Amid the New Orleans Pelicans' six-game losing streak, Will Winston goes between the hedges to look at the team's lackluster defense.

The 2013-2014 season has been one of overhaul for the New Orleans Pelicans. The team rebranded themselves and brought in guards Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans in an effort to shift the direction of the franchise. When healthy, the new-look Pelicans have been one of the most potent offenses in the league. They rank in the top half of teams in terms of points per game, and are a top-10 team in overall offensive efficiency.

But out of the top 13 teams who share a great offense, they have the worst record. Injuries have played a role – a fully healthy roster has played together in only seven out of the team’s 34 games.

Yet even during those seven games, the Pelicans gave up an average of 103 points a game — good for 27th in the league. The defense has been, in a word, abysmal.

The Numbers

The Pelicans are the second-worst team in terms of defensive efficiency, giving up about 107 points per 100 possessions. They are a bottom-five team in defensive rebounding percentage and only the Knicks allow opponents to shoot more free throws. Opponents are shooting over 60 percent in the paint against the Pels and have an eFG% (field goal percentage adjusted for the value of a three-pointer) over 50 percent — putting the Pels in the bottom 10 for each stat, per NBA.com.

In other words, New Orleans ranks in the bottom half of just about every defensive category.

There are multiple reasons that contribute to the porous team defense, and no one factor can be assessed as a blanket cause. Yet we can still pinpoint some issues that are causing problems.

A defense should cater to its personnel, and right now the Pelicans aren’t executing well enough to pull off the aggressive schemes coach Monty Williams has them running. If a defense is going to be aggressive, it must be able to force turnovers (see, for example, the Miami Heat). The Pelicans, however, are just an average team when it comes to forcing turnovers. When you ask a defense to do more than it’s capable of doing, you introduce more variables that can go wrong.

Hard-Hedging the Pick-and-Roll

One of the things that Monty does in his defensive scheme is hedge the ball-handler coming off of a screen. Here is a typical example:

When executed properly, this can delay an offense from getting into their sets. But hard hedges creates self-imposed constraints for the Pelicans. A hedging scheme requires a good dose of rotation and communication — areas where the Pelicans tend to struggle.

Most Pelicans opponents are able to circumvent the hedge to their favor. Watch as teams find the screener wide-open for jumpers after Anthony Davis hedges hard:

A poorly executed hedging scheme creates a myriad of problems. It pulls the man guarding the screener (usually a big man) far away from the rim. In the Pelicans’ case, this often means the league’s leading shot-blocker in Anthony Davis is 25 feet away from the basket. Davis is deft enough out on the perimeter (he has gotten some steals out there), but the Pelicans need him to protect the paint as much as possible without another shot-blocker on the team.

It can also force the other big man to come out to help on the rolling screener. When this happens, the guards are the only players under the rim, as the hedger can’t get back to the rim quick enough. This is one factor for the Pelicans’ poor defensive rebounding percentage.

After the pick has been set, look at how Anderson is forced to come out on Davis’ man (Spencer Hawes), which leaves the weakside guards (Holiday and Gordon) under the basket with three people to cover. Tony Wroten, in the corner, eventually grabs the offensive rebound and lays it back up.

Some teams have started to slip the screener in an effort to quickly take advantage of the lack of big men down low.

Even if the Pelicans rotate on time, it can result in switches that the Pels aren’t able to handle. A defense that is constantly in flux rotating is also susceptible to spot-up jumpers, fouls, and penetration. The Pelicans are the third-worst in terms of opponents’ spot-up shooting percentage according to Synergy Sports. Essentially, opposing teams are getting open jump shots.

Part of the problem can also be attributed to ball-watching, which happens all too much.

Here, Tyreke Evans finds himself in no man’s land after a switch, and gets caught ball-watching to allow an offensive rebound. The Pelicans also find themselves switched up at times after an offensive rebound.

Miscommunication (or lack thereof)

Some of these problems can be solved with good communication. Instead, there is communication like this:

I’ve gone to my share of home games and I’ve rarely heard Aminu utter a word on the court. Most of the players for that matter are not as vocal as they should be. The result ends up in guys not knowing who to guard, or who not to guard…

The Pels also do themselves a disservice by digging in the post when they shouldn’t, which also forces guys to rotate out of position. They may dig so much because they struggle defending the post (sixth-worst team according to Synergy, allowing 48 percent shooting). But they often use the wrong guy to do the digging or botch their rotations afterward.

The Pelicans are one of the top-10 teams at getting back on defense in transition, limiting teams to about 12 fast-break points a game. That means that most of their defensive ails come in the half-court set, which is supposed to be a harder phase of the game for teams to score than in transition.

Individual Defense

Individually, the team has only two above-average defenders in Davis and Holiday. Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, Tyreke Evans, Anthony Morrow, and Austin Rivers all have individual defensive ratings worse than the team’s defensive rating, according to NBA.com. The Pels often find themselves overcompensating for guys that can’t get around ball-screens quick enough. Gordon, at 6’3”, can also be overmatched against bigger guards and big men often take advantage of Anderson in the post. With this group, there is not a lot of room for guys to hide on defense.

On top of not having a great group of individual defenders, the Pelicans are lacking in hustle and defensive pride – two things that don’t require talent but can make a big difference when it comes to defense. The guys just don’t seem to prioritize defense, and it’s hard to win with that attitude.

Some may point to the fact that this group has only had limited time to play together, and that with time they will get better. Yet with the same scheme in place last year and many of the same players, the Hornets were the third-worst team in terms of defensive efficiency. The team has struggled ever since defensive-minded assistant coach Mike Malone left after the 2011-2012 season.

The void in the middle left behind by the departure of Robin Lopez also remains to be filled. Without Lopez, the team’s foul rate and defensive rebounding percentages have exacerbated.

Despite the amount of talented individual defenders on the Pelicans roster, Monty could do more (or less) with his personnel. In a stacked Western Conference, there isn’t much margin for error.

Room for Improvement

How can the Pelicans improve their defense with the group they have? The Pels would be better served if they varied their pick-and-roll defense according to what the match-ups are and where the pick is set. There are times when defenders guarding the ball-handler should go under the screen more, like when the pick is set a couple of feet above the 3-point line. There is also more room for big men to sag below the screen instead of hedging it. These strategies limit the amount of rotations and switches that the Pelicans are forced to do. Good examples are found here:

With Ryan Anderson and Jrue Holiday out indefinitely, the Pelicans have gone from a “fun” team to watch to a mediocre team that is susceptible to double-digit losses. The injuries raise some interesting questions about the Pelicans’ future. Do they tank? Will they make a move before the trade deadline? Does Monty get a mulligan?

As compelling as these questions may be, the one question that the team needs to answer sooner rather than later is whether they can complete the transformation they started this year by over-hauling their defense to become a legitimate playoff team.

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