Small-Ball and Defensive Rating

by Timothy Varner

This is a short addendum to the Rockets/Spurs recap just down the page.

Why does Gregg Popovich like to play small?

As I wrote over the weekend, the Spurs’ forays into small-ballish lineups garner a certain amount of success. But for many fans-those who grew up on a twin towers approach to defending the lane-this doesn’t sit well. Those fans aren’t asking for the return of David Robinson. They’d happily accept a lane clogger after the fashion of Rasho Nesterovic or Nazr Mohammed. Their complaint is not that small-ball doesn’t produce points, or at least that’s not what I hear them saying. Their complaint is that small-ball gives the Spurs a different defensive identity.

How does small-ball factor into the Spurs’ overall defensive play? Stats geeks of the world unite.

The Spurs have gone small with regularity since the start of last season. But their newest offensive wrinkle dates back further than that. We’ve seen, for example, stints of Michael Finley at power forward for more than the last 120 regular season games.

The thought-and one that has proved fairly successful-is that small-ball helps San Antonio generate offense. So far as antidotes go, it makes sense for a team that is notorious for long scoring droughts. And in a league that features the Gasol-trade Lakers and high-scoring squads such as the Suns and Warriors, more offense is needed.

Prior to this offseason, San Antonio didn’t have enough players whom could generate their own offense. Bruce Bowen, you’ll remember, was phased out for this very reason. Their offseason makeover was intended to correct this personnel problem, among others.

But here’s the thing: as the Spurs have increasingly featured small-ball lineups their defense has become increasingly less effective. I’m open to the possibility of a spurious correlation between small-ball and mediocre defensive play, but it’s something for a capable stat geek to investigate. The chronological correlation is hard to miss.

In the meantime, there is this quote from Gregg Popovich:

You got to play a lick of defense if you want to win in this league. Our defense against Utah and against Houston was very poor. 60 points in the second half against Utah and 61 in the second half tonight. That’s not going to win basketball games. It looks like the effort and all that sort of thing is great, but way too many mistakes…not enough focus…not enough execution. We’re scoring enough points to win games. We’re scoring more points than we’ve ever scored in our lives, but our defense is really sub-par and it’s killing us.

But I raise the question with an open mind. An answer to the question of how small-ball effects the Spurs’ defensive play-which, I suspect, the Spurs already have through an in-house statistician-would, for example, inform the Spurs’ trade market deliberations. And many other things aside.

There is also the possibility that Gregg Popovich doesn’t have the confidence in the team’s available bigs, at least not to execute his defensive schemes with great precision. As I mentioned above, the plus/minus data does suggest the Spurs play better small. In this case, small-ball plays the role of the lesser of two evils. But then, that doesn’t satisfy the question of which moves, if any, to make on the trade front. Unless we know if small-ball is capable of complimenting the Spurs’ defensive schemes, we can’t know if a move for Jeff Foster or, say, Marvin Williams is the right path forward. In the case of the former, the Spurs move to correct their personnel issues. In the case of a combo forward, the Spurs embrace playing small and upgrade their overall talent.