HoopsHype.com Articles The death of defense? by Roland Lazenby / October 20, 2006 It remains one of the enduring images of NBA lore – Joe Dumars guarding a determined young Michael Jordan in the 1990 Eastern Conference playoffs. Dumars of the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons, the league’s two-time defending champs, looked like a gaucho corralling the ultimate toro, his feet moving furiously (maybe the best defensive slide in the history of the game), one forearm firmly barred into Jordan to keep contact, the other bent arm thrust into the air, giving Dumars his only hope of keeping his balance while trying to ride the Jordan whirlwind. Jerry West watched the performance and remarked privately that most people considered Isiah Thomas the Pistons’ superstar, but West pointed out that it was Dumars who was the supreme talent. Why? Well, West said, both Thomas and Dumars could push the envelope offensively, “but Joe’s defense sets him apart.” Just how good was that defense? It left a supremely disappointed Jordan sobbing at the back of the team bus when the series was over (it’s also probably the only NBA defense ever to spawn a best-selling book: Sam Smith’s ‘The Jordan Rules’). Indeed, it was a formative moment in pro basketball history because it brought Jordan the ultimate challenge and propelled him toward a greatness that fascinated a global audience. Whether they liked pro basketball or not, people felt compelled to watch “His Airness” grow up against the Pistons’ physical challenge. “I think that ‘Jordan Rules’ defense, as much as anything else, played a part in the making of Michael Jordan,” said Tex Winter, who was an assistant coach for that Chicago team. The 1990 loss forced Jordan and the Bulls to find an answer to Detroit’s muscle. “Those Jordan Rules were murder,” Winter explained. “The fact that we could win the next year even though they were playing that defense says everything about Jordan as a competitor. Any lesser player would have folded his tent.” Jordan had to dig deeper to respond to the Pistons, and his effort pushed his Bulls to six championships over the next eight seasons. The unfortunate footnote to this legacy is that under an interpretation of the rules adopted by the NBA last season, if Dumars were playing today he would not be allowed to guard Jordan so physically, or perhaps even guard him at all. Today Dumars is the chief basketball executive of the team he once led as a player. He’s an honest man, which means he chooses his words carefully. Asked in July if he could defend Jordan under today’s interpretation of the rules, Dumars first laughed, then offered a long pause before replying, “It would have been virtually impossible to defend Michael Jordan based on the way the game’s being called right now.” THE NEW WAY Just how is the game being called these days? New Jersey Nets executive Rod Thorn, a longtime expert on NBA rules, acknowledges that last season the league adopted a dramatic shift in how it interpreted the rules of the game. No longer would a defensive player on the perimeter be allowed to use his hand, a barred arm or any sort of physical contact to impede or block the movement of either a cutter or a ball handler. In a recent interview, Thorn said that the NBA had changed the rule to give an advantage to the offensive player. “It’s more difficult now to guard the quick wing player who can handle the ball,” Thorn said of the change. “I think it helps skilled players over someone who just has strength or toughness. What the NBA is trying to do is promote unimpeded movement for dribblers or cutters.” Thorn said the change was made because muscular defensive players had gotten the upper hand. “My opinion is that the game had gone too much toward favoring strong players over skilled players,” Thorn said. “The NBA felt there was too much body, too much hand-checking, being used by defenders to the detriment of the game. There was a feeling that there was too much advantage for a defensive player who could merely use his strength to control the offensive player.” The new rules interpretations have attempted to address that issue, Thorn said. “If the refs perceive that a defender is bumping the cutter, or bumping a ball-handler, then they’ll blow their whistles.” Blow their whistles is exactly what officials began doing in both the NBA and its Development League (where many nights officials were whistling a whopping 60 to 70 fouls a game). This new way of calling became increasingly apparent with each regular-season game last year, and it really made an impression during the playoffs. Free from the physical challenge of defenders, offensive players found many more opportunities to attack the basket – and draw fouls. As a result, the new rules interpretation helped promote the emergence last season of a new generation of super stars, from Kobe Bryant scoring his 81 points during a regular season game, to LeBron James, Vince Carter, Gilbert Arenas and Dwyane Wade making big splashes in the playoffs. “The good wing players – LeBron, Kobe, Arenas, Wade, Carter – shot a lot of free throws with the way the game is now called,” Thorn admitted. The change became quite apparent during the NBA Finals in June as fans saw time and again Miami’s Wade attacking the basket against seemingly helpless Dallas defenders. When they did try to stop Wade, those Dallas defenders often