Basketball is a very complicated game. It is littered with intricacies, and like any sport, there are many different ways to be successful. Almost every weekend in college basketball, many of those ways are on display. But sometimes, in a sense, basketball can also be simple. We’re a little over a month into the college basketball season, and at the moment, there’s a bit of a surprise atop the raw offensive efficiency leaderboard: Notre Dame. Mike Brey’s team is averaging 130.5 points per 100 possessions, and, albeit against a fairly weak schedule, Notre Dame’s mark is a full 10 points higher than last year’s season leader, Creighton. Duke is right behind the Fighting Irish at 125.6 points per 100 possessions, good for second in the country. And since Brey spent eight years as an assistant on Mike Krzyzewski’s staff, it should come as no surprise that the two offenses, in some ways, are strikingly similar. But why exactly are they so efficient?
At a very rudimentary level, the efficiency of the two offenses comes down to three things:
- Talent. Great offenses can’t be great without great players.
- Scheme and spacing. Both teams space the floor impeccably, and their offenses are extremely well-structured.
- The offenses are well-structured because they are designed to get two things: shots at the rim and three-pointers. These are, fundamentally, the two best shots in basketball – the first one is self-explanatory, and threes are efficient because shooting 40 percent from three is equivalent to shooting 60 percent from two – and both offenses are tailored to get the ball to these areas of the court to players in positions to score.
The third point above gives us a great idea of why the offenses at Duke and Notre Dame have been so successful this season. One of the most important stats in basketball is effective field goal percentage. It measures how much value a team gets out of the shots it takes, regardless of what those shots are. And consistently, the teams with the best effective field goal percentages are the ones that, of course, have good shooters, but also the ones that take as many high-percentage shots as possible. Prior to Duke’s Thursday game against Connecticut, Notre Dame and Duke were the top two teams nationally in two-point field goal percentage and effective field goal percentage (in large part because they don’t shoot many mid-range jumpers). Their offenses are structured to allow players to take the right shots – to allow players to either get to the rim or free behind the arc.
The two offensive philosophies are remarkably alike, and the teams’ shot distributions tell the tale. Notre Dame takes approximately 43 percent of its shots from within five feet of the basket. It takes another 37 percent of its shots from beyond the three-point line. That means only 20 percent of Notre Dame’s shots come from between five and (roughly) 21 feet from the basket. That’s one of the best-looking distributions in the country. Amazingly, Duke’s distribution is within a half-percentage point of Notre Dame’s in all three categories. The Blue Devils actually struggle with mid-range shooting – only 40 percent so far this season – but because they take smart shots, the mid-range difficulties don’t adversely affect them too much. Duke still shoots an awesome 61 percent on two-pointers because the Blue Devils get to the rim so much, and at the rim, they shoot 70 percent.*
It’s interesting – and necessary – to see these highly-effective shot distributions in action, though. Duke, despite playing one of its worst offensive games of the season, took down UConn in New Jersey on Thursday evening, and with the win gave us some examples of how they quite clearly focus on getting layups and three-pointers. On the first play below, Amile Jefferson receives the ball at the top of the key. Jefferson isn’t much of an offensive threat, so simply stepping in and attempting a foul-line jumper wouldn’t be a high-percentage shot. The space between 15 and 20 feet from the basket isn’t an area Duke wants to attack. Instead, a cut by Matt Jones spaces the floor, and Jefferson uses the threat of Jahlil Okafor in the paint and the defense’s subsequent reaction to a ball fake to get Quinn Cook the type of shot Duke wants:
There, the defense shuts off the route to the rim, so Duke finds an open three. Now let’s look at another way Duke gets what it wants: playing through Jahlil Okafor. Okafor is so good that he warrants a double-team nearly every time he receives the ball in the post. Here, we see that the defense has to make a decision. Sure, this is a flimsy double-team from UConn, but nonetheless, when the help comes, Okafor has two passing options and he can choose it depending on how UConn defends. If the weak side help defender slides down to mark Jefferson, Okafor can kick to Tyus Jones or Cook for a three. If the help is late, as it was here because the UConn defender gambled early, Okafor can hit Jefferson for a layup:
It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, but essentially, just by feeding Okafor and using the attention he commands, Duke can get either of the two best shots in basketball. We can also see an example of a play where Okafor kicks to a shooter. When Okafor gets the ball in the post, the defense sags. They are aware of the threat he poses, and if they don’t, he will look to score. But when he passes out, the threat of the three-ball, which in this case is Jones, gets the defense on the move, and Jones uses that to penetrate. But the key is what Jones does when he gets a step on his man. He could very easily pull up for a somewhat uncontested 15-footer, but he knows that there are better shots available. Help comes, and thus he can’t get to the rim, so he finds Cook for an open three:
Never mind that the shot is missed – this is a great example of how Duke first uses its inside-out threat to move the defense, then how it uses the areas of the floor that don’t yield high-efficiency shots (the area that Jones drives into and then passes from) to get high-efficiency shots from the areas of the floor that do. Finally, we see another example of the Blue Devils passing up a decent shot for a better one. It’s a bit of a broken play, but just as Jones did earlier, Justise Winslow finds himself staring an open 17-footer in the face. However, rather than pull up, he uses that to attract the defense ever so slightly. From that point during the possession onward, UConn is recovering defensively – the Huskies are playing a step behind – and Jones takes advantage and finds a lane to the rim for another very high-percentage shot:
As for Notre Dame, the scheme the Fighting Irish employ is in some ways very similar. It isn’t identical, though, nor even close to identical. But like Duke, Notre Dame uses the areas of the floor that it isn’t necessarily intent on attacking to get to the areas where it wants to. That’s why these teams’ shot distributions are so similar. And while you might think one of the major differences between the two is Okafor and the way Duke plays through him, Zach Auguste is no slouch. This isn’t to say that he’s as good as Okafor, but he’s playing almost as well, and he is to Notre Dame’s offense what Okafor is to Duke’s. He is shooting 81 percent within five feet of the basket (an area from which he’s taken 74 percent of his shots), a percentage that’s 10 points higher than Okafor’s,* and Auguste’s 40-minute averages are only a bit off of Okafor’s pace.
In general, while Notre Dame’s efficiency might be expected to suffer a bit from a lack of talent compared to Duke, that simply isn’t the case. Jerian Grant is playing as well as anybody in the country – his KenPom offensive rating of 142.6 is seventh-best nationally, and he’s shooting an extraordinary 93 percent at the rim! – and Brey has surrounded Grant and Auguste with top-notch shooters who complement them perfectly and allow them to spread the floor to get high-efficiency shots. But is Notre Dame’s offense actually the best in the country — surely they’ll start to slide against better competition, right? Maybe, maybe not. But Mike Brey’s system, and the way in which his players execute it, make the offense far better than many others with superior talent.
Data courtesy of ShotAnalytics.com
*Duke ShotAnalytics data does not include the Blue Devils’ November 15 win over Fairfield