New Orleans Pelicans: 3 ways Stan Van Gundy will improve the defense

New Orleans Pelicans: Stan Van Gundy will improve transition defense

Get back on defense!

The core of Stan Van Gundy’s defensive philosophy is not giving up easy baskets, which means getting back on defense to limit shots in transition.

These are usually dunks or uncontested 3-pointers, which happen to be very high percentage shots. Van Gundy wants most of his team to sell out on the offensive glass so that they can always have bodies on the defensive end.

This happens to be an area where the Pelicans struggled this season. They were 28th in fast-break points allowed, giving up 15.4 per game.

Van Gundy’s Detroit Pistons were in the top-five in transition points allowed every year Van Gundy was there and led the league once. If you look at his 2017-18 team in Detroit, they allowed 9.9 fast break points per game, a five-point difference from the Pelicans.

Those five points are the difference in close games, so if Van Gundy can get this team to buy-in on the idea of getting back on defense, they should be able to win some of the close games they gave away this season under Alvin Gentry.

Van Gundy usually designates one player to go after offensive rebounds (in Detroit it was obviously Andre Drummond) and wants everyone else to get back. The benefit of offensive boards is not worth the risk of giving up an easy dunk or 3-point shot on the other end.

Zion Williamson will still be able to go after his own misses, something he is very good at doing, but the rest of the team needs to get back.