NBA Season Preview 2017-18: Hornets can’t keep allowing open 3-pointers
The Charlotte Hornets’ story last season was a puzzling one. They have a solid roster in the weaker of the two conferences in the league. Looking at some of their advanced numbers, one might be tricked into thinking the Hornets were a playoff team in the Eastern Conference.
The Hornets didn’t foul, allowing opponents the lowest free throw attempt rate (.211) and were one of the best defensive rebounding teams in the league, rebounding 79.6 percent of their opponent’s misses. With a positive Net Rating last season (+0.3) and a league-low turnover percentage (11.2 percent), many would’ve expected the Hornets to be a playoff team with a record north of .500. That was not the case. What went wrong in Charlotte?
The first thing we need to look at when dissecting Charlotte from last season is their defense. While Charlotte did a great job rebounding and protecting the rim, they gave up way too many 3-point attempts to opponents. Charlotte gave up 30.9 3-point attempts per game a season ago. That number only looks worse (31.1) when you factor in possessions, given that Charlotte played at one of the slowest paces in the league.
On top of the sheer volume Charlotte allowed, 25.5 of those 30.9 3-point attempts per game were categorized as either “open” (defender within 4-6 feet) or “wide-open” (no defender within 6 feet) shots. Imagine coming down the floor on defense and giving up an open 3 to the offense for ONE QUARTER of your defensive possessions. Even if your opponent shoots a league-average percentage on those shots, that’s still 29 points per game allowed on open 3-point shots.
It’s not all bad news for Charlotte, though. Even though they did allow a lot of open 3s, they were subject to a little bit of bad luck, too. Of the 12.6 wide-open 3-point attempts that Charlotte allowed per game, opponents hit 40.4 percent of those shots. Considering the league-average shooting percentage for a wide-open 3 last season was 38.1 percent, opponents happened to shoot a much better percentage against Charlotte, something a defense cannot fully control. Given the number of 3s they allowed and their bad luck from opponent shooting, the Hornets gave up almost an entire extra point (0.87) per game on defense just from outside shooting randomness.
How does Charlotte escape this funk? Some of it will take care of itself. It’s unlikely that Charlotte’s opponents will continue to outshoot their expected percentages as much as they did last season. However, the better long-term solution would be to open up the defense a little bit. Steve Clifford’s defensive style has always been to pack the paint, which leads to good defense at the rim and quality rebounding, but hurts on the perimeter.
The solution for the Hornets is to start sagging into the paint a little bit less and start running shooters off the line. Charlotte was the fifth-worst at forcing their opponents to take shots between the restricted area and the 3-point line. By expanding the defense a little bit, they force their opponents to come off the 3-point line and either drive or make another pass. This activity opens up the mid-range and closes off open 3-point attempts, forcing defenses to take less-efficient shots.
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Steve Clifford’s bunch has always had a tendency to play slow, methodical basketball on the offensive end. While the Hornets’ offense seems to execute well throughout the year, a defense sporting the same old-school brand may not hold up as well in today’s game. If the Hornets hope to erase their bad luck from a year ago, the best thing they can do is take some of that luck into their own hands and eliminate their opponent’s open 3-point attempts from the onset.