To Hack Or Not To Hack (-A-Ben)?
by Corey
Following last night's euphoria-inducing beat-down of the Celtics, after the euphoria and Fruity Pebbles consumption died down, there was some discussion about Doc Rivers' seemingly desperate use of the Hack-A-Ben strategy late in the game. The consensus in the media, it seemed to me, was that this was a poor decision—just look how it worked out for Boston!—but I'm not so sure.
Ben Wallace is the worst free throw shooter of all time, in case you've forgotten, so if the Hack-a-Shaq is going to be effective against anyone, ever, this is the guy. Wallace's career FT% is 41.8%; however, his 2008-09 FT% is currently a lofty 45.5%, which still makes him the NBA's worst by a considerable margin. Never in his career has Ben cracked 49.0%.
So does Hack-A-Ben pay dividends? Obviously, we cannot draw any conclusions based on one game's anecdotal evidence. What it boils down to is this: the Cavaliers' current Offensive Efficiency is 113.1—that is, the Cavs can be expected to score 1.131 points per possession—does Hack-A-Ben reduce that number, on a per-possession basis, enough to offset the amount of personal fouls your team will have to rack up?
If we assume Wallace will make 45.5% of his FT attempts, then we can assume he will score .455 points per attempt, which means, each time you foul him, he can be expected to net his team about .91 points with his two shot attempts. Of course, the Cavs will be able to rebound a few of Ben's misses. Offenses tend to recover about 30% of reboundable missed free throws, and we can assume that there will be about .545 reboundable misses per Wallace trip to the line. So the Cavs can be expected to pick up an extra possession about 16.4% of the time. Further, each time the Cavs do get the ball back, we can expect them to come away with about one extra point (I'm roughly averaging the 1.13 they score normally with the 0.91 they might score if Ben gets Hacked again). In short, a typical Hack-A-Ben possession should result in a net gain of about 1.074 points for the Cavaliers. That means that if every single possession were a Hack-A-Ben possession, the team would have an Offensive Efficiency of 107.4—worse than their usual, to be sure, but hardly anything to sneeze at. In fact, 107.4 is better than the current NBA average Efficiency of 106.8.
Consider this, too: 113.1 is the Cavs' Offensive Efficiency against an average defense. The Celtics have one of the best defenses in the NBA (99.9, which is currently edged only by the Cavs' own 99.3). And when the Celtics Hack-A-Ben, they're taking that off the table. So really, we shouldn't be comparing 107.4 (the Hack-A-Ben offense) to 113.1 (the normal Cavs offense). We should be comparing 107.4 to something a lot closer. Last night, I was convinced Doc Rivers was doing the smart thing, but now I'm beginning to think I may—gulp—agree with the consensus here.
That said, I'm certain that Hack-A-Ben is still the correct strategy for some teams in some situations. I'd like to try to define what those situations are. For starters, we've already reasoned that the strategy becomes less effective as the Cavs' "normal" scoring chances go down. So if, for example, your defense sucks (meaning the Cavs can be reasonably expected to score 1.25 points on every possession, or some such ridiculousness), then by all means, Hack-A-Ben. If, for example, LeBron seems to have decided that all of His shots that night will go in, and also that they will each be worth 5 points, then by all means, Hack-A-Ben. On the other hand, if your defense is amazing, consider just sticking with that. Or if, for example, LeBron is not playing because He had to travel to Switzerland on short notice to stop the Large Hadron Collider from destroying the Earth, then Hack Not!
So when the Cavs take on the league-worst defense of Golden State on January 23, the Warriors should definitely practice their fouling technique. But when in the game would it appropriate to start Hacking-A-Ben? You can't just start intentionally fouling in the opening minutes of the first quarter; your entire team would foul out. So how long can you sustain it? Assuming you have 12 men suiting up, you can commit up to 67 personal fouls before you literally have to field a four-man team. And of those 67, you can expect that about 21 will occur in the normal course of things. That leaves 46 fouls to work with, but even then, you're definitely going to want to leave a cushion, so to speak, so that your core players don't all foul out. Let's be conservative and say that you can afford to earmark 30 intentional fouls to your Super Hack-A-Ben strategy (you'll have plenty of opportunities to sub players in and out, with all those free throws being attempted).
Now the question is, how many minutes of clock could you eat up by Hacking-A-Ben 30 times? The average NBA possession lasts about 15.7 seconds, but you could intentionally prolong your own team's offensive possessions, so let's say you'll take about 20 seconds off the clock each time you get the ball back. Let's also say that you'll be forced to Hack-A-Ben about 5 seconds into each Cavs possession. Remembering that the Cavs will rebound some of Ben's misses, let's say that each Cavs possession will take about 10 seconds, total. That means each "cycle" will take about 30 seconds off the clock. Now, there won't be a full 30 cycles, because you'll have to Hack-A-Ben more than once per possession (each time the Cavs get an offensive rebound), so let's say there will be about 25 cycles.
That translates to about 12.5 minutes of game time, which is less than I would have expected, but still, it means you could reasonably start Hacking-A-Ben at the outset of the fourth quarter, and never have to stop. Of course, eventually Mike Brown might take Ben out of the game, so my recommendation would be to try to spread those 12.5 minutes of Hacking out across the third and fourth quarters.
Regardless of the timing, the Hack-A-Ben will severely shorten the length of each Cavs possession, so if you are trailing by a heck of a lot, it might increase your chances of getting extremely lucky (this was probably Doc Rivers' reasoning). But other than that, if Hack-A-Ben does indeed decrease the Cavaliers' Offensive Efficiency over the time period in question, then it is not a strategy that should be reserved for blowouts, or tight games, or losing efforts, or even winning ones. If you really believe it works (for your team), you should use it every time you play the Cavaliers, regardless of the game circumstances.
The problem is, it's such an uncommon strategy that it has the connotation of being either desperate or unsportsmanlike. That's why you'll generally only see it employed in so-called "desperate" situations. As a coach, you'll get blasted in the press if you make significant use of the Hack-A-Ben without ultimately winning the game. And against the Cavaliers, winning the game is generally going to be a long shot, slight advantage or no. Take last night's game: the strategy appeared to be a terrible one for the Celtics (instead of just a possibly questionable one), not because Ben made many free throws, but because Boston's offense suddenly went cold, meaning they made up no ground. Doