Olympiacos, Fenerbahce, and Hapoel lead the EuroLeague in stopping the action that defines nearly half of all half court possessions.
Stats review: Elite pick and roll defense is powering this season’s contenders
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Every single team in the playoff picture rose or slid in the standings this week in the clearest and most recent sign of just how competitive the league is at the moment. Olympiacos Piraeus rose to second place, notching the lone head-to-head victory of the round over another team in the top six as the Reds secured an 87-75 victory over FC Barcelona at Peace and Friendship Stadium.
While Sasha Vezenkov, Tyler Dorsey, and Tyrique Jones were all bright spots offensively for the hosts, on defense Olympiacos held Barcelona’s ball handlers and roll men to just 8 total points in the pick-and-roll — Barca's lowest mark of the season.
The above table looks at the top teams in defensive efficiency, not just defending pick-and-roll ball handlers or roll men, but on all possessions created out of pick-and-rolls. It is no secret that pick-and-roll play is foundational to what most teams do on the offensive end in modern basketball, and with 45% of all half-court possessions being created out of pick-and-rolls in the EuroLeague this season, a defense’s ability to corral them is more significant than ever.
With that in mind, it is not particularly surprising that this season’s top three teams in the standings fall within the top four in the list above. Olympiacos, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, and Hapoel IBI Tel Aviv have all done a very good job getting stops when teams try to beat them with ball screens.
How they get those stops tends to vary — sometimes wildly. While the end result is what matters in the table above, the process that goes into guarding pick-and-rolls is substantial. In the first quarter of their win over Barcelona alone, Olympiacos used different levels of pressure, multiple types of hedges with its big men, iced a few actions toward the sideline, and played drop coverage on one occasion as it mixed things up en route to holding Barcelona to just 13 points in the opening period. Offenses are too sophisticated to be stymied by a single coverage. As a result, variety is not a strength as much as it is an imperative when it comes to how teams look to cover pick-and-rolls.
With so many moving parts involved in how teams defend ball screens, not only on the ball, but off it as well, it is worth noting this season’s standouts. Both Hapoel and Fenerbahce have excelled at slowing opposing ball handlers as the only two teams limiting opposing guards to fewer than 0.80 points per possession, while AS Monaco has been this season’s top team defending roll men. Hapoel’s work closing out shooters off the ball has also been superlative, while Fenerbahce has allowed the fewest passes to finishers around the rim. Paris Basketball has forced the highest volume of turnovers, while Zalgiris Kaunas has allowed the lowest overall shot quality, as there’s even a great deal of variety among this season’s situational leaders.
How a team guards ball screens goes a long way towards the outcome of games in the EuroLeague and the chess matches taking place have been as good as ever this season.