drew foul calls, which sent Wade to the line to shoot free throws. The new approach even played a role in determining the NBA champion, as Wade played majestically in leading Miami from a two-game deficit to a four-games-to-two victory for the title. NOT EVERYONE’S HAPPY The results were immediate and pleasing to the league’s front office. Offensive players were freed as never before and fans were thrilled by high-scoring games. Television ratings jumped with the excitement, and reporters began filing stories signaling an NBA revival not seen since the days when Jordan played for the Bulls. The league had made an obvious move to try to pick up scoring averages that had been in decline since the late 1980s. And it seems to have worked. But not everyone is enthused about the changes. Tex Winter, now 84 and the veteran of more than a half century of coaching, has serious misgivings about what the league has done. Winter acknowledges the outgrowth of the new rules interpretation is the rise of the super dominant offensive player, led by Wade’s performance in the NBA Finals and Bryant’s string of 40-, 50, even 60-point games during the regular season. “It’s brought all these 40-point scorers,” Winter said. “They can’t score 40 points unless they get 15-20 free throws.” And that’s exactly what they were getting on their big nights. “They should be protected, but not that much,” Winter said of the current generation of talented offensive players. “I don’t think that just touching a player should be a foul.” Yet there were key foul calls in the playoffs last year that came down to touch calls, which in turn sent the offensive player to the line for bonus points that ultimately decided games. Ironically, this attempt to pick up scoring also slowed the pace of NBA games last year because numerous foul calls mean a parade of free throws on many game nights, Winter said. “The fans are not going to like that whistle blowing all the time. It’s slowed down the pace of the game.” Winter’s other complaint with the new officiating is that the game now allows the same old physical play in the post while turning the perimeter and wing into a no-touch zone. “That doesn’t make sense to me,” Winter said. “If you can do all that tough stuff inside, why can’t you do it outside?” “Defense has basically stayed the same in the low post. Out on the court there’s no doubt that the interpretation has changed,” Thorn conceded. FAVORING ONE STYLE OVER ANOTHER Dumars put together a Pistons team that won an NBA championship in 2004 and made a return to the Finals in 2005. That team would have a harder time playing its defensive style in today’s game, Dumars said. “We could still compete, but it would be a lot tougher.” As one of the top executives in the league, Dumars is hesitant to criticize the changes. He articulates his misgivings cautiously, but he makes it clear that the new rules may not allow for much diversity of play. “I think the game is best played when everyone is allowed to play to their strengths,” he said. “I don’t think any one style should be elevated over another style.” He said the league was at its best back in the late 80s and early 90s. “There were different styles. The Lakers had their Showtime style, getting out and running. We had our physical style as the Pistons. The Celtics had their style, as did the Bulls. There wasn’t anyone pushing for one style of play. That made it entertaining. When we played the Lakers, it was a battle of styles, their running against our physical game.” Dumars said that clash of styles made for great basketball, great entertainment for the fans. His comments beg the question: Has the league eliminated a defensive style with its new format? OVERREACTION Hall of Famer Rick Barry, a keen observer of the game, said he would love to see players of the past getting to attack the basket under the new officiating. “They’d score a lot more,” he said. Barry called the new rules interpretation “on overreaction by the league to the low scoring teams that have arisen over the last 15 years.” Actually the league was perhaps trying to remedy the wrong problem, Barry said. The problem of low scoring is that coaches with less talented teams, beginning with Mike Fratello back in the 80s, put “an emphasis on ball control, on keeping down the number of possessions. That was the way Fratello kept his teams in ball games. It was the smart thing to do to win.” Soon other coaches, who needed to win to avoid getting fired, began copying Fratello’s approach. With that slower style also came the rise of muscular – some say illegal – defenses, such as Dumars’ “Bad Boy” Pistons and Pat Riley’s New York Knicks. The combination of a slower tempo and the muscular defense turned the NBA’s running game into a half-court battle. Rather than calling touch fouls, the NBA really should have considered shortening the shot clock to 20 or even 18 seconds, Barry said. “That would speed the game up.” Still, Barry, a prodigious scorer, admits to being angered by hand-checking defenses back in the 70s. And the modern game had become dominated by hand-checking and other physical ploys. “With the way the game was being played, how much skill does it take to hold and push and shove and grab excessively?” Barry asked. “Now, with the new rules, the athletic players are much more exciting for the fans to watch.” THE ADJUSTMENT? Rod Thorn concedes that the