Containing Luka Garza (HV Weekly: 1/22/21)
Did Indiana show the nation how to slow down Iowa's offense?
Welcome back to the Hoop Vision Weekly!
To all the new subscribers joining us for the first time this week: welcome aboard! We’re so glad you’re here.
This week, a Friday night edition of the Weekly as we find ourselves getting deeper into conference play and starting to (make just a little bit) more sense of this abnormal, unpredictable college basketball season.
In this week’s edition, we look back on HV+ content from earlier in the week, highlight a new episode of the Solving Basketball podcast, and then do a DEEP dive on Iowa, Indiana and Luka Garza’s performance this season.
Let’s get into it!
The Starting Five
As is the case every Monday, Hoop Vision PLUS subscribers were sent this week’s edition of “The Starting Five” — a breakdown of five of the most intriguing or influential notes from the weekend: storylines, sets, statistical trends, or whatever else catches our eye here at Hoop Vision HQ.
This week’s edition included breakdowns of two games with major implications. One was a defensive epic in the Big 12, and the other — an ACC tilt — featured one of the most dominant performances of the season.
Want to receive the Starting Five and plenty of other subscriber-exclusive content, along with discounts to other Hoop Vision products? Subscribe to HV+ today and help us keep Hoop Vision independent and ad-free.
NEW Solving Basketball
This week on Solving Basketball, we welcomed Ben Falk to the show.
Ben is the founder of Cleaning The Glass — an NBA statistical website — and worked in front office and scouting roles with the Philadelphia 76ers and Portland Trail Blazers after starting his career as an intern with Dean Oliver and the Denver Nuggets. He also now serves as the head coach of a high school basketball team in Philadelphia.
In this episode, we discuss:
Ben’s unconventional path into NBA front office roles
How he coaches his high school basketball team and how his NBA roots influence his coaching decisions
Philosophies around coaching and play at all levels of basketball
His lifelong connection to basketball and the idea of “giving back” to the game
….and much more
Ben also recently launched an online course on basketball x’s and o’s with Gibson Pyper (@HalfCourtHoops on Twitter) that we touch on near the end of the episode.
Click/tap to listen: Spotify // Apple
(Also of note: The launch and growth of Hoop Vision was slightly based on Cleaning The Glass, and Ben has been a mentor and informal advisor to Hoop Vision, so having him on Solving Basketball was a long time coming.)
Luka Garza by the numbers
In Thursday night’s loss to Indiana, Luka Garza went 9-for-18 on two-point attempts, marking the fourth time this season that Garza had taken 18 or more two-point attempts in a game.
By comparison, no other player in the country has done that more than twice.
Of course, Garza has proven he’s more than capable of maintaining offensive efficiency while carrying a major offensive role.
Even after yesterday’s subpar performance (by Garza standards), he is still currently having the most efficient shooting season — according to College Basketball Reference’s Play Index — for a player with a usage rate of over 30% in the past decade.
Most efficient shooting seasons with usage rate over 30% (via CBB Reference):
Luka Garza, 2021 Iowa** — 33.4 USG // 65.9 eFG
Isiaih Mosley, 2021 Missouri State** — 31.6 USG // 65.6 eFG
Doug McDermott, 2012 Creighton — 31.2 USG // 65.4 eFG
Jock Landale, 2018 Saint Mary's — 30.3 USG // 64.4 eFG
Kelly Olynyk, 2013 Gonzaga — 30.7 USG // 64.2 eFG
Matt Morgan, 2019 Cornell — 32.2 USG // 63.6 eFG
Michael Buchanan, 2017 SC Upstate — 32.1 USG // 62.3 eFG
Buddy Hield, 2016 Oklahoma — 30.2 USG // 62.3 eFG
Doug McDermott, 2013 Creighton — 34.3 USG // 62.3 eFG
Kevin Van Wijk, 2012 Valparaiso — 30.9 USG // 61.7 eFG
The amazing part about Garza isn’t just the combination of usage and efficiency itself. It’s the combination of usage and efficiency given how much defensive effort is going into trying to limit his usage.
