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Kevin Keatts and The Application of Basketball Philosophy

Writer's picture: AlecLowerAlecLower

Results wise, NC State's run to the ACC Championship and Final Four stands out like a scarecrow on the moon from the rest of a coaching tenure that has produced rather average records otherwise. It also stands out from a schematic standpoint as one of the few times Keatts has demoted the screen and roll as an action and sought to back off the ball pressure. Now, in the following year, the Pack is dependent again on ball screen actions for large chunks of its halfcourt offense, a turn that has left a lot of people asking if Kevin Keatts learned anything from last year.


He did, actually. Keatts has not ignored what worked last season. He's shifted to the personnel, which is actually the same thing he did last year. As a traditionally pick-and-roll coach, he's pivoted back to his bread and butter to play through O'Connell after he lost Mike James, who was likely your go-to guard in the zoom offense that they ran last year.


The philosophy and how it's successfully and unsuccessfully matched the personnel Keatts recruited is what we're looking to examine today. There is not a larger conclusion I'm trying to point anyone toward here. It's just an examination of who Keatts is and what he wants to do, why it has produced the results it has, and ultimately what is wrong with the current team. The hope is to shed light on how the Pack went from Final Four to a 2-8 start against power-five competition.


In a sentence, Keatts came to Raleigh wanting to run a high-volume spread pick-and-roll offense, pressure the ball and overplay passing lanes on defense, and maximize transition opportunities. This has changed at times as you would expect, but the spread pick-and-roll has always been a cornerstone of Keatts’ approach. The deeper mechanics of the system, overlaid with the personnel that it has been run with, paints a picture of why Keatts has been historically up and down offensively, defensively, and why this particular team is so lost in the wilderness.


What is Spread Pick-and-roll?


The spread pick-and-roll, which was the bread and butter of the offense for most of Keatts’ seasons, is a five out ball-screen offense. A very common look for this is a one-five ball screen originating in the slot, a two guard in the opposite slot, and a three and four in the corners. State has lots of variations of this, but this is about philosophy more than scheme, so the spread pick and roll is what we’re going to focus on as sort of a base concept. 


Such a system depends on offensive versatility to maximize it. It doesn’t throw a ton of variety at the defense, so you’re not going to fool defenders as often as you might with something like Virginia’s blocker/mover offense, which uses flows of randomized off-ball screening. State’s system is built to leverage advantage creation in its guards and space on the floor. This is not abnormal, nor is it underdeveloped as a system. Pick and roll is modern basketball, and this type of offense can peak and valley with its ability to squeeze defenses with versatility, get paint touches, and move the ball around. 


A ball screen creates an advantage somewhere on the court depending on what kind of coverage the defense plays. The defense’s goal is to concede that advantage wherever the offense is least likely to succeed in exploiting it. The offense’s job is to find a way to exploit it. There are only really five ways to defend a ball screen. 


Hedge

  • Bringing the big up or above the screen to cut off the drive or force a retreat dribble away from the rim. You can hedge with varying aggression, and you might be able to categorize soft hedges, sometimes referred to as “at-the-level defense,” as a totally different type of defense. 


Drop Coverage

  • Drop coverage positions the big below the screen as a rim protector. You can drop the big to varying depths depending on how conservative you want to be. This keeps the big in front of the roller and the ball, which can minimize the need for rotation, but it concedes the high lane and allows the guard to turn the corner freely. 


Under

  • Guards can run underneath ball screens to cut off the drive. This can shut down driving lanes, but it’s countered easily by capable shooters on the ball. 


Switch 

  • Switching the ball screen theoretically eliminates any space advantages, but can create super advantageous matchups 


Ice

  • Similar to drop coverage, but the guard steps out in front of the screening big to force the guard away from the screen, effectively keeping the ball from getting to the middle of the floor where it can more easily be distributed to shooters. 



Every type of ball screen defense has strengths and weaknesses. Soft hedges can be really effective if the ball handler can’t turn the corner on it, but bigs that can’t carry the ball effectively and then rotate back make it hard to work with. Just like the hard hedge, it’s also vulnerable to shake actions and roll-replace actions. Because the big is elevated, the roller is free, so you have to pick him up with help that leaves, usually, your three or four undefended. 


