The Strickland Test: The ice is right
San Diego does not have air conditioning. It’s not in homes, it’s not in coffee shops or stores. This was perfectly reasonable before climate change, when temperatures would creep into the 80s for only four or five days a year. Now, however, as the blistering Santa Ana winds bring temperatures in the 90s and 100s to even the coastal portions of the city, the city’s residents (e.g. me) have become desperate. Every day at 7:00 AM I trudge down the stairs, gather ice from the freezer, and fill baking pans with it. I then trudge back up the stairs and deposit the pans in front of my fan. My verdict? The ice method of air conditioning is outdated and silly. I still spend most of my day splashing my face in cold water or submerged in the ocean (okay, so it’s not all bad) to stay cool. San Diego needs to rethink AC, and the rest of us need to get a hold of climate change.
More than a few upstart lawyers are itching to argue that a Tom Thibodeau favorite — ice pick and roll coverage — is just as outdated as ice-based AC. What’s the verdict? WELCOME TO COURT (bangs gavel more times than necessary).
The Strickland Test:
Before getting into the dirty, grimy details of the case, we need to get clear on all the relevant laws and statutes. To help us do that we have, in his own words, “a real-life lawyer” — the great Marty Wilpon, AKA Matt Weiss!
Hi everyone! I’m a real-life lawyer, here to tell you about the Strickland Test. I know, I can’t believe I agreed to this either.
The Strickland Test — and to be clear, I’ve never heard it called this, but it’s very useful for Dallas’s branding — comes from Strickland v. Washington, a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that established a two-part test to assist a court in determining whether a criminal defendant’s attorney performed his or her duties insufficiently. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in her opinion that if both of the following were accurate, the original jury verdict could be vacated:
1. The attorney’s performance on the case was so deficient as to not meet an objective standard of reasonableness; and
2. The attorney’s deficient performance is such that if his or her performance had not been so deficient, there is a reasonable probability that the jury would have returned a different verdict.
Just as an FYI, “reasonable” is a fancy-shmancy legal term that’s essentially meaningless, because it’s not a clear standard! (In actuality it refers to what some unknowable person of average intelligence and character would think and how they would act. Basically, if you could walk up to 100 random people on the street and describe the circumstances of the case to them, if the vast majority would say the attorney’s performance was insufficient based on the two prongs of the Strickland Test, then the verdict should be vacated. Kind of confusing and circular!)
And now Dallas is going to apply the Strickland Test to basketball, somehow.
A zillion thanks to Matt Weiss for writing that up! What I’m seeing — with my non-lawyer eyes — is that The Strickland Test is used to determine whether a defense was adequate. And that question just so happens to be as relevant to basketball as it is to the law.
With that being said, let me announce a new series I plan to write here on The Strickland. A series dedicated to (loosely) applying The Strickland Test to NBA defenses (and especially the Knicks defense). I must give a shoutout to the wonderful James Marceda for discovering this Supreme Court case, and a shoutout to James and Stingy for the brainstorming sessions! This idea wouldn’t exist without them.
So, without further ado, is ice coverage an adequate NBA defense??
Ice coverage in the ECF:
I’m going to introduce and explain ice coverage by looking at how the Celtics utilized it in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals (don’t worry! There are lots of examples of them doing poorly!).
Before we can evaluate the scheme’s effectiveness, we need to understand it. So, let's start by taking a look at an ice pick-and-roll coverage (from here on ‘PnR’) used against a side PnR with an empty corner:
Let’s walk through what we’re seeing here. When Bam Adebayo steps up to set the screen, Kemba Walker jumps to position himself in such a way that it’s impossible for the ball handler to use the screen and impossible for the ball handler to get to the middle of the floor. This is the distinctive feature of icing the PnR: the ball handler’s only option at this point is to drive baseline, where the big is waiting to greet him.
What are the main goals and strengths of ice PnR coverage?
Keep ball handlers out of the middle of the floor, where every other offensive player is in passing range
Prevent penetration by having the big deep and using the baseline as a sixth defender, walling off the ball handler
Give less space to shooters than other coverages (like drop), because the point of attack defender doesn’t have to fight over/under a screen
Make it easier for the point of attack defender to recover to his man, because he doesn’t have to fight over/under the ball screen (note that switching schemes don’t require point of attack defenders to fight over screens either, but they don’t [by design] allow recovery. This can result in mismatches, but ice doesn’t face this problem when properly executed)
Make pocket passes more difficult, forcing a higher frequency of pops and short rolls (notice how Kemba’s and Theis’ hands appear to touch when they seal the ball handler to the baseline, effectively removing the pocket)
A number of those goals and strengths are straightforward, but I do want to emphasize why this defense is often better against pull-up threats than drop-and-trail coverage. In this next video, Boston is in drop-and-trail. Notice how much room Tyler Herro has to shoot, because Kemba is fighting to get around the screen:
On the other hand, if you take a look back at the first video, you will see that Kemba can stay connected to the ball handler the entire play.
