I. -- AREAS WHERE THE PELICANS STRUGGLE THAT DIRECTLY EFFECT DRTG
Three items were very telling, and after support research, appear that they might explain much of what has gone wrong in and of themselves: Strength of Opposition (as revealed through opposing ORTG and Defensive FG%), that three guard lineup, which has some really crazy numbers attached to it, and shoddy 3pt defense, which seems to highly correlate to poor overall defense leaguewide.
Defensive FG% -- Is The Team Bad At Defense, Or Have the Opponents Been Great at Offense?
The Pels Defensive FG% numbers are interesting.
First of all, in raw Defensive FG%, the Pels are ranked a lousy 25th, at 46.6%.
But the interesting thing is that in Defensive FG Differential -- in other words, in how much better or worse your opponent shoots against you than they do against everyone else, the Pels are actually ranked only 18th, with a barely worse than average Defensive FG Differential of +0.2%.
Put those two together and you come to the interesting conclusion that the Pels raw Defensive FG% must actually be so poor because over the first 30 games of the season, Pels opponents have been very strong Offensive FG% teams.
Here is the worst Defensive FG% list along with their Defensive FG% Differentials:
30) DEN 48.2% (+2.5%)
29) MIN 48.1% (+2.5%)
28) SAC 47.6% (+1.3%)
27) ATL 47.4% (+1.4%)
26) PHX 46.8% (+1.3%)
25) NOP 46.6% (+0.2%)
24) ORL 46.6% (+0.8%)
23) IND 46.6% (+0.5%)
22) MIL 46.6% (+1.2%)
So of all the bad Defensive FG% teams, the Pels are the one doing the least to make the situation worse. How does that happen? Well it happens when you have played the second toughest set of offensive FG% teams in the league:
Opponent's Season FG%:
1) DET 46.5% (-0.1%)
2) NOP 46.4% (+0.2%)
3) PHI 46.4% (-2.2%)
4) SAC 46.3% (+1.3%)
5) MEM 46.1% (-1.0%)
And all of a sudden that throws into some question the Pels' defensive struggles.
If you flip over to looking at the ORTG of teams the Pels have played in the last month since Rondo returned and the three guard lineup was born, you find that they have played a very tough set of offensive opponents.
TOR 113.4 (4th)
DEN 110.0 (7th)
OKC 105.5 (20th)
SAS 107.3 (15th)
PHX 104.7 (23rd)
GSW 115.5 (2nd)
MIN 111.5 (5th)
UTH 107.6 (14th)
POR 105.7 (19th)
GSW 115.5 (2nd)
DEN 110.0 (7th)
SAC 101.2 (29th)
PHI 106.6 (17th)
HOU 115.6 (1st)
MIL 109.0 (9th)
DEN 110.0 (7th)
--------------------
Total = 109.3
So in the past month the defense has collapsed in the face of 9 games against Top 10 offenses, to only 5 against middling (#11-#20) offenses, and 2 bottom 10 offenses.
And again, that suggests that even if the defense gets no better the rest of the year, it may well start getting better results once it's no longer running into offensive buzzsaws every night.
The Three Guard Rondo/Jrue/Moore Lineup
I was actually tipped off to look into this by a blurb in a Kevin Pelton "Mailbag" article last week, and I'm glad I did. Once you separate it out, you realize it might be the single most dramatic factor in the Pels' defensive deterioration.
The factor doesn't follow any one player, it only kicks in when you have ALL of them out there together. Then it looks like a full defensive collapse, with the team playing very fast with 3 little guards all giving up size for speed, scoring very well, but giving up tons of threes and getting scored on almost as fast as it scores. And Boogie gets involved too.