Soft drop coverage is vulnerable to mid-range shots, and all drop coverage can be beaten by a guard that can finish over the big at the rim. Harder drop coverage is less vulnerable to the mid-range, but is more susceptible to the pocket pass or a straight-up blow by. 


Going under screens will leave a shooting point guard uncontested, switches can be beaten by advantageous matchups and basket slips. Icing a ball screen is super vulnerable to a pick-and-pop action. This is all overly formulaic, but it’s a loquacious way of making a very simple point that animates this offensive philosophy. The more things you do well, the fewer options there are to stop you. If you do everything well, there is no way to stop you. 


This was the story with Keatts’ first team, which had the league’s best offense. Markell Johnson was an elite college pick-and-roll guard, something that Keatts has struggled to replicate. He was a threeish-level scorer who was an excellent passer and was explosive with the ball. Johnson had excellent change-of-speed ability, could finish over taller players at the rim, was a great shooter, and was an elite passer who led the ACC in assists. State was able to pair him with a seven-footer who could rim run, catch the ball and kick it out on a short roll, or pop out and shoot 50% from three. 


If you played drop coverage against that team, Johnson was hard to deal with. He had some mid-range game, but he could score around or over your big really well. If you hedged the screen, Johnson could frequently turn the corner on it, placing the ball ahead of the rotating big where he could exploit the numbers advantage, and he had the passing acumen to consistently find the weakside corner and exploit the roller tag. Yurtseven could also slip to the elbow or out on the perimeter and come open for a three.


If you iced a screen, it was very easy for Yurtseven to simply slide toward the point and be wide open, and Johnson could also snake his way to the middle of the floor. You most certainly could not get caught cheating under a ball screen against 40%-from-three Markell Johnson, and if you tried to switch, you’d put a guard on Yurtseven and there weren’t many bigs that could slow down Markell Johnson. 


The last piece of the puzzle was a guy like Al Freeman. Being able to put shooting into the corners makes rotating off the corner to collapse or tag a roller a much more difficult task for the defense. When those shooters could also effectively attack a closeout and score at the rim, it really trapped defenses. The idea of the pure shooter is a bit a myth in this offense. I don’t think Keatts wants pure shooters. He wants guys that can shoot and come downhill, and a 37% shooter that can do that is better than a 40% shooter that cannot. 


You can see how such a simple system can become totally unstoppable when it’s staffed well. When you can create the spacing you need, put pressure on the rim, and move the ball effectively, you can dominate. This is modern basketball, and Keatts has had a very modern approach. You’ll see State run lots of variations including shake, roll-replace, spain, ram, 77, empty-side, ghost, angle, flat, and more, but the philosophy behind it is to space the floor, use screening actions to put pressure on the rim, and then attack the vulnerable parts of the defense’s response. 



The Approach Throughout The Tenure


Keatts has put some good offenses on the floor and some not as good ones. The defensive side has been a bigger issue, but hold on. We’re getting there. On offense, State has never replicated the ingredients of the first year and Keatts, sans last year, has struggled to find other avenues. His better teams had some great offensive stretches, but they were never as consistent because they weren’t as robust. 


Markell Johnson played for two more years, but he played with Wyatt Walker, DJ Funderburk, and Manny Bates after Yurtseven left. Funderburk had some juice in pick and roll, but he was mostly just a rim runner. He wasn’t the short roll playmaker or shooter that Yurtseven was. State also got small and single-tool on the perimeter with Beverly and Bryce, both of whom regressed to sub-35% from 3. Beverly battled some injuries. 


Post-Johnson, Keatts completely missed in trying to make Cam Hayes the answer at point guard. The only thing Hayes could really do was shoot, and once teams committed to never going under a ball screen, his effectiveness dried up. The defense had answers. Getting Seabron on the ball with Terquavion Smith and Casey Morsell as floor spacers cracked the door a bit following the Hayes misfire. That was a good adjustment.


You’re rarely going to have everything. That first roster for Keatts was special looking back, and it probably goes to the Final Four if it was just adequate defensively, but it was cheeks. It’s through that team that you can see the vision behind this, and Keatts has not lacked for good offenses, but watching this year’s team spin out in the halfcourt brings back a lot of the personnel issues we’ve talked about before.


Keatts added Jack Clark as a four. Clark was a guy who was a career 30% three-point shooter. Greg Gantt was maybe more of a defensive addition, but another guy who offered little offensively. These are not guys that fit real well into the offensive structure. Cam Hayes and Wyatt Walker both made very little sense. I have questions about guys like Breon Pass and Marcus Hill. It’s not that I don’t like these guys or that I think they’re straight-up bad players, but both are objectively one-tool scorers. Pass is not a rim pressure guy and he was brought in to play point guard. Hill is off the ball most of the time and doesn’t space the floor. When you start to provide the defense more answers, the offensive efficiency declines. 


State was successful with Jarkel Joiner and Tequavion Smith because both were three-level scorers. Neither were good as distributors and State didn’t have a real roll man, so it was kind of half-baked. That’s why its assist numbers were so bad that year. But the two guards were so good that they created offense themselves by finishing over bigs, being great in the mid-range against drop coverage, and creating a ton of rim pressure. 


State saw a lot of drop coverage that year because it was easy to stay in front of Burns as a roller while guarding the ball. Keatts intended to be multiple with its spread sets and its inside-out stuff, but it lost Mahorcic and had to run everything with Burns. I do think there is more Keatts could have done with this particular group, but that's a story for another day. 


The team had defined flaws that year but was still pretty good offensively. That's important to illustrate the point that having everything is rare and also not necessary to be good. Keatts' first offense had it all and it wasn't just good. It was unstoppable. You don't have to be unstoppable to be a good basketball team. The system doesn't demand something unattainable. If it did, it wouldn't be the most popular way to play basketball in the whole world. In two words, "insufficient fits" would describe the offenses that have underperformed. 



Last Year’s Deviation


The ACC Championship season was the biggest example of Keatts adjusting away from this spread pick-and-roll. State ditched the spread stuff as a primary for the 5-out zoom actions for DJ Horne and the short-corner post ups for DJ Burns. I thought it was an excellent job of building offense toward the strengths of your personnel and I’ve written about it extensively in the past. 


I cannot stress enough that it wasn’t the system that won State the ACC. It was the malleability of the staff. It didn’t go to the Final Four because it played two bigs (which is largely a false claim) or because it ran less pick and roll. It went to the Final Four because it identified how best to build around its pieces. It has run the DJ Burns sets plenty this year, but not surprisingly, it hasn’t worked as well. 


There is nothing about the style of offense last season that is predisposed to success and nothing about the current style that’s predisposed to failure. It’s all about what you’ve got on the court. Keatts and the staff found a very different way to do things because they had advantage creators, but those players did not fit into the traditional actions.


That year proved to me that Keatts is not married to his offensive philosophy. We can certainly have a discussion about previous years where such an effort might have been appreciated. I like the thought of Terquavion Smith in the zoom action. But that's, again, a story for another day. 


State was never going to replicate the volume of the Burns sets this year because it wasn’t going to find another Burns, but it was intending to replicate its usage of the zoom action with Mike James. James got injured forever, and Taylor, Hill, O’Connell, Styles, and whomever else don’t really fit into this action. It's not that State has advantage creators and has simply returned to a spread offense that those players don't fit in. It's that it doesn't have advantage creators at all. It has shifted back to a heavier dose of pick and roll to play through Michael O’Connell.



This Year’s Team


This year’s team does not create rim pressure and it does not shoot well, although it has been shooting better as of late. It does move the basketball well, but it doesn’t attack closeouts well on the perimeter and the only guard that can get in the paint can’t shoot. 


O’Connell hasn’t been nearly as bad this year as the heat he has taken, but his limitations are well-known. He will usually read out pick and roll and make a good pass that can initiate ball movement, but he’s not a threat to score over drop coverage and he won’t turn the corner on a hedge. It will almost always be a pass after one or two dribbles. 


Because State has no versatility at any guard spot, it’s basically dependent on high-level passing to beat defensive rotation. It does get some high-level passing, and when it has shot decently and faced teams that aren’t as good in rotation, it’s put up points. Because Keatts has not been able to staff the off-ball guard department with the type of multifaceted scorer that he wants, defenses that rotate well can often shut down the actions with a targeted closeout. 


Many of State’s pick-and-roll actions flow into post-ups for decent-but-not-great post players after the defense has completed rotation. If your off-ball perimeter players could both earn a hard closeout because of their shooting and attack it as a threat to finish at the rim, they could attack that closeout and keep the defense in rotation by beating their man on the drive. Go watch the earliest Keatts team and you’ll see a lot of this. They don’t have this now, and it becomes much easier to end the play. 



Defensive Philosophy


Defensively, State is also bad this year. It generally proves disqualifying regarding the postseason when you aren’t good in the halfcourt on offense or defense. I’m not sure the philosophy is the animator of the issues, though.


State doesn’t press frequently in any meaningful way. It plays a token press a lot and will sometimes bring a true fullcourt press. The defensive aggression manifests itself more in the overplaying of passing lanes, occasional denial of the wings, and ball pressure in the halfcourt. Obviously, State wants to steal possessions and earn transition opportunities. 


It will give up some bad angles from this. As long as what it earns is more than what it gives up, it’s working. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t believe and never have that this cannot work, it’s just a matter of building a team cut out for it with length and athleticism. Jayden Taylor and Dereon Seabron were great fits. Braxton Beverly and Thomas Allen are not as good of fits. Beyond the pressure, State wants to switch everything one through four and it will vary its ball screen coverages in one-five exchanges. There is nothing abnormal about any of this. It’s just a man-to-man defense that switches very normally and places a premium on turnovers. 



Last Year’s Defense


Much like the offense, last year’s defense was not simply a product of a system change. State backed off the ball pressure some during the run, and it worked really well for that team, a team that had elite defenders in Jayden Taylor, Casey Morsell, and Mo Diarra. Diarra could switch onto guards and was particularly excellent in rotation and closeouts. He wasn’t good defensively because he was tall and listed as a forward. He was good because he was good. He was an insane athlete with incredible length who was also skilled defensively. 


The more you can switch effectively, the better you usually are. Diarra offering that at his size was a big deal. Simply playing a larger man at the four doesn't create this same situation. A two-big lineup would probably not be able to switch one through four, and shooting fours are more common than shooting fives. This would leave you vulnerable to pick and pop actions. 


The other important element of the defensive rise during the postseason was that the team had a good halfcourt offense. It could afford to play more in the halfcourt. Transition opportunities aren’t as important when you have DJ Burns. State is actually really good in transition, and given the performance of the halfcourt offense, that seems like a worthy bet to place. For what it's worth, NC State forces a turnover on 20% of its defensive possessions and turns the ball over on 14% of its offensive possessions, a strong differential. That obviously doesn't account for any effects on opponent field goal percentage.



This Year’s Defense


This year’s halfcourt defense is not bad because of ball pressure or size. It’s bad because it’s bad. It’s poor in rotation and it doesn’t communicate well. It blows switches, it’s late to stuff, and it doesn’t keep the ball in front nearly as well as it did when it had better defenders. Taylor can jump passing lanes and recover and he can lock a guy down one on one, but the other perimeter players aren’t as good defensively. 


This is just a product of a poorly-coached defense combining with a general backslide in on-ball and help-side effectiveness. I think it's pretty simple. Keatts has rarely had good defenses, and that's not for no reason. The style is built to gamble a bit, but that's not what causes it to not communicate switches correctly or get caught under ball screens, both of which hurt the Pack against Virginia Tech. State is not correctly executing a bad defensive strategy so much as it’s poorly executing the most common elements of its halfcourt defense.


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Form whatever opinions you would like to form from this. It's simply what the system is designed to do and where it has demonstrated deficiencies and successes. If you want more from Trinity Road Times, check out TRT Premium.






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