Alright, we’ve talked about the basics of the coverage and some of its strengths. Next, let’s get into the weeds a little bit and chat about off-ball assignments. Even though ice coverage does a pretty good job of taking away the pocket pass, it can be susceptible to lobs if your 5 isn’t quick and springy enough. In the first example clip above, you’ll notice the nice, roomy launch pad that Bam has to the rim.
Defenses often deal with this problem the way that drop coverages deal with it — the closest man on the weak side of the PnR will bump the roll man. In other words, they will slide down off their man and, well, give the roll man a little bump. The goal is to slow down the roll man just enough for the point of attack defender to recover to the ball handler, so that the big can recover to the roll man (WOOO! NBA defense is complicated). Here’s an example where RJ Barrett executes a nice bump in drop-and-trail coverage (peep him in the near corner):
Ice PnR typically relies on this same principle — the closest man on the weak side of the PnR bumps the roll man when necessary. Peep Jaylen Brown bumping the roll man here:
But, take a look at what happens in that first example clip again:
UH OH!! Brown doesn’t bump the roll man! And now, a new wrinkle: Boston sometimes prefers to bring help from the weak corner (Jayson Tatum fills that role in this example). The thought is this: it’s going to be very difficult for the ball handler to successfully hit that corner over two defenders (the big, and the weak side corner help), and a successful pass is going to take a long time to get to that corner. So the defense will have enough time to rotate, if necessary. But more than likely when you’re playing not-LeBron James, that pass doesn’t come. Now, it’s risky letting the roll man have all that space, but Boston trusts their rangy, lengthy wings at the rim enough to live with that risk.
Alright, so a lot of this sounds pretty good right? Surely there are some weaknesses? You betcha there are! Let’s look at some of the ways ice PnR coverage can break down.
First, if your point of attack defender doesn’t pressure the ball handler, pull-up shooters can thrive against this defense. Check out this example where Marcus Smart is a bit lackadaisical getting his body into the ball handler, and SPLASH:
Second, if your big is undisciplined about sealing the baseline — or too slow-footed to do so — the ball handler will be able to escape and cause trouble. Theis had some difficulty with this in Game 1. In this example, Theis calls for the ice, but is too late getting into position:
And, here again, Theis fails to take away the baseline, opening up space for Jimmy Butler to create for his teammates:
Both of the above problems (not pressuring the ball and not sealing the baseline) are typically the result of a lack of focus or discipline and/or personnel weakness. And these sorts of mistakes can and do happen with any scheme. But the two most glaring structural flaws created by the scheme are: (1) susceptibility to popping big men, and (2) susceptibility to the lob. We’ve already discussed (2) a little bit, and how the defense can try to cover for this weakness by bumping the roll man, so let’s focus on (1). Take a look at where Kemba’s and Theis’ eyes and bodies are in our favorite example play again. And notice how much room Bam has to pop, if he’d like:
This is a deep structural problem with ice coverage, so teams with sharp shooting and good decision-making bigs can thrive against it.
As with the lob threat, there are some ways that the defense can mitigate this problem. Most commonly, once the pass to the popping big man is made, the nearest defender (in this case Brown) could stunt (lunge towards the big/show help without committing) to try and slow down Bam and make him think until Theis can recover. But this is a tricky tight rope. Overcommit, and Bam swings the ball to Crowder, who is open at the top of the key (forcing further rotations). Under-commit, and the big has an uncontested three.
One final point. This coverage is most frequently used against side PnR. It can be used against high PnR, but you are unable to use the baseline as an extra defender in this case. Against high level ball handlers, you have to be wary of them splitting the coverage. That said, if you can successfully force the ball handler to one side of the floor, it essentially becomes a drop coverage without the point of attack defender having to fight through a screen.
The Verdict:
Ice coverage is not a panacea to NBA PnR offense, but no defense is. The PnR is designed to create advantages for the offense, and every PnR coverage is — at best — meant to limit those advantages. Switching stops the five vs. four advantage that occurs when one defender is behind the play, but it results in mismatches. Drop-and-trail coverage limits penetration and doesn’t result in many mismatches, but it allows the five vs. four and a variety of pull-up shots. Blitz coverage limits pull-ups, but it puts immense strain on the rest of the defense when the ball handler is able to string it out, leaving the big rolling or popping.
In my view — and in the lies of the law — the benefits of ice coverage are abundant. If you have a big who isn’t very mobile (so you are hesitant to bring him to the level of the screen or to switch), this scheme allows you to drop him back while still applying some ball pressure. Against modern pull-up threats, this is an important advantage. And it’s an excellent tool in the belt of any high-level defense. It shouldn’t be used all the time, and should perhaps be put away against elite popping bigs. But it is clear to this court (the only one that matters) that ice PnR coverage can be used by high-level defenses against high-level offenses in the modern NBA (Boston has utilized it frequently [though far from exclusively] and has the best defensive rating in the playoffs to this point). Ice, like any other PnR coverage, has important weaknesses. In conclusion, the ice PnR coverage is not a thing of the past, and it is infinitely cooler than ice AC.
THE COURT HAS SPOKEN, AND MAY ROD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOULS
Gavel Gavel Gavel
