Why attacking ‘weaker’ NBA defenders on switches may not be a good strategy

Photo by Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images

Targeting players perceived as being bad on defense through switches has become an NBA strategy staple, but the data suggests that — at least in most cases — this may be a bad strategy.

At times, Luka Doncic is a liability on the defensive end. When he’s guarding away from the ball, he’s known to lose focus and surrender open shots. He often takes his time getting back on defense, giving away easy transition opportunities.

But when he’s attacked in isolation, he is a completely different defender. In the 2023-24 NBA regular season, he defended the fourth-most isolation possessions in the league and ranked in the 83rd percentile on those possessions, allowing just 33.3% shooting.

In the 2024 NBA playoffs, that success in isolation continued. He defended 18 more isolation possessions than any other player and was in the 78th percentile. Doncic had notable defensive struggles in the NBA Finals, but those struggles didn’t extend to one-on-one opportunities.

This is not just a Doncic story. His surprising success tracks with season-long data analyzed by SB Nation, which shows that players most frequently targeted in isolation defense often perform better than the league average.

NBA teams commonly hunt matchups, aiming to get their strongest offensive weapons isolated against the other team’s weakest defenders. This strategy is evident even to players just entering the league.

“The NBA is just a bunch of ball screens (and) switching,” said Cody Williams, selected 10th overall by the Utah Jazz in the 2024 NBA draft, “getting their worst defender on their best scorer and then letting him go to work.”

“If you can’t guard, teams are going to switch it on you, and you’re going to have to get a stop, or they’re going to keep attacking you,” added Reed Sheppard, the Houston Rockets’ No. 3 overall pick.

However, the data suggests this approach might be flawed. There is almost no correlation between how often a player is targeted in isolation defense — thus, how weak they are perceived to be on that end — and how well they actually perform in these situations.

The results are similar for other play types where teams often try to go after poor defenders, such as pick-and-rolls and handoffs — raising the question of whether the widespread practice of hunting matchups is actually an effective offensive strategy.

A huge part of today’s game

The first quarter of the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals highlighted this mismatch-hunting trend.

“The Celtics just continue to target people for the Indiana Pacers,” said then-ESPN analyst J.J. Redick, now the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, during the broadcast of Game 1. “They can create mismatches all over the court. They’re a heavy isolation team with great creators.”

It started from the tip. On the Celtics’ first half-court possession of the game, Jayson Tatum immediately went after Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton, who’s generally seen as a poor defender. Earlier in the play, Tatum brought Haliburton’s man up to screen for him, necessitating a switch. Once he was matched up against Haliburton, Tatum cleared everyone else out of his way. The Celtics got what they wanted and let Tatum go to work.

A few possessions later, Jaylen Brown saw Haliburton matched up with him and promptly backed him down. This forced Pascal Siakam to leave his man and double team Brown, opening up a wide-open pass to Jrue Holiday, a 43% three-point shooter last season. In other words, because Brown was able to get a mismatch against a poor defender, Siakam felt he needed to overcompensate defensively and thus gave his man an easy scoring opportunity.

This game of matchup cat-and-mouse is an everyday occurrence in the NBA. Teams seem to be going after particular defenders more than ever. In pick-and-roll defense this regular season, the 50 most frequently targeted players defended a far greater frequency of possessions despite teams running essentially the same amount of pick-and-roll as in previous seasons.

And yet these 50 most frequently targeted players defended roughly the same as the league average. So why are these “bad” defenders consistently holding their own?

The limitations of targeting defenders

1. Picking the wrong players

Perhaps they’re not bad defenders at all.

Those 50 most hunted players in the pick-and-roll had an average defensive rating of 112.6 — three points better than the league average, according to Cleaning The Glass. The same is true for isolation. If teams are trying to go after the worst defenders most often, they seem to be doing a poor job of picking their targets.

Some players feel that teams might not be targeting them because of their statistical defensive performance, but rather their appearance.

“It’s a stereotype that white guys are slower and less athletic,” said Payton Sandfort, an Iowa star who participated in the 2024 draft combine before ultimately returning to school for another year. “But a lot of us have been targeted so much that it has actually helped us improve our defense. We’re better than a lot of other guys.”

Baylor Scheierman, picked No. 30 by the Boston Celtics in 2024, echoed a similar sentiment.

“The perception is that if you’re white, you can’t defend as well and you’re an easy target.”

2. Defenses adjust to help their teammates

But even if the player being targeted really is a poor defender, there are other factors limiting the efficiency of matchup-hunting.

The most obvious one is that the defender’s team also knows their limitations. As shown in the Tatum/Haliburton clip above, teams will often work incredibly hard to prevent their weaker defenders from facing a one-on-one matchup with a strong scorer. The other players can sag off their man to help, run to double team or just generally be more aware on the weak side to assist their struggling teammate.

It’s why rim protectors like Alex Sarr, picked No. 2 overall by the Washington Wizards, are so important in the modern NBA. He said he would change his approach if he saw one of his team’s weaker defenders isolated against a star.

“I would pay more attention to what’s going on,” Sarr said. “Sag a little bit more off my guy and try to help out and recover as much as I can.”

