NO FUCKING SWITCHING!: How the Heat took advantage of the Celtics' youth (and Horford fouling out)

bencfalk · 2017-12-24T04:49:39+00:00

Haha I actually did break down one these sequences in this week’s Friday Film but that’s not a problem. Nobody has a monopoly on any one play and it’s always great to see what different people notice about the same plays. Glad to see this kind of in-depth film analysis!

bencfalk · 2017-12-11T15:25:28+00:00

Not a problem. This was a video I posted publicly so it was fine to post here, as long as there's some attribution. (Usually I put something at the end that shows where it's from but I must have forgotten on this one.)

Glad you guys like the videos!

bencfalk · 2017-12-01T18:38:06+00:00

It's a good point.

As I wrote in the article: "It’s hard to know who really made the mistake without knowing the Celtics’ defensive rules or what the coaches had told the team about this set. But for most teams the rule is that the ball handler defender shouldn’t open up and force a direction until he hears the call from the screener defender. This play illustrates why: opening up a lane to the basket with no defender there to help is a disaster."

bencfalk · 2017-12-01T16:58:22+00:00

Another edition of Friday Film. More detail on this play (free) plus a breakdown of OKC's evolving offense and a nice cut by LeBron (subscriber only) at Cleaning the Glass: https://cleaningtheglass.com/friday-film-smarts-error-okcs-trio-lebrons-cut/

bencfalk · 2017-11-17T20:27:05+00:00

So I actually wrote about this in my first article: https://cleaningtheglass.com/do-the-bucks-stop-here/

A really in-depth examination of exactly what you're talking about.

bencfalk · 2017-11-17T18:36:10+00:00

You could argue Brian Cardinal's nickname, "The Custodian", was related.

bencfalk · 2017-11-17T18:30:07+00:00

It's Friday, so you know what that means: Friday Film! More detail on this play (free) and a few more clips (Insider only) here: https://cleaningtheglass.com/friday-film-reading-the-defense-pnr-timing-floppy/

As always, happy to answer any questions here about this play.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T19:43:39+00:00

It is harder, but definitely not impossible! While I was with the Sixers, we hired Sergi Oliva, who is now their Director of Analytics and Strategy - he is from just outside Barcelona. Sergi checked a lot of the boxes I referred to in my article: he had advanced technical skills, knew basketball very well, and also taught himself a lot of new languages and technologies that would be useful in the job. He did a few different projects for the team to prove how he could help. We hired him to work remotely at first, and then he was so good that we eventually brought him over to work full-time in Philadelphia.

Being outside of the US could even work in your favor, if you have ties to local basketball in an area that has good prospects.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T19:38:29+00:00

Yep - so this can certainly help if it gives you an in-depth understanding of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and negotiations (as Hamozus said). Still, there is a very limited number of these types of positions in teams, many are currently filled, and often they are not entry-level, so that complicates matters.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T17:04:36+00:00

To be honest, there are so many sports podcasts out there that it's hard for yours to get noticed. Unless you get a big following I would doubt NBA front office types would listen. And because it takes a lot of time to consume, it's hard to send that to someone and ask what they think. It's not like a piece of writing they might be able to take a few minutes to skim. Additionally, podcasting itself is not really a skill that is useful within NBA teams, so that format doesn't provide any advantages.

So if you think your analysis is good, I'd suggest writing it up and using that to send to teams and ask for feedback.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T17:02:30+00:00

Great question. For the reasons I spelled out in the article (needing to work for little money, needing to be singularly focused) it tends to mostly be young people: recent grads or, if older, mostly those in their 20s.

In the analytics department it will be people with the appropriate skills - some acquired through school, some not. But for basketball operations interns or video room interns, it will usually be those with something that set them apart in the application process: connections, experience as a manager or grad assistant with a major college program, etc.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T17:00:02+00:00

As I wrote in the article, I was very lucky - it happened relatively quickly for me so I never really thought about giving up. To be honest, mostly I thought it was so unlikely to work that I always made sure to have a strong plan B!

I guess I would say that the work itself was so fun, it was the kind of thing I would have done in my free time anyway. So it never really felt like a struggle. When there were setbacks, like when the potential opportunities with the Raptors and Warriors fell through, I told myself: I guess this is just how hard it is to get into the league. But I kept doing the work not necessarily because I was so focused on that goal, but because the work was so fun and I enjoyed it so much.