increased foul calls were a negative last season because a parade of free throws ultimately slows the tempo of a game and subtracts from the quality of basketball. “Once the players get used to it, they’ll adjust,” he said. The changes will not bring the end of defense as we know it, Thorn said. “The good defensive teams are still good. It’s just more difficult to cover those wing players, there’s no doubt about it.” It does, however, raise questions about the style of defense. Teams that like ball pressure are already rethinking their approach. Both Tex Winter and Joe Dumars agree that there will be adjustments, just as they agree that now that the NBA has found some new offensive life, there will be no turning back to the old ways. So the upcoming season becomes a matter of how teams, coaches and players adjust to a new game. Dumars, always a stoic as a player, takes the same approach as an executive. “Everybody is going to have to adjust to how the game is being called,” he said. “There’s no sense in complaining about it because it’s not going to change. That’s been the history of the league. The game changes and you have to make adjustments.” Teams will have to adjust their personnel, coaches will have to adjust their strategies and tactics, and players will have to adjust their play, Dumars said. There will be adjustments before the season, before games, even during games, he added. Winter, though, thinks adjustments should not be made just by players and coaches. He thinks officials still need to adjust how they call the game. They can’t make it a sport of touch fouls. “It’s pretty hard to play defense against these quicker guards without touching them a little bit,” Winter said. “I think the officials are going to have to make an adjustment too. They can’t call all those touch fouls.” A big issue for Winter’s Lakers is how the guards will play defensively. Traditionally, Phil Jackson’s teams have featured lots of ball pressure. That means the Lakers’ pressure style has to shift. “I think you have to play more of a containing defense,” explained Winter. “You can still put some pressure on the offense. You can contain them and slow the ball up.” But the new guidelines “change how you force turnovers,” Winter explained. “You can’t be as aggressive as you’d like to be with your hands. You can’t be ‘into’ the guy as much.” As a result, defense now becomes a matter of waiting for the offensive player to make a mistake, rather than forcing a turnover, Winter said. The Lakers would like to exert the kind of ball pressure they used to deploy when Derek Fisher wore the Forum Blue and Gold. But the new guidelines are still murky, Winter said. Before games, officials have visited with teams to explain the new approach, Winter said. “They come in and tell us all this stuff. Then the first four or five plays of the game, you see them doing just the opposite from what they said. You don’t know what they’re going to call. So you have to adjust accordingly, depending what’s going on from game to game, even half to half.” Barry agreed immediately, citing several incidents in the playoffs where veteran officials made questionable touch calls that had substantial impact on the outcome of a series. Still, all in all, Barry says he likes the direction the league is taking toward eliminating hooliganism. Hockey finally did that, which now allows fans to see the brilliance of the world’s fastest, most athletic, skaters, Barry said. As for Dumars, he’s already begun his adjustments. He signed Flip Murray in the offseason, primarily because he’s a young guard who knows how to move his feet and stay in front of an opponent with a killer crossover and lightning moves. Dumars knows he’s got to find defenders who know that they can move their feet and look the opponent in the eye. They just can’t touch. Roland Lazenby is the author of The Show: The Inside Story Of The Spectacular Los Angeles Lakers In The Words Of Those Who Lived It, recently released by McGraw-Hill Tell us what you think about this article. E-mail us at HoopsHype@HoopsHype.com _____________________
What really bothered me about last years NBA finals was watching a blatant double standard as D. Wade got to the line at will for a pitter patter tap, while Haslem and former Rox Shannon Anderson maul Dirk all over the court.
I don't think you'll find much sympathy about that here. Dirk can burn in hell for all I care. He benefited from plenty of calls against the Spurs. On to the real discussion. Regarding the changes in general, as a rockets fan, it's hard to like them. Our personnel and coach were probably the least prepared to make a sudden shift in style. It looks like we're finally going in the right direction with some of our recent moves. The fact that we have Yao, however, means that the changes will never benefit us as much as they do other teams. I feel like the whole higher scoring thing is a charade. Does Stern think we're stupid? Does he think we enjoy 3 hour games full of whistles, with AI and Lebron going to the line 25 times? Or the fact that it is now damn near impossible to take a charge because the refs basically view the play as an opportunity to tack a few more points on the board? The higher scoring phenomenon is illusory, and not more fun to watch, for me at least. Of course, I would probably feel differently if Tmac took it to the rack a little more often...
With the new rules you wonder why anyone would even try to develop a jump shot. What really sucks is that WNBA games are now more physical along the perimeter.
Me too. I love Wade but some of the calls he got were just plain silly. He also flopped way too much. That said, I HATE hand-checking. I hate it when playing b-ball and some slow clown that can't keep up with me does it the entire game because it's his only hope and I hate it in the NBA for the same reason. Count me as one who likes the finesse game more than the brute game. Of course, we all know the refs take it too far sometimes but I remember the "Bad Boys" playing defense and the Knicks "Uglyball" and despised it. Give me the run and gun; give me slashing and attacking the basket. Give me skill over brute force and hand-checks, but without going over the deep end.
I hated Piston basketball. Nothing asthetic at all came from that kind of play. When the Pistons beat the Lakers in the championship it marked the end of basketballs golden era. It was the death of beautiful ball movement and team play marked by the fast breaks of Show Time Lakers and precision half court passing of the Boston Celtics. The Pistons and even Rick Pitino's version of the Knicks before them replaced offensive skill with brute force and 90 feet of hell (I think that is what Pitino called his full court defense). Not that I blame them because they had inferior offensive talent when compared to the elite teams like the Lakers and Celtics. Those two teams more than anyone created the blue print for how basketball was going to be played in the 90's. The 90's IMO was the absolute ugliest basketball (not including College Balls four courners defense) I have ever watched since I first started watching the Rockets in the 70's. As muched as I loved the Rockets in the finals I think you had to be either a fan of the Rockets or Knicks to really get into that series...unless you are one of those that just loves defensive bullies going at each other. I love the new rules. Basketball was suppose to be a non-contact sport. Of course we all know that is a lie just from watching Yao Ming get brutalised the last few years because that is the only way defenders can slow him down. I think the game was much more entertaining when teams that scored between 100 and 110 points a game were the norm and teams that averaged barely 100 pts or less were the exception. Watching the ball clank off of the iron or watching teams walk the ball up the court in an attempt to slow down the game is just not as much fun...IMO. I love to watch teams that average 20+ assists a game. I'm not a big Rod Thorn fan but anything he does to speed up the game, creat more assists and get the ball through the net as opposed to clanking off of the rim more often than not gets a big thumbs up from me.
because with a zone defense you can not pull the defender far from the basket with out jump shooters. Yao can stay with in about one step of the basket at all times if he likes. So to be an effective offensive player you really need to be able to hit an outside shot. Or you will be forced to try and drive the ball straight into the oppossing center or power forward waiting at the basket. So while it might be easier to get by your perimeter defender it is also easier to keep the shot blockers closer to the basket.
I agree totally. I love to watch good defensive units that double and switch off and help one another all over the court. And I don't mind if they touch the offensive player. I think the fouls should be called based on if the offensive player was impeded in any way. I absolutely hated all the pushing, shoving, hacking, and slapping on the perimeter that defined the 90's. On another note, if they are gonna clean up the mess on the perimeter, they need to address all the garbage in the paint as well. For instance, screens set in the paint (especially by little guys) should have to be clean. No cheating and moving to push the defender out and around. That should be whistled every time. But along with that, all the crazy banging by the defender against the post up player should be whistled along with all the hacks and slaps. A player like Yao can hardly buy a hacking call and yet there are times when you can even hear the defender's hand slapping against his forearm as he brings the ball up for the shot. That kind of non-call is ridiculous not to mention the post defenders are practically allowed to root underneath and push the post up player clear out of the paint area nowadays with no call. I call it the "Shaq effect". The refs let all those offensive fouls go that he created back in his younger days. All those plays where he crashed into a stationary defender and/or elbow hooked the defender around the kidneys as he turned in to take the dunk shot. Defender was helpless, could not move because Shaq literally had him wrapped up with his left arm and then most of the time they called the And 1 against the defender. So, when they decided they weren't going to call Shaq on those offensive fouls, there was so much complaining to the league office that the only way to square things up was to allow the defenders to make a lot more contact and get by with the hacks. They didn't want to see Shaq clanking at the FT line anyways. So, for the last 10 years or so, the paint has been a total melee down there. Once again, I don't think you call every bit of contact in the paint. But you call the contact against the defender when he is impeding the movement of the offensive player by pushing and bumping .....unless.....he is stationary and the offensive player creates the contact, which is, by definition, an offensive foul. But once again, they've got to know when the defender is flopping too. Most polished post players want to be able to feel the defender. The problem is the defender will flop and then the stupid ref calls the offensive foul now while they turn a blind eye to the bludgeoning that is going on all the time under the basket. Flopping should be closely defined in this manner. The defender has to be upright and vertical, not necessarily stationary, but vertical. The defender has the right the space directly above him if he jumps straight up. The offensive foul should not be called if the defender is leaning away and already on their way to the floor before the contact occurs. The defender should be required to be in a straight up position to get the call, either a set defensive position with both feet planted or if leaping in the air if he is straight up vertical. Obviously on the perimeter most offensive fouls are committed off the dribble or by pushing off on the defender. So, in those cases the defender does not have to be vertical per say. They have to have their feet planted and in defensive position without reaching. And even in the post, if the post up player creates contact on his defender while his defender has his fleet planted stationary, if the offensive player bumps the defensive player hard enough that it causes the defensive player to lose that stationary position, it should be called. By the same token, the defender should be allowed to use the arm bar as long as the offensive player is back to the basket only. Once the post up player starts his turn, the arm bar has to be released. If the refs would call this stuff, it would take a little while but they would clean up the game and it would be a skills based game and we would much crisper offense and much cleaner defense with both sides of the ball relying on execution, scheming, high level basketball skills. Right now, with the rules, it is a perimeter skills based game and that's about it. And if they aren't careful, they are going to kill out post up offensive skill players alltogether. They are already on the verge of it now.
Good post jopatmc. I agree with everything you said here. The 90's created a breed of "defensive specialists" who have minimal basketball skills. These players make millions of dollars simply by being fast and strong enough to harass the highly skilled offensive players. If this was football where each position requires a clearly defined skill set, that'd be fine. But basketball values all-around skills both defensively and offensively. Here's what I want to add: 1. Offensive players jumping into the defender should not be rewarded a foul call. A lot of times, the offensive player initiates the contact, but because the defender is not set (often because the defender is trying to get out of the way), it's always defensive foul. That's nonsense IMO. It's fine if you don't call a charge if the defender is not set, but don't call a blocking foul either if it's the offensive player who initiates the contact. 2. Get rid of the semi-circle under the basket. This is another unfair rule to punish defenders even when they get good position with their feet set. I understand the rule is there to prevent injury by discouraging aggressive defense in that area. I think the same objective can be done by calling more flagrants in that area. Let them play defense consistently throughout the court.
Nobody's D'd up for a long time save for a team or two occasionally. I've learned to accept it, but with a tear in my eye for the sake of the lost art.
Not only were the '90s not the worst era in basketball, they were my absolute favorite. Why would we want to see a bunch of ballerinas twirling their way unimpeded toward the basket? If a guy wants to drive, he should have to get past his defender, not have the ref screen the defender off with a whistle. The game should be officiated the same all over the court, so wither you have to call touch fouls in the post (which would clearly result in no FGs ever being taken again, only FTs), or you let them play on the perimeter. Chris Mullen and Clyde Drexler both managed to score 25 ppg in 1992 with hand checking, so it isn't like those rules made it impossible to have success from the outside, it just made it worthwhile to have an inside game.
Why not use college refs? College ball is so much cleaner than the pros. Death of defense? Maybe the death of lazy *ss defense.
It's fair that you like defensive basketball but the 90's definitely got away from ball movement offensive scoring as a team started a downward trend that just made the game less fun to watch than the 80's. I am not going to argue that you enjoyed the 90's more but for me and many others that were fortunate enough to enjoy basketball in the 80's it was just much more fun. If it were not for the fact that the Rockets were winning quite a bit in the 90's and had 2 championships it would have been much harder to watch the NBA back then. While you still had indviduals that could score a lot team scoring went way way down during that decade. As much as I love Rudy T I hate the ISO offense he used. And the coaches like Chuck Daly, Rick Patino (with the Knicks) Pat Riley (with the Knicks) and so on went to the defensive style of play they used is because they did not have the type of skill players to get envolved in a high scoring game. I have always prefered good ball movement and higher scoring games. It is just a much greater reflection of skill and much more enjoyable to watch to me. That is why the 80's was the golden era of basketball. But if you enjoy sloppy ball movement that leads to clanking the ball off of the rim, watching the 24 second shot clock run out and more turnovers than assists then that is your personal preference but not mine.
Any set of rules will favor a certain style of game. At the end, it's just a matter of taste what kind of basketball one likes. But I think there should be a clarification here. Most people (including myself) who favor a less physical more finesse kind of basketball don't like touch foul calls. I think the refs went overboard last season. Touching shouldn't be a foul. Impeding movement should. We don't like the ticky-tac touch fouls either. What we want is the cleaning up of the shoving and pushing.
Here is an interesting look at the result of the new rules. In 1994, which was the year of the uglyball finals, 4 of the top 5 scorers were interior players (the other was Dominique Wilkins). Last season, all five of the top scorers were perimeter players (Dirk Nowitzki is the closest thing to an inside presence in the top 10 scorers, coming in at number 7). On the other hand, for you people calling for more assists, in 1994 there were 6 players averaging 9 or more assists per game, while in 2006 there was only one, Steve Nash (who still trailed Stocktons 1994 average by about 2 per game). The new rules haven't created more ball movement, they have created more giving the ball to your top perimeter player and having him drive to the basket, leading to 7 perimeter players shooting over 700 FTs each (no post players, BTW) in 1994 there where only 3 players that shot over 700 FTs (Robinson, O'Neal, and Malone). There is a reason that Kobe could score 81 this year and that DWade was recently named the #1 player in the world by Dime Magazine. I guess the people that loved Jordan are going to like the new rules (he was playing under them most of the time, on offense anyway), and the people that loved guys like Olajuwon, Barkley, and Robinson are not.
Euro-ball They don't seem to play much defense anyway and it makes their Transition to the League easier Long term . . it is what Stern wants .. Trust a Beleive NBA EUROPE is his next step . . that is why he the best Commish in sports but i don't like the touch fouls. . to me it is as silly as star calls By making the run to the lane like having a police escort I don't see how that will help folx make or want better jump shots It would seem that either you take an unchallenged 3 ptr or run into the lane with Ginobili like abandon and flopping and just goto the line I may hate Ugly Ball . . but i DETEST flopping Rocket RIver
Excellent Analysis Why is it .. in every sport we make it harder on Defense Defense Adjusts . .then offense suffers. . we make it even harder on Defense DEFENSE IS A PART OF THE GAME!!!! I hate when people talk about FUNDAMENTALS because 9 times out fo 10 . .they never think of Defensive Fundamentals [i.e. the arguement that Euros are more Fundamentally sound . .though they don't seem to play a lick of defense ] Why make the Defender work harder than the Offensive player should they not be on equal footing???? Rocket RIver
ONE MORE THING Free Arming should be called Protecting the ball by holding out your free arm to bar the defender is illegal and should be called more I got so Tired of watching Diaw with his free arm ward off the defense while he carries the ball in his other hand you should not be able to create space that way [all the suns do it] Look at how Sam Cassel Dribbles .. his off arm is straight down no warding off or anything . . .that is vintage FUNDAMENTAL Dribbling Technique Rocket RIver
That hardly sounds like a fair statement. It's far more rewarding to have a defense. It forces opposing teams to have good offensive. I'd much rather watch offensive execution than someone line-drive the ball to the rim. I find having your home team actively shutting down the opposition equally rewarding as beautiful passing leading to open shots. I find an offensive player having to contort and adjust in mid-air to avoid the offensive foul far more amazing, than merely crashing into the defensive player and picking up two at the line. I'd rather see someone drop 40 in the face of true opposition, rather than see them have 25+FTA. We watch basketball not because it's a sure thing. We watch it because it's live drama. We love our players the most when they have an iron will--even when they fail, we love them for trying. And these no-defense rules, they water-down the game. There's no struggle; there's no challenge. If you're so into the no-touch basketball, go play NBALive.