The San Antonio Spurs’ No. 4 overall pick, Stephon Castle, played on a national championship-winning UConn team last season that featured one of the best defenses in college basketball. He said the Huskies would make similar adjustments to assist a targeted teammate.

“It changes the way that we play help defense,” Castle said. “Our help defense is probably a little bit stronger.”

A member of the NBA coaching community interviewed by SB Nation agreed with Castle, going so far as to say he would be willing to “invite” targeting at times.

“If they want to stall out and single out one individual player,” the coach said, “we’re probably comfortable saying we’re going to build a wall around that player with our shift help defense, maybe pre-rotations.”

3. Limits offensive movement

This willingness to allow the opposition to go after a defender hints at another limitation of the matchup-hunting offensive approach — it disrupts the offense’s rhythm. Rather than running a normal offensive scheme — which involves ball and player movement — the offensive players who aren’t isolating will often stand in place and wait for the star player to make his move. This offensive stagnation allows the defense to set itself and “load up” to the offensive player.

Mo Dakhil, an NBA analyst for The Athletic, thinks hunting matchups can lead to efficient offense. But he believes teams sometimes spend too much time trying to get the matchup they want, abandoning the rest of their offense.

“(NBA teams) get trapped into this mode of matchup-hunting,” Dakhil said. “It really hurts them and their offense, and it allows the rest of the defense to rest.”

On this possession, Anthony Edwards attempted to get the switch onto Dereck Lively II, and then isolated on Derrick Jones Jr. once Dallas rendered that strategy unsuccessful. While this happened, the other Timberwolves players completely stalled out; they stopped moving and watched Edwards dribble his way into a difficult fadeaway three. Notice, too, the rotations from Lively II, Doncic and Irving on the backside, who knew they could assist Jones Jr. as a result of Minnesota’s lack of off-ball movement.

4. Targeted players give extra effort

Perhaps the process of being targeted elicits greater defensive effort and focus than a normal possession would. Players know when they are being targeted, and they know what it means: that they are perceived to be a bad defender.

Cam Spencer, drafted No. 53 overall by the Memphis Grizzlies in 2024, said he takes it personally when he can tell he’s being targeted defensively.

“That gets my competitive nature going to say, ‘You’re not going to get by me,’” Spencer said. “That fires me up even more.”

The same appears to be true for Doncic. Here’s an example of Doncic on an off-ball possession in the fourth quarter of Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.

Doncic was clearly somewhat unengaged on this defensive possession. He did some pointing and motioning, but his feet remained glued to the ground. When the ball was kicked out to Karl-Anthony Towns, an excellent three-point shooter who had just knocked down a long one on the previous possession, Doncic made no effort to close out.

Contrast that defensive possession with this one, where Doncic was locked in immediately and seemed to take the Naz Reid matchup quite seriously. When he’s defending on the ball — especially when it’s clear the offensive player thinks they’ve found a mismatch and is trying to exploit it — he exerts much more energy.

The exception: post-ups

But there is one play type where targeting does seem to net significant benefits: in the withering domain of post-ups. The 50 players who defended the highest frequency of post-ups last regular season gave up 104 points per 100 possessions, well above the league average of 98.8.

One explanation for this difference might stem from the simplest of advantages: height. The 50 players with the highest frequency of offensive post-ups have an average height of nearly 6-foot-10. The 50 players who defended the highest frequency of post-ups measure a shade over 6-foot-6 on average.

“Bigs are trying to score in the paint, especially in college,” Castle said. “When they have a smaller guy on them, I feel like it’s more efficient than an ISO, just a regular ISO.”

Even a relatively weak post-up player like Rudy Gobert’s eyes light up when being defended by a smaller player like Doncic. The height difference, combined with the proximity to the hoop, generates a more significant advantage for the offensive player than they would get in other isolation situations.

Hunter or hunted

NBA offenses are more efficient than ever — last season’s average offensive rating was the highest in history. But one tool in the arsenals of NBA offenses isn’t as efficient as teams seem to think: targeting defenders.

The 50 most targeted players by frequency defended better than the league average in isolation, and they were just slightly worse than the league average in pick-and-rolls and handoffs. The only play type analyzed by SB Nation in which targeting produced a clear advantage was in post-ups, where size differences come into play more clearly.

Teams also seem to make false assumptions about which defenders are actually the weakest. Defenses have found ways to account for poor defenders with stronger rotations. When players can tell they’re being targeted, it can lead to an increase in one of the most critical components of defensive success: effort.

But ultimately, the inefficiency of targeting is tied not only to the defense, but to what it takes away from the offense. If teams are locking in on hunting certain defenders, they are likely abandoning the free-flowing offense that often places the most pressure on the opposition.

“If we’re constantly moving the ball, we’re constantly having to put the defense in a stressful situation,” said the aforementioned member of the NBA coaching community. “Everyone standing around, waiting for someone to attack (is) more predictable and easier to guard.”

There is clearly a time and place for attacking weak defenders — every postseason, certain players are relegated to the bench because they can’t guard in one-on-one situations. But season-long data proves that teams are not properly identifying the defenders to target and are becoming overly reliant on hunting matchups.

Or perhaps they’re not hunting at all. The defensive success of perceived liabilities like Doncic and other frequently targeted players hints that teams trying to take advantage of matchups sometimes become the hunted.

Sean Graney contributed to this story.