Raptors Offseason 2022

[golden]

It's a question worth asking. My argument would be that the way the Raptors use OG, they leverage his ability to cover off their entire system across 5 positions to its maximum, but in doing so leave his ability to individually impact the defence limited. They'll occasionally come up to a matchup where they need him to focus on one player and then you get these ridiculous matchup numbers where he shuts down an opposing star. In many matchups the Raptors would rather play switchy and try to take away the opposing offence's actions, letting them get a relative mismatch away from OG because the other guys in the lineup are also quite good, but on the nights where they can't get away with that he really shines.

That shows up in the playoffs when they stop playing generically and try to maintain best defensive matchups and its no surprise he had an absolutely wild on/off defensive impact compared to the rest of the starters against Philly this year (defence was 7 points better with OG on the court than without him, while every other starter - besides Khem - ranged from the defence being 4 points worse to 14 points worse when they were on the court). Whole thing just falls apart without him especially against the opponents where his defence matters the most.

But again, you're still using tiny sample sizes... the Sixers series, where we got blown out in 3 of their 4 wins. And Doc Rivers and the role players were ready to exploit our aggressive D in games 1 & 2 for wide open shots. Not to mention, we were missing Scottie & Fred and Gary was a shell of himself. Pretty hard to glean anything useful, data-wise, from that series. What about the larger sample size regular season?

I would tend to agree that Nurse over-coaches defense to the point where he doesn't allow his players' natural talents to shine. He did dial down the over-helping and stop doubling Harden half-way through the series, so there's hope that maybe that continues next year.

[DanH]

But again, you're still using tiny sample sizes... the Sixers series, where we got blown out in 3 of their 4 wins. And Doc Rivers and the role players were ready to exploit our aggressive D in games 1 & 2 for wide open shots. Not to mention, we were missing Scottie & Fred and Gary was a shell of himself. Pretty hard to glean anything useful, data-wise, from that series. What about the larger sample size regular season?

I would tend to agree that Nurse over-coaches defense to the point where he doesn't allow his players' natural talents to shine. He did dial down the over-helping and stop doubling Harden half-way through the series, so there's hope that maybe that continues next year.

Right, but my entire point was that over the long haul of the season they don't really utilize OG as the deadly shutdown guy he has proven to be, except in rare circumstances. The playoffs is where they use him more properly. There doesn't exist a bigger sample because of how they use him. I thought that was sort of what you were already driving toward: a statement on why the big sample data doesn't show what we have seen in terms of his defensive capability.

I disagree that there's nothing to be gleaned from the 76ers series. Obviously you need to be careful with projecting stuff bigger picture, but you can pull anecdotal evidence out of muck sometimes and this was a chance to do that, indicate a specific scenario where the larger sample washes over specific use cases.

[Primer]

Watching actual games? WTF, why? Stats and mix-tapes are enough for me. You might have seen me posting in game threads, but now I’ve been exposed as a bot. You got me.

I see you in all the game threads, so I'm confused as hell. Apparently we aren't watching the same games. How can you watch all the Raptors games and not see OG shutting down star players one on one? Getting the toughest assignments no matter what position the opposing player plays?

[TrueTorontoFan]

Right, but my entire point was that over the long haul of the season they don't really utilize OG as the deadly shutdown guy he has proven to be, except in rare circumstances. The playoffs is where they use him more properly. There doesn't exist a bigger sample because of how they use him. I thought that was sort of what you were already driving toward: a statement on why the big sample data doesn't show what we have seen in terms of his defensive capability.

I disagree that there's nothing to be gleaned from the 76ers series. Obviously you need to be careful with projecting stuff bigger picture, but you can pull anecdotal evidence out of muck sometimes and this was a chance to do that, indicate a specific scenario where the larger sample washes over specific use cases.

Is it possible that his increased usage is part of the reason why they didn't utilize him as that on that end?

[golden]

Right, but my entire point was that over the long haul of the season they don't really utilize OG as the deadly shutdown guy he has proven to be, except in rare circumstances. The playoffs is where they use him more properly. There doesn't exist a bigger sample because of how they use him. I thought that was sort of what you were already driving toward: a statement on why the big sample data doesn't show what we have seen in terms of his defensive capability.