Let’s bring this back to last night’s Indiana game…
Often cases, when a player has a high-usage game, it is — at least in part — because the defense was willing to allow it. The opposing coaching staff may decide, for example, that it’s more important to stay on shooters than to send extra help at the high-usage player.
Simply put: that was not the case in Indiana-Iowa. In fact, it was mostly the opposite.
Garza faced extra defenders for the majority of the game, and rarely ended up going one-on-one in the post.
Garza even talked about Indiana’s post coverage after the game.
“Like a lot of teams, (the Hoosiers) were sending a lot of heat towards me,” Garza said. “Honestly, I didn’t do a good enough job dealing with the double team in the second half. In the first half. I was able to survey it, get a couple assists and get some open shots for guys. But in the second half, I can’t turn it over that many times. I’m better than that, and I have been better than that, and I will be better than that.”
Indiana’s stunts and traps
Similar to just about every pack line defense, the “stunt” is Indiana’s primary way of providing help on the ball, and last night’s game was no exception.
On Iowa’s dribble drives, Indiana help defenders were in the gaps, ready to force the ball handler to pass before entering the paint.
Below, we’ll take a look at three of the Hoosiers’ best pack line possessions from the game.
The idea of the stunt is to give as much help as possible without actually committing to a double team. That way, the help defender can close-out and recover back to even.
For most players, the stunt is enough to discourage an attempt. It temporarily crowds the area and creates indecision.
But Luka Garza — as we all know by now — doesn’t respond like most players. He not only stays composed in crowded areas, but sometimes seems to even prefer these crowded areas.
Below is Iowa’s first offensive possession of the game. Look at the spacing:
Even with three Indiana defenders hanging around Garza and a terrible passing angle, this play still resulted in a pass to Garza for a hook shot.
(Iowa and Connor McCaffery are great at passing the ball into the post. We covered their post entry passes in an edition of The Starting Five newsletter earlier this month.)
Where Indiana did have some success against Garza — particularly in the second half — was by getting even more aggressive with help.
With less than four minutes remaining in the game, this was Indiana’s best post trap of the game.
On the dribble towards the baseline, Garza can’t see #10 Rob Phinisee’s trap coming until it’s too late.
There was a similar situation in the first half: in this situation, (Indiana) #1 Aljami Durham coming to trap on the baseline drive into the post.
Durham is a second too late on the trap, but (Iowa) #1 Joe Toussaint’s lack of shooting enables Indiana to get away with the trap anyways.
For the last example, let’s look at a clip that would surely keep opposing coaches in charge of scouting Iowa up at night.
The play starts out fairly similar to the other two. Garza dribbles towards the baseline, Durham runs over to trap.
This is pretty good initial defense from Indiana. First, the trap makes Garza pick the ball up. Then, the Hoosiers scramble back to even — forcing the ball to be swung all the away around to McCaffery in the corner.
Then after all of that work to get the ball out of Garza’s hands, the All-American ducks right back into the paint — using his body to generate an easy layup.
————
Overall, Indiana turned in a strong defensive performance. The Hoosiers benefitted from some favorable three-point variance (Iowa shot 5-for-23 from three), but Archie Miller’s squad also legitimately bothered Garza in the second half.
All that being said, I don’t necessarily think that Indiana laid out a repeatable defensive blueprint for future Iowa opponents.
The Hawkeyes are ranked number one in adjusted offensive efficiency for a reason, they are going to score points. So for Iowa opponents, it’s just about marginally limiting the offense while capitalizing on the (much) weaker defense.
More Tweets
Even in the loss, Kansas put together an interesting potential blueprint for future Baylor opponents
Watching Baylor’s defense scramble back to even is fun
St. Bonaventure lob play with some NBA inspiration
Virginia backdoor cuts against Clemson’s denials
Winthrop quick-hitter to sneak behind the 2-3 zone
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Iowa should see this all year...... But people get stubborn and think they can straight up guard Garza........ Please get some comments going on why college offenses are very stale.... Close to too much I so.