhat less directly controllable #(1).

Other Quest Reports, past and future, have and will deal with (3),(4), and (5).

CORRECT OFFENSIVE STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO EARNING FREE THROWS
Some basketball people simply believe that on offense, the more free throws earned, the better the offense. However, looking at this objectively, there is not anywhere near enough proof that this assertion is always or automatically correct. It is very clear that you should try to avoid being well below average in this, but whether you should be above average depends on your playmaking and shooting.

The reason you should avoid being substantially below the League average on this is simply that any offense, regardless of quality, is easier to defend the more predictable it is. And if you are below average in the free throw versus shot attempt ratio, it means you are not aggressively driving into the paint enough to test the interior defenses enough, which makes your offense too predictable and therefore makes it easier for the opponent to defend your playmaking and shooting.

However, if you are an above average playmaking and/or an above average shooting team, you will be to some extent shooting yourself in the foot and squandering your offensive edge if you overweight driving to the rack for fouls. So, if you have a high quality offense in general, you are advised to keep your offense between a little below average and a little above average in the free throw attempts versus field goal attempts ratio.

Always remember, do NOT attempt to be way above average in free throw attempts versus field goal attempts if you have a high quality offense. And remember the other side of that coin: you can not simply by over weighting driving for fouls achieve a high quality offense. This is actually a dumb mistake. You can't depend on a combination of interior defending lapses, referees calling every foul, and making most of your free throws to make up for a general lack of offensive quality. To have any chance at all to contend for a Ring, you MUST have a high quality offense that is NOT dependent (for scoring) on driving into the paint a lot more than other teams do.

On the other hand, if you have a poor point guard, and/or you have poor playmaking, and/or you have poor shooting, you can make up for one or more of these deficiencies to some extent by over weighting driving into the paint and earning more free throws. The worse the quality of your offense, the more you should resort to driving to the rack and trying to earn free throws more than most teams do. But again, although if you are a medium or lower quality offense overall you can force a better offensive result by over weighting drives to the rack, and although you might possibly win an extra playoff game or two by doing so, you can not and will not become a contender for a Championship just by doing this.

The important thing is to calibrate the overall quality of your "field goal offense" with to what extent you drive the ball into the paint. The higher the quality of your overall and of your field goal offense, the less you should overweight driving into the paint.

CORRECT DEFENSIVE STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO FOULING AND YIELDING FREE THROWS
Let's first take a time out to make sure everyone is on the same page regarding "defensive quality". Specifically, defensive quality refers to key components of defending, including defensive awareness/recognition, defensive rotation, man to man defending, and pick and roll defending.

Getting back to the specific topic of the day, the accepted theory is that on defense, the fewer free throws by the opponent, the better the defense is. This is the converse of the simple offensive theory regarding free throws discussed above. In other words, the simple theory is that on offense you want to get a lot of free throws while on defense you don't want your opponent to be getting a lot of free throws. (You want a high ratio on offense but a low ratio on defense).

The defensive version of the simple theory is more correct than the offensive version. That is, it is usually the case that the lower the ratio between opponent free throws and opponent field goal attempts you allow, the better your defense is. This is because there is a premium in the Quest for the Ring put on ability to defend energetically, skillfully, and intelligently without fouling. So given the choice between trusting your defending skills to prevent scores and relying much more on aggressive defending up to and including fouling the shooter, it is almost always better for serious Quest contenders to rely more on the energy, skill, and intelligence and less on the aggression and fouling. In other words, the more a team is a true contender in the Quest for the Ring, the more it will see fouling the shooter as a last resort and not a first resort.

If on the other hand you are not even remotely a contending team, and you know that you are below average in defensive quality, there is no reason not to substitute aggression for quality to the extent it is possible to do so. So in this special situation (a team which by definition is far from being competitive in the Quest) you should not worry about how low you might be in the ratio of opponent free throws versus opponent field goal attempts. That is, unlike if you are a contender and/or a high quality defense, don't worry about trying to minimize opponent free throws.

However, be advised that you will automatically lose certain games while doing an aggressive, high fouling defense. Specifically, you will lose a big majority of the games where the referees are calling a "tight" game, and when the referees are ready to call a higher total number of fouls than they normally do. This "automatic loss" problem is one of the reasons why a high fouling strategy is seldom the correct one for a contending team to follow, since even one automatic loss in a playoff series is dangerous.

THE CHOICE BETWEEN FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE ALLOWED AND FREE THROWS ALLOWED FOR LOWER SKILLED DEFENSIVE TEAMS
The best defenses feature BOTH a low opponent effective field goal percentage and a LOW free throws versus field goals attempted ratio. So true quality defensive teams will never and should never even think in the either or terms discussed in this section.

But what if your defenders are not good enough to provide both of these objectives at the same time? An important and interesting question is: Which is better for a Quest for the Ring contender to try to get, assuming hypothetically that only one or the other is possible: low opponent effective field goal percentage or low opponent free throws versus field goals attempted ratio?

The real question is slightly different, because opponent field goal percentage is not as directly controllable as is the opponent free throw ratio. A defensive squad has almost total control over the latter, actually. Hypothetically, you could insure a ratio of zero if you didn't even try to defend so that you never fouled, and you could insure a ratio of 1 if you intentionally fouled on every single play. The relevant question is: "Exactly how often should we be fouling, compared to the average League rate of fouling"?