I disagree that there's nothing to be gleaned from the 76ers series. Obviously you need to be careful with projecting stuff bigger picture, but you can pull anecdotal evidence out of muck sometimes and this was a chance to do that, indicate a specific scenario where the larger sample washes over specific use cases.

Well, we got blown out badly in 3 of 4 games and our playoff defense (DRTG) in the Sixers series was significantly worse than the regular season. If "properly using OG" results in a overall worse defense for the team, how can that be a good thing? Or, why don't we "properly use OG" in the regular season to prepare us for the playoffs, in the first place?

[golden]

I see you in all the game threads, so I'm confused as hell. Apparently we aren't watching the same games. How can you watch all the Raptors games and not see OG shutting down star players one on one? Getting the toughest assignments no matter what position the opposing player plays?

My point is: why do all these other defenders show well in the defensive stats... except OG? Sure, OG is guarding a diverse range of tough players (and so are Scottie & Pascal, btw)... but is he actually stopping those guys on a consistent basis? Or are we being homers and selectively remembering the highlights and forgetting the lows?

[DanH]

Well, we got blown out badly in 3 of 4 games and our playoff defense (DRTG) in the Sixers series was significantly worse than the regular season. If "properly using OG" results in a overall worse defense for the team, how can that be a good thing? Or, why don't we "properly use OG" in the regular season to prepare us for the playoffs, in the first place?

I don't know why. Probably a coaching thing where they want the team to have 82 games of help rotation practice even if they will scale it back when it matters. Personally I think their defence would be much better throughout the regular season if they threw OG at the opposition's best player every night, but I guess that's also a heavy load for OG over 82 games and they also have shown they don't particularly care about making sure their regular season success is optimized, they use it as a sandbox.

Obviously the overall defence was worse but as noted a) you play better teams in the playoffs (Philly had a 118 ORTG down the stretch of the season post-all-star break) so you will generally see your performance look worse in the playoffs than in the regular season without the bad teams to beat up on, and b) the rest of our functional rotation being decimated by injury/illness may have had a role in that lack of defensive success, no?

[TrueTorontoFan]

My point is: why do all these other defenders show well in the defensive stats... except OG? Sure, OG is guarding a diverse range of tough players (and so are Scottie & Pascal, btw)... but is he actually stopping those guys on a consistent basis? Or are we being homers and selectively remembering the highlights and forgetting the lows?

it isn't just us being homers other people see him as a very good defender. Nate Duncan, Zach Lowe and others.

[DanH]

My point is: why do all these other defenders show well in the defensive stats... except OG? Sure, OG is guarding a diverse range of tough players (and so are Scottie & Pascal, btw)... but is he actually stopping those guys on a consistent basis? Or are we being homers and selectively remembering the highlights and forgetting the lows?

But those defensive stats do not measure how well a player shuts down their immediate guard. We don't have great stats for that, the samples are too small and noisy, but the ones we have OG looks real good in, though they are generally only available on game sheet scale, rather than league wide aggregate, for the reasons listed before (sample, noise), so it's hard to draw straight line comparisons.

Impact stats measure impact on overall team defence. Which should show some impact (and let's not pretend they don't, the ones most tightly tied to RAPM like EPM have him in the 80th-90th percentile in defensive impact, the more box-score based ones are what show lesser impact on that end). And of course can only measure a player as they are used, so if the Raptors, as has been noted, use him in this switchy role where it is easy for opposing teams to get their best players away from him, the impact results will be limited. He's off ball an incredible amount of time considering it's his strength. Similar to how the team misuses Fred as a lead creator, there are impact gains to be made by sliding guys into more ideal roles, but sometimes there are other priorities (development, system reps, etc) especially during the regular season.

I'd question the "homer" aspect, because aren't we just evaluating him against the rest of the roster? Which is notably filled with very good defensive players at least?

[golden]

I don't know why. Probably a coaching thing where they want the team to have 82 games of help rotation practice even if they will scale it back when it matters. Personally I think their defence would be much better throughout the regular season if they threw OG at the opposition's best player every night, but I guess that's also a heavy load for OG over 82 games and they also have shown they don't particularly care about making sure their regular season success is optimized, they use it as a sandbox.