Here's what we've got (these are nbawowy numbers, so I'll show the wowy numbers, and then their translation):
Pels Season Overall:
97.3pace 2961 possessions 112.8 DRTG(wowy) --> 110.5DRTG (27th)
Rondo/Holiday/Moore lineups:
99.2pace 650 possessions 117.6 DRTG(wowy) --> 115.2DRTG (would be dead last by a wide margin)
Non-Rondo/Holiday/Moore lineups:
96.8pace 2311 possessions 111.5 DRTG(wowy) --> 109.2DRTG (109.2 would tie the Clippers for 20th in DRTG without the three guard lineups)
And when you poke around even further, some really eye-opening numbers pop up. For it's not only the 3-guard lineup itself which has caused issues, it's the 3-guard lineup while anchored by Boogie while A.D. has been in and out of the lineup.
The three guard with both Boogie and A.D.: 115.5 DRTG(wowy) --> 113.1 DRTG
The three guard lineup with Boogie: 122.3 DRTG(wowy) --> 119.8 DRTG!!!
And in fact, almost all of the defensive struggles of late with Boogie lineups can be tracked back to his pairings with the three guard run 'n gun lineups, in particular without A.D. out there. On the season:
Boogie oncourt overall:
113.9 DRTG(wowy) --> 111.6 DRTG
Boogie oncourt w/ 3-guard:
122.3 DRTG(wowy) --> 119.8 DRTG (compared to Pels season DRTG of 110.5)
Boogie oncourt with all other lineups:
110.4 DRTG(wowy) --> 108.2 DRTG (compared to Pels season DRTG of 110.5)
That is a staggering gap, and all of that has opened up since Rondo got healthy and the 3-guard starting lineup was born. Now a certain amount of it can be attributed to the particular games that Boogie was left with the 3 guards to face -- A.D. saavily managed to avoid the Warriors in Oakland, the Rockets in Houston, half of the Nuggets in Denver etc. There is again a scheduling argument to be made. But it's still a dramatic turnaround. Boogie and most lineups = improve the Pelicans defense. Pels 108.2 DRTGs under most Boogie lineups would rank just about league average 15th-16th. Boogie and the 3 guards? It's an utter disaster over the past month.
P.S. Note, all stats in this section are from before the Washington game -- didn't feel like rerunning them all after I was tardy with this thread.
Three Point Defense
The Pels three point defense has been poor all season, and whether you look at the raw numbers, or the per 100 possession numbers, the ranking is the same:
Opposing 3pt%
NOP .372 (23rd)
Opposing 3pt Attempts + Makes
NOP 11.6 - 31.2 (25th)
However, as noted in the Three Guard Lineup section above, those ranks would be at least somewhat better before the Pels began the 3-guard all offense no defense experiment. Rondo/Jrue/Moore lineups are allowing opponents to shoot an ungodly .396 from three point land, which would tie Milwaukee for the worst 3pt defense in the league. Put it this way, Harden spams 10.8 threes a game and hits them at a .392 rate. Curry spams 9.5 threes a game and hits them at a .381. When Rondo/Jrue/Moore are on the floor, the entire opposing team become Hardens and Currys, and spam 33.1 threes a game at a .396 rate. And of course that makes sense when you are playing at extreme pace and are undersized across the little man positions. Lot of open court shots, and no length to challenge them. The lack of rangy mid-sized defenders hurts.
And the thing is, that while some of these defensive weaknesses show only dubious connections to poor overall defensive performance, being poor at defending the three point shot seems to highly correlate with carrying a poor DRTG. Here are the teams in the Pels opponent 3pt% neighborhood, along with those team's DRTGs:
30) MIL .396 DRTG 109.9 (24th)
29) DEN .381 DRTG 109.5 (22nd)
28) ORL .380 DRTG 109.9 (23rd)
27) SAC .378 DRTG 110.7 (28th)
26) MEM .377 DRTG 108.3 (17th)
25) ATL .374 DRTG 111.0 (29th)
24) CLE .373 DRTG 110.4 (26th)
23) NOP .372 DRTG 110.6 (27th)
22) IND .371 DRTG 108.8 (19th)
21) PHX .371 DRTG 111.4 (30th)
20) DET .371 DRTG 106.4 (12th)
19) UTH .371 DRTG 105.5 (9th)