Evaluating individual defense has long been one of the more difficult tasks for basketball coaches, team decision-makers, and fans. Box score statistics do a decent job of summarizing offensive contributions, but are inadequate when it comes to defense.

?There are so many things you can do out there to win that you don?t get credit for in the box score,? said Wizards forward Michael Ruffin. ?Being in the right position on defense ? you don?t get any type of credit for that. But if you get in there, you can force them into bad shots and help the team.?

Contained in a standard box score are three defensive statistics ? steals, blocks, and defensive rebounds. While there?s nothing wrong with those stats, they don?t capture the totality of defense, either at the team or individual levels. This season, for example, there have been blocks on about five percent of total possessions, and steals on roughly eight percent. The fact that NBA teams get shots on the vast majority of their possessions makes apparent the importance of being able to force misses.

This is where the Wizards defense is at its weakest. Defensive effective field goal percentage (Defg% - defined below) is the best measure of shooting efficiency. Effective field goal percentage accounts for the effect of the three-point shot, and is calculated ? (FG + 0.5 x 3FG) / FGA. The Wizards are 27th out of 30 teams in this category. They?re good at stealing the ball and forcing turnovers ? top 10 in each category.

Still, because the Wizards allow opponents to shoot a high percentage, the team remains below average in total defense. The league?s best defense is San Antonio, which is first in defensive efg, second in blocks, seventh in forcing turnovers, and 13th in steals. Blocking shots is not essential in forcing misses, however. The league?s second and third best teams at forcing misses are Chicago and Houston ? and they rank 19th and 17th in blocks per possession.

Houston is interesting because their defense is built almost exclusively on forcing misses and controlling the defensive glass. They have the league?s third best defense overall, but are just 17th in blocks, 23rd in steals, and 24th in forcing turnovers.

The Wizards are not devoid of defensive ability, however.

?Larry?s our defensive steals leader, leading the league in steals, and he does a lot,? said Mitchell Butler, Wizards director of player development. ?Jared draws a lot of tough assignments and does pretty good on individual defense. But, I would say that Brendan is the guy who jumps off the charts.?

According to Butler, the key to the team?s defense is the teamwork of their best defenders.

?For us, when you have those three guys together, we?re really at our best,? Butler said. ?It allows Jared to get up and pressure, it allows Larry to roam and go for the steals. And then when the other team attacks, you have Brendan in the back protecting the basket. So guys get more aggressive and it gets contagious. But we haven?t had those three guys together for a lot of the season. Those three guys ? Jared, Brendan and Larry ? truly understand what we want.?

What the coaching staff wants is a team that steals the ball, disrupts offenses and forces turnovers.

?We?ve been trying to play frantic basketball ? to stir up our opponents,? said Gilbert Arenas. ?We?re trying to trap and pressure ? when you do that, people are going to get open shots. We pick up full court. We could sit back like some teams, wait for them to come to us ? just sit there and play a slow game. But that?s not us.?

In an effort to create confusion and disrupt opposing offenses, the Wizards coaching staff has implemented a complex defensive system with an array of defensive looks. Not everyone within the organization thinks the complexity is necessary, however.

?We?re not a shutdown team like San Antonio,? said a team source. ?Their schemes are rock solid. We have as many defensive schemes as offensive. We kind of play defense ? whatever happens, happens, and we go with it and improvise until we find something that works. Where they have set schemes that every single game, this is how it?s played. And their guys have been there a number of years and they buy into it.

?Chicago is coming along and they?re doing the exact same thing. They?re playing good, sound, fundamental defense. Very few schemes. They say, ?this is how we do it,? and they do it well. With us, we change things a lot.?

Taking good ideas from other teams has been discussed internally, according to a team source, but for now the coaching staff is loathe to change their defensive system. First, the team has not been healthy enough to evaluate fully whether the team?s defensive struggles are because of scheme or because of poor execution. Second, the coaches are concerned that making changes this late in the season could create additional confusion and uncertainty for players. Third, coaches believe their overall philosophy is the right fit for the team?s personnel. Finally, there?s a basketball IQ issue.

