Ime Udoka's "Switch Everything" Defense Has Been Hot Garbage And That Needs To Change Quickly
When the Celtics decided to hire Ime Udoka as their head coach one if the biggest questions I know myself and others had was what would his system look like both offensively and defensively. Would it look any better from what we saw last year? He talked so much in his early pressers about how Brad's offensive system was trash and that they were going to get back to moving the ball. We never really heard him talk about his defense though. For my money, that's the biggest issue in righting this ship. The Celts have to get back to being elite defensively and they have the talent to do it. In fact, more often then not we've seen them live in the upper third of the league in terms of team defense ever since the Brad era first started.
We now know what Ime prefers on that end. It's a "switch everything" approach where we're seeing Ime have everyone switch 1-5. Doesn't matter who the opponent is or what the situation is, Ime is having this team switch. The early returns on that approach have been……fairly gross
Drtg - 110.6 (22nd)
Opponent 3P% - 38% (25th)
Opponent 3PM - 13.8 (21st)
Opponents points - 119.0 (29th)
Opponents 2nd chance points - 13.6 (22nd)
Opponents points in the paint - 51.6 (26th)
Now this is not something that I think Ime and the Celts need to abandon completely. There are parts of a switch everything approach that will be cleaned up over time as they roster gets comfortable with it and they are allowed to practice and improve on it. But we're also seeing some pretty glaring concerns that are impacting wins as a direct result of this defensive approach. So what I wanted to do is take a look at everything and see how much of it are things that can be improved as guys become more familiar, and how much are always going to be fatal flaws.
Miscommunications
Let's start here. Some of what we're seeing is frustrating, but easily correctable as we move forward. When you switch everything like Ime wants them to do, communication is absolutely crucial. You need to be on a string. You need to be able to trust that everyone is on the same page on every possession. When you aren't, NBA caliber players are going to make you pay for it. Allow me to show you some example of what I'm talking about
Everything about this defensive possession stinks. Schroder doesn't exactly try and stop the ball or fight through the screen because he knows they're switching. Well you can clearly see the miscommunication between him and Rob. Look at how much Rob is sagging off his man. That stuff is easily correctable with film sessions and practice. I'd like to see better communication from Schroder to make sure Rob know to hedge up. They didn't, and LaMelo knocked down a three.
On this play, you see a couple things. First, the downside of the switch approach because it put a much larger player on Schroder. This forces rob to sag WAY off his man at the top of the key. With some good ball movement the Celts are suddenly in a scramble and Schroder is lost. Tatum is slow to recover and it ends up in a wide open three. Something tells me Ime doesn't want Rob sagging down that much.
In the Knicks game this sort of play happened a billion times. You watch it and there doesn't look to be any communication between Rob and Jaylen as to who does what. Obviously, this is the first game of the year and that type of mistake is going to happen. Once again Rob doesn't hedge or anything and he's sort of just guarding nobody. I would not exactly call this defending on a string.
It's not just Rob though, we're seeing this type of mistake happen with pretty much everyone on the roster. Look at this one from Tatum
You can see him sort of point out to the switch, but then he too doesn't come up close enough and Oubre is able to take a fairly uncontested three. This is what we're seeing teams do a whole lot, as soon as the Celts switch, we're seeing opponents go right into their shot because they have the space to operate. These are the types of things that have to be tightened up and can be moving forward.
As you can see, these are all very correctable mistakes that you would think improve over time as guys get more comfortable with how Ime wants this to be run. That's why these type of plays don't really bother me as much. I consider them growing pains.
Rebounding
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If that first part was about things that are mostly growing pains, this part is where I think there's more a fundamental issue with this defensive switch scheme. We're seeing Rob get switched onto the perimeter ALL THE TIME, basically every possession. With their best rebounder 30 feet from the basket, it's no surprise that the Celts are really struggling keeping guys off the offensive glass as well as 2nd chance points and points in the paint. The numbers are actually really shocking when you look into them. Rob currently leads the Celtics when it comes to contesting 3PA (29). That's 10 more than the next closes player which is Smart. Because he's a freak of nature, we see Rob block a shit ton of these jumpers which is for sure awesome. But you know what isn't awesome? What happens if he doesn't block it.
Here we see a good switch with Rob taking RJ, and a familiar contest on the three. That's good. What's not good is what happens down low. With no other big on the roster, we're seeing every team's opposing big dominate the offensive glass. Again, your best rebounder is 30ft from the rim. Tatum may be an improved rebounder, but he's going to have issues keeping someone like Mitchell Robinson off the glass.
On this play we see what happens when Rob switches onto a guard at the top of the key, but then after he initially sags down in an effort to help Schroder on Randle, he eventually has to come back out to make sure Kemba doesn't take the three once Randle is doubled. By the time Fournier takes his shot, look at where Rob is as a result of this. He's at the MSG logo! Nobody puts a body on Obi Toppin and it's an easy offensive rebound. It's not like Rob can leave Kemba at any point and get to the rim, so the Celts are sort of stuck here.
Against the Hornets it was the same thing. A high screen on Rob's man, he switches and has to contest the three, and Jaylen/Tatum are forced to go up against a big. Jaylen tries to box him out but ultimately loses that battle, which isn't really a surprise. This isn't a mistake on Rob or anything, it's just how the switching works. He has to contend that shot, and he can't do that and also make sure he handles the glass. It's a one or the other situation.
So you can see with this stuff, it's not a "early in the season" issue where guys need to communicate better. This is a flaw in the scheme. If Al and Rob are going to be asked to repeatedly switch onto guards at all times and challenge everything on the perimeter, it's going to expose them on the glass. But this is also why Ime can't really play Kanter. We know he can rebound, but if the team is going to switch everything then you absolutely cannot have Kanter trying to check anyone on the perimeter. At least Rob and Al have the foot speed to handle that. Kanter does not. His rebounding becomes ineffective if he's not by the rim. Just take a look at Rob's rebounding numbers and it explains everything.
Last year, he had a DREB% of 25% and a TRB% of 20%. Both very solid for his position. This year? That's dropped to a DREB% of 18% and a TRB% of 14%. That's a pretty drastic drop off which you can understand because now he's spending way more time a million miles from the rim. That's not something that improves with better communication or anything like that. He's just not around the rim as much as he used to be.
My other issue with this switch everything defense so far is it's extremely predictable. When teams know you're just going to switch everything, it's easy to target your weaknesses. How many times do we see teams immediately attack Schroder with a bigger player? What are we going to see against MIL or PHI? Schroder or another guard try and handle Embiid or Giannis on a switch? No chance. I also think when you have this defensive approach be your mainstay, you run the risk of lazy defense. Guys are just expecting the switch and don't have to fight through screens. That's annoying for everyone to watch. We hear Ime talk about now playing hard, well let's actually have the roster have to fight on defense for a change, maybe that addresses the issue a little bit.
Again, I think switching is fine, in doses. Maybe you switch 1-4 rather than 1-5. But everything from the eyeball test to the actual metrics suggest that this switch everything approach is not doing the trick. Even if things improve slightly over time with more familiarity, it doesn't solve the whole Rob on the perimeter issue and leaving the defensive glass exposed.
The question now becomes, can Ime adjust? What sort of defensive tweaks can he make to address a major issue? I don't care what the Celtics do or look like offensively. If they don't defend, nothing else matters. When we saw this team at their best, they defended at a high level. What we're seeing with this scheme so far is anything but that.