Opponent effective field goal percentage is a performance measure that is much more a dependent type of variable. What you end up with is dependent on the particular things you choose to do or not do on defense. In the present discussion, the correct way to frame the choice is: assuming your defense is not good enough overall to have both a low free throws versus shots attempted and a low opponent effective field goal percentage at the same time, should you attempt to minimize opponent free throws by making it top priority to defend well without fouling, or should you do almost the opposite via an intentional high fouling rate strategy?

The fist thing to realize is that between the two, getting the lowest opponent effective field goal percentage possible is more important in the Quest. Moreover, it turns out that it is possible to gain a lower percentage than you would other wise have by intentionally sacrificing your performance in the free throws allowed, by intentionally adopting a high fouling defense.

The demonstration of all this was provided by the 2009 Denver Nuggets, which was a unique type of team that you won't see very often in the NBA: high skill but lacking in direction and overall quality, both on offense and defense actually. This team intentionally used a hard charging, aggressive, high fouling type of defense, and it is clear that the Nuggets reduced the effective field goal percentage of their opponents as a result of all the extra fouling. This happened both due to the general intimidation effect of the Nuggets' defensive strategy, and also due to stops that were actually uncalled fouls.

So the Nuggets "sacrificed" any advantage you can get from low fouling in favor of intentionally using high fouling to indirectly force a reduced opponent effective field goal percentage. This strategy did work to some extent, since the Nuggets were the 8th best defensive team in the NBA, despite the fact that virtually all professional basketball people predicted before the season began that the Nuggets defensively were going to be a well below average team.

On the other hand, although the Nuggets, thanks in part to a long string of lucky breaks, were able to go 10-6 in the playoffs, the Nuggets defense as designed was ultimately not good enough to be a real contender in the Quest for the Ring.

So if your team is defensively not getting it done, you might consider forgetting about trying to limit fouling and you might attempt to get the same reduction in opponent field goal percentage that the Nuggets received from high fouling. Although you can benefit from doing this, don't expect you can win a Championship by doing it, or even to get as close to the Championship game as the Nuggets did. I warn you, the Nuggets needed a string of luck to reach the West Final in 2009, so don't get carried away estimating how much benefit the Nuggets received from the high fouling.

Although the Nuggets chose correctly between the two given their situation, and although the effective field goal percentage of their opponents was lower than it would have been had the Nuggets not been a hard fouling team, the overall Nuggets defensive result was not enough to make them truly comparable with the very best 2009 defenses. Which is not surprising because again, it is much better for a defense to be both a low fouling AND a low effective field goal percentage allowed team.

Another way of looking at what the Nuggets' high fouling accomplished is to say that it was able to transform what would have been, League-wide, an average quality defense into an above average quality one, but not into a way above average one and not into a Championship type of defense.

Specifically, the Nuggets were only the 8th best team defensively in the NBA, whereas the Lakers were 6th. There was a relatively small but critical gap between the two teams. On offense, incidentally, there was almost the same size gap, again in favor of the Lakers.

WHAT IF YOU TRY THE REVERSE OF WHAT THE 2009 NUGGETS DID?
If you do not have high defensive quality but you nevertheless go all out for minimizing ratio of opponent free throws versus opponent shots, and see where the chips fall with respect to opponent effective field goal percentage, you will most likely not be rewarded as much compared to the reverse approach.

Defensively, the 2009 Toronto Raptors are an example of a team the opposite of the 2009 Nuggets. This was a team lacking overall defensive quality that, consciously or not, tried to directly minimize opponent effective field goal percentage while at the same time minimizing fouling and the resulting opponent free throws. While the Raptors were indeed one of the best teams in the NBA with respect to fewest opponent free throws allowed, they were well below average in opponent field goal percentage allowed. The net result of this mix was that the overall Raptors defense was ranked way down at 22nd among the 30 teams, whereas the Nuggets, with the opposite defensive approach with respect to free throws, were the 8th.

Although the Nuggets were going to be better than the Raptors defensively regardless of strategies either team would choose, the Nuggets clearly got more mileage from their defensive strategy mix than did the Raptors. In other words, the Raptors did not have to be as far behind the Nuggets defensively as they were.

SUMMARY OF FOULING STRATEGY
Teams that are overall lower quality than the best defensive teams may not be able to simultaneously achieve a low opponent effective field goal percentage and a low opponent free throw attempt versus field goals attempted ratio. If your team is so limited, there is an advantage in going for the lower opponent field goal percentage indirectly, using a high fouling defense.

Incidentally, high fouling sometimes works not because it should work under the "principals" of basketball, but primarily due to the limitations of referees and to certain human psychological weaknesses. Like life, basketball is not completely fair or logical.

If your overall defensive quality is not truly high, concentrating directly on minimizing opponent effective field goal percentage while simultaneously maintaining a low fouling rate will often not be as successful.

On the other hand, if you are truly serious in the Quest for the Ring and/or you do have high real defensive quality on your team, it is not an either or question. You do not have to and you most definitely should not choose to intentionally have a high fouling rate. Rather, you have what it takes to simultaneously be a low fouling and a low opponent field goal percentage team at the same time.

Virtually all teams that won the Quest more so from defense than from offense were high quality, low fouling teams, low opponent field goal percentage allowed teams. Moreover, among teams that won the Quest more so from offense than defense, rarely if ever would you see the defensive side of those teams intentionally running a high fouling strategy.