Obviously the overall defence was worse but as noted a) you play better teams in the playoffs (Philly had a 118 ORTG down the stretch of the season post-all-star break) so you will generally see your performance look worse in the playoffs than in the regular season without the bad teams to beat up on, and b) the rest of our functional rotation being decimated by injury/illness may have had a role in that lack of defensive success, no?

Like Mike Tyson said: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". I think Nurse & staff truly believed that the over-helping on stars, while leaving role players extra wide open was going to work in the playoffs, when role players get stage-fright. Nope, nada, niente. They were likely convinced when we beat the Sixers in Philly a few weeks earlier in the regular season using the aggressive helping on both Embiid and Harden. But, in reality, that was just giving Doc Rivers 2 weeks to prepare and game-plan against our D scheme, like Casey does in the regular season. Sixers role players were definitely ready to shoot.

With his back against the wall, Nurse had no choice but to dial down the over-helping and aggression after getting punched in the mouth in Games 1 & 2. We basically punted those 2 games in Philly. Nurse got out-coached by Doc, even before the series started.

Regarding playing better teams: Philly is also playing a better team (i.e. Raptors), yet their ORTG went up to an ungodly 122.... in the playoffs, no less. That shouldn't happen.

[DanH]

Like Mike Tyson said: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". I think Nurse & staff truly believed that the over-helping on stars, while leaving role players extra wide open was going to work in the playoffs, when role players get stage-fright. Nope, nada, niente. They were likely convinced when we beat the Sixers in Philly a few weeks earlier in the regular season using the aggressive helping on both Embiid and Harden. But, in reality, that was just giving Doc Rivers 2 weeks to prepare and game-plan against our D scheme, like Casey does in the regular season. Sixers role players were definitely ready to shoot.

With his back against the wall, Nurse had no choice but to dial down the over-helping and aggression after getting punched in the mouth in Games 1 & 2. We basically punted those 2 games in Philly. Nurse got out-coached by Doc, even before the series started.

Regarding playing better teams: Philly is also playing a better team (i.e. Raptors), yet their ORTG went up to an ungodly 122.... in the playoffs, no less. That shouldn't happen.

Philly's regular season ORTG post-all-star was 118. In the playoffs against the Raptors it was 119.5. Played about average defensively against them, including obviously some games where we were awful and some games where we were great. The offence was a bigger issue on aggregate, though the really big issue was obviously that we were some version of hurt or sick for the entire round and didn't have the depth to absorb that. I agree the first couple games in particular were not well coached.

[golden]

Philly's regular season ORTG post-all-star was 118. In the playoffs against the Raptors it was 119.5. Played about average defensively against them, including obviously some games where we were awful and some games where we were great. The offence was a bigger issue on aggregate, though the really big issue was obviously that we were some version of hurt or sick for the entire round and didn't have the depth to absorb that. I agree the first couple games in particular were not well coached.

I got Philly at 121.4 ORTG (playoffs vs. Raps) on BBREF. But you are doing some serious cherry-picking here. 118 post all-star. lol. Who did they play? What was our DRTG.... post all-star?

https://www.basketball-reference.com...-vs-76ers.html

[DanH]

I got Philly at 121.4 ORTG (playoffs vs. Raps) on BBREF. But you are doing some serious cherry-picking here. 118 post all-star. lol. Who did they play? What was our DRTG.... post all-star?

https://www.basketball-reference.com...-vs-76ers.html

I used post all star as a simple catch for "they traded for James Harden," which roughly lines up with that timeline.

I'm not the one trying to compare regular season values to playoff values directly, the "who did they play" context ruins that right from the start. I'm just saying, they were scoring at about that clip heading into the playoffs, it's not like they suddenly started scoring well once they played us (though yeah, game 1 in particular they sure did).

Please use NBA.com stats, basketball reference estimates their possession counts, NBA.com uses the real ones.

[KeonClark]

I think OG is a great defender, but he's an overrated defender. Both true.

[TrueTorontoFan]

I think OG is a great defender, but he's an overrated defender. Both true.

so gun to my head if someone is asking who is a better defender (assuming health) simmons vs OG.. i'd go with Simmons some may find that crazy but yeah.

On this team OG is a very very very good defender. I think he is one of the best one on one defenders on this team and a top level defender in this league. I don't know if he is or will ever be a draymond level defender if that makes sense because draymond not only has the positioning but his communication is his secret power on the defensive end.

OG's defence slipped this year though.