?Some of our guys?they don?t think the game right,? said a team source.

The team?s defensive schemes will be a topic for closer analysis after the playoffs, and there could be some strategic changes.

?In the offseason, that?s something we?re going to consider,? said a team source. ?From an offensive standpoint, we have no problem scoring the ball. If we can shut teams down, we could be extremely scary. When you?re talking about defense, you?re talking about those three teams [San Antonio, Chicago and Detroit]. Maybe pencil in Indiana too when their guys are healthy.?

There?s also discussion about whether the team?s game-to-game defensive goals are the right way of achieving a good defensive unit. Coaches emphasize activity, energy, and steals, but not all the basketball decision-makers agree that those areas should be emphasized.

?I?m not big on steals,? said a team official. ?[What we want] is to have the other team playing out of their comfort zone. You get a deflection, and even if it doesn?t lead to a steal, you?ve created a hesitation in their offense. People like to flow. Get a deflection here, a tap there, prevent a guy from getting to a certain spot in a play that you?re familiar with ? it messes up that flow. If we can take something away and stop them from getting to the counter, then they have to go one-on-one and they?re probably going to shoot a lower percentage shot.?

Key to some within the organization is reducing the gambling and higher-risk strategies and shifting to an emphasis on proper positioning and disciplined execution.

?You watch San Antonio ? how many times are they truly, truly gambling for a steal?? said a front office official. ?They don?t. Or Detroit ? their steals are going to come when you turn your back and they come and double you. They get position steals ? drive you to a double team, and then have people in the right position to get your pass. It?s people being in an area where they?re supposed to be versus the pass is made and your guy is hauling ass trying to steal it and they have maybe a 50-50 chance.?

The internal debate is not a criticism of the coaching staff, according to a team official. Instead, it?s characterized as an ongoing conversation about how to achieve the franchise?s goals.

?This season was a very pleasant surprise,? said the official. ?We didn?t know how Antawn was going to fit in. We didn?t know Larry could be so consistently good, or that Gilbert could be this phenomenal. Ultimately, you have to find a way to lock somebody down at some point during the playoffs to win a championship. That?s something where we go back to the drawing board this summer. After the playoffs and say ? ?How do we get this team to a championship level?? ?

Defense By The Numbers

Data collected since January ? a total of 44 games to date ? reflects the good and bad of the team?s defense. Inspired by the defensive score sheet project described in Dean Oliver?s Basketball On Paper, I tracked possession-by-possession who was responsible for defending shots, forcing turnovers, committing fouls that resulted in free throws, or stealing the ball. This effort requires a few subjective judgments each game, but most responsibility determinations are straightforward.

It does not capture every defensive contribution that a player can make ? effective ball denial defense, for example ? but it does capture much of what?s important about good defense. See a summary of the results here: http://draftcity.com/dstatsper48.php

?This approach is very valid,? said Wizards assistant coach Tom Young. ?It?s more detailed than what we do, but this kind of information is extremely useful.?

The effort has yielded intriguing results that explain much about the team?s defense. The data shows that Haywood and Hughes are the team?s most important defenders. Haywood, as would be expected for a center tasked with protecting the basket, is responsible for defending more shots per minute than any other player on the roster. Opponents have an effective field goal percentage of just 32.8% on shots he is responsible for defending. The team average over the same 44 games is 50%. Haywood also leads the team in non-steal forced turnovers. (Examples of non-steal forced turnovers include pressuring an offensive player into traveling, a double dribble, a bad pass, or drawing a charge.)

Hughes is key to the Wizards success in forcing turnovers. He?s been responsible for 4.3 forced turnovers (steals plus non-steal forced turnovers) per 48 minutes ? Arenas is second with 2.99 per 48 minutes. Hughes also contributes with aggressive defensive rebounding.

One limitation to reaching broad conclusions from this kind of data is that it?s information for only one team. It?s reasonable to conclude from this data that Haywood and Hughes are the team?s best defenders, but as yet there?s no way to compare them with other players around the league. Would nearly any 7-footer with long arms have a similar defensive impact as Haywood? That?s a question that can be answered only by collecting similar data for other teams.

