FanPost

How has Spurs Transition Defense Begun So Badly?

After three games, the Spurs stand last in points yielded per occurrence of transition defense at 1.46 points per such possessions. While the Spurs permit on y a moderate 15.7% (18.3 possessions per game) of their defensive possessions to be transition defenses, the total points yielded per game have been 26.7, roughly a quarter of all opponent points.

During the Spurs transition defenses, opponents have scored 67.3% of the time. Opponents got off a shoot four out of five times (80%) or 14.7 times per game. The glaring stat here is that opponents have made 68.2% (FG%) of these shots or 10.0 per game. This is strikingly different from the Spurs’ overall opponent 45% FG%. Of the 10 made shots in transition per game, 2.3 were 3-point shots to raise opponents’ eFG% to 76.1%. In addition, the Spurs have committed shooting fouls 18.2% of the time roughly – a third of which (5.5%) have resulted in and-ones.

Finally, Spurs' opponents seldom turned over the ball during transitions. Only 7.3% of Spurs' transition defenses resulted in opponent turnovers, second-lowest among teams to date.

To me when watching the games, the main problem did not appear to be getting back on defense but rather squaring up and stopping the ball carrier and matching up with, covering, and defending shooters. I would be interested in what others have observed as the difficulties or mistakes occurring on the court that have resulted in yielding 1.46 points per transition defense.


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