OAKLAND – You would be hard-pressed to attend a Warriors’ postgame conference this season and not hear a question involving the words “pace of play.” There have been countless game this NBA season in which both teams have scored north of 120 points. There is only one team, according to NBA.com, that averages less than 100 points per game, in the Orlando Magic (99.9 points per game).
The league is getting faster and there has been a concerted effort by referees to crack down on physical play, especially on the perimeter. Players are still adjusting to the emphasis, which has been accompanied by an almost universal adoption of the Warrior-popularized style of playing uptempo, 3-point heavy basketball. The result is a lot of scoring, and not a lot of defense.
Pace of play, or the pace factor, is the number of possessions a team uses per game. At the end of last season, the league average for pace was 99.56 possessions per game. This year, it’s 104.55, and there’s just one team averaging less than 100 possessions per game, in the Indiana Pacers. So, in an age when pace is up and players are being called for more fouls, how do you maintain a semblance of strong defense? Kevin Durant said it’s been an adjustment.
“The off-ball action, that’s like the trenches where you can – not grab and prevent a guy from moving – but it’s kind of like hand-checking back in the day,” Durant said. “Off the ball is kind of a place for you to be a little bit more physical and establish an identity on the defensive side of the ball. You can tell guys are kind of iffy on when to be physical and when to lay off, especially the way the ball is moving around the league.”
That action and physicality all takes place away from the center of action, helping players to get free, break off on fast breaks and run in transition Durant said. Without the ability to be as physical, defense becomes even more challenging.
“All that stuff starts before the basketball,” Durant said. “So, you’re usually taught to be physical, use our forearms, play the game a little bit, so I think the refs are buckling down on the grabbing, the holding, the pushing, the little stuff that we used to do off the ball before the play and they’re calling it now, so we just have to adjust.”
Alfonzo McKinnie, who played more than 27 minutes tonight in the Warriors’ 116-99 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, has been a revelation for the Warriors. He’s shot the ball well from deep, grabbed offensive rebounds like a maniac, and played solid defense on the wing.
He’s made the absence of Patrick McCaw go from a minor concern to a boon. He’s been better than McCaw in just about every aspect, even defending, where McCaw was probably at his best. Still, McKinnie says the new defensive rules are a challenge.
“It’s tough. Last year, I was kind of taught to like grab and hold, but this year, you can’t touch a player without being called for a foul,” McKinnie said. “They teach us to chest up, play with our hands up and try to not grab the other players and stuff like that. Like I said it’s tough. I think as the year goes on, guys will get more comfortable playing defense that way.”
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