This data can be used effectively to compare players with similar defensive roles. For example, Haywood and Etan Thomas both play at center, rarely are on the court together, and have nearly identical responsibilities when they do play. They both block the same number of shots per minute, but the team gives up fewer points when Haywood is on the court. (See the on/off data presented at www.82games.com for more details on this.

Despite playing the same roles in the same defensive system, Haywood is responsible for defending nearly four additional shots per 48 minutes (20.7 for Haywood to 16.9 for Thomas), and does a much better job of forcing misses (.328 DeFG for Haywood vs. .494 for Thomas). Haywood also forces twice as many turnovers per 48 minutes as Thomas.

The reason for this becomes clear when delving deeper into the defensive data than what I?ve summarized in the box score. Putting a hand in a shooter?s face dramatically lowers shooting accuracy. The data shows that Haywood is far less likely to permit an open shot than is Thomas. In other words, Haywood almost always gets his hand in a shooter?s face, but Thomas sometimes does and sometimes does not.

Hughes and Arenas make for another interesting comparison. They?re on the floor together most of the time, and they usually have similar defensive responsibilities. Hughes steals the ball more and forces significantly more turnovers even though he gambles less frequently to get the steals. A more detailed report on steals will be coming soon, but in general, the data shows that Hughes is less likely to get out of position going for a steal than Arenas. This makes Hughes? steals even more valuable because he?s not risking negative results such as penetration and open shots.

Team captain Antawn Jamison is often derided for his lack of defense, and this data concurs ? sort of. He faces the fewest shots per 48 minutes, and doesn?t force many turnovers. But, the Wizards are able to hide his defensive deficiencies by assigning him to the opposition?s weakest frontcourt scorer.

As Mitchell Butler pointed out, Jeffries often draws tough defensive matchups. This may make his defensive box score stats marginally worse than his actual defensive performance. However, Jeffries numbers are also hurt by his tendency to stray from a high-quality scorer and help with a lesser threat ? leaving Paul Pierce open at the three-point line to double Mark Blount, for example. This leaves the better scorer with open looks that tend to get converted. For example, the opposition shoots an excellent 44.7% on three-point attempts that are Jeffries? responsibility. That?s because a good portion of those threes are open or wide-open looks.

The data also seems to show a relationship between height and length (height plus wingspan) and the ability to force misses. Of those who have played enough minutes to make the numbers meaningful, Steve Blake and Juan Dixon have the worst DeFG%. They?re also the smallest guys on the team. The team?s best DeFG% belong to their biggest players ? Haywood and Kwame Brown. Ruffin highlights the value of proper positioning and effort with the team?s third best DeFG%. Only four players hold opponents below the team?s 50% average DeFG% ? Haywood, Brown, Ruffin and Thomas.

The data suggests broad defensive principles similar to what Larry Brown has used for years. Guards and perimeter defenders can pressure the ball and make opponents uncomfortable on the perimeter, but always with focus on the team?s force rules that funnel penetration to certain locations. At those defined locations, the perimeter defender knows he?ll have help from a teammate ? usually a big man. The goal is to create turnovers by always having a defender close to the offensive player, limit the number of open looks at the basket, while simultaneously having big men challenge a greater proportion of the offense?s shot attempts. This serves to both create turnovers and increase the likelihood of misses.

The information collected also identifies how the Wizards can improve their defense as the team enters the playoffs. The Wizards regularly permit more than 20 open or wide open shots ? not counting transition layups and dunks or offensive rebounding put-backs. Finding a way to get a hand in the face of shooters would lower opponent shooting efficiency, increase the team?s defensive effectiveness, and likely give them a better chance to win.

Kevin Broom is a senior writer at RealGM.com and columnist for WizFans.com. He can be reached at kevinbroom@realgm.com.

Special thanks to Tom Barron for his invaluable assistance in constructing spreadsheets capable of handling the defensive data collection.