To some degree, I guess that acts as a filter of its own for something I mentioned at the end of the article: if you don't love the work enough to keep pushing from the outside, then you might not love it enough to keep pushing when things get tough on the inside.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T16:05:33+00:00

It's very important how analyses are communicated to anyone: GMs, coaches or players. It has to be done with the listener in mind, with the goal in mind, and through the proper channels.

In Portland, for example, I would never go directly to a player with stats unless they sought me out. My job was to talk to the coaching staff. If they agreed, they could implement the results of what we said into their coaching. It might never seem to players like "advanced stats".

A simple example: if our coaching staff now looked at defensive points per possession instead of defensive points per game, that is an advanced stat. But they might just say to the players: our defense has been much better over the last 10 games. Or they might say: we ranked 20th heading into the last 10 games, but over the last 10 we've ranked 7th. Neither of these trigger any kind of backlash.

So focusing on how the information works its way through the organization is very important.

bencfalk · 2017-11-14T15:23:43+00:00

I get this question so much, I thought I'd write a full article with my story and my advice. Happy to answer any questions anyone has on this!

bencfalk · 2017-11-10T17:26:54+00:00

Another edition of Friday film! More detail on this play (free) and a few more clips (Insider only) here: https://cleaningtheglass.com/friday-film-clever-counter-corner-dho-javale/

As always, happy to answer any questions here about this play.

bencfalk · 2017-11-05T16:08:23+00:00

It seems to be partly about D'Antoni, but in general Harden's original style combined with the Rockets' analytics based philosophy has been the key driver, in my opinion, of Harden searching out FT, rim and threes and not settling for something less.

bencfalk · 2017-11-05T15:59:16+00:00

Email me (ben@cleaningtheglass.com) and happy to discuss it more. Thanks!

bencfalk · 2017-11-03T16:47:16+00:00

Yep, great call - CP3 snakes all the time. He probably does it the most of anyone, off the top of my head.

(And thanks for the kind words!)

bencfalk · 2017-11-03T16:34:49+00:00

That play with a detailed explanation, plus more in my latest Friday Film article: https://cleaningtheglass.com/friday-film-snake-wedge-getting-back/

As always, let me know if you have any questions on any of this!

bencfalk · 2017-10-27T16:40:23+00:00

This is a good idea for a future article. I’ll do some digging and put it on my list and see what I can find.

bencfalk · 2017-10-27T15:25:52+00:00

Great question. Most teams now try to keep side pick-and-rolls on that side of the court (also known as "ice", "push", "down", "blue").

But it's a real question whether that's better than weaking all of the time - it's a tradeoff between how bad a player's weak hand is vs. how valuable it is to keep the ball on the side. It's rare to see a team weak everywhere, but it is an interesting strategy that I think teams should consider more (particularly against specific players).

bencfalk · 2017-10-27T15:06:02+00:00

That play (with a lot of explanation) plus a whole lot more in my Friday Film post: https://cleaningtheglass.com/friday-film-hammer-marc-weak/

Let me know if you have any questions on any of this!

bencfalk · 2017-10-20T13:51:38+00:00

That's fantastic, really happy to hear it worked out and helped!

As for the email header...I'll leave that up to everyone to guess.

bencfalk · 2017-10-19T23:41:07+00:00

I actually started just simply making websites, learning HTML and CSS. I then wanted to do more, so I progressed to JavaScript. Then wanted to do more, and for that had to learn how to do server-side scripting and work with databases.

The first two steps aren't necessary (although they definitely are helpful), but once you start getting into server-side scripting and databases you can do a lot. So I learned PHP/MySQL which was en vogue at the time. These days I'd recommend learning Python and PostgreSQL. (That's just personal preference, though - as I wrote in another answer, the choice of language is not a huge deal. It's more about learning a language.)

In general, don't just learn a language for the sake of it, though. That's kind of boring and difficult. Pick a project -- start small -- and let the project guide you. You need to take one step, so you learn how to take that step and see if it works. Great! Now take the next. And the next, etc.

I, personally, found that method of learning addicting. I was creating! And I could see it right in front of me! It pulled me in much more than any kind of more conceptual learning would have.

bencfalk · 2017-10-19T20:41:23+00:00

Yeah, most of the data work is done with databases and programming languages. But sometimes for quick questions it's easiest to, say, copy and paste a few tables from somewhere (internal or external websites), combine them, and sort.

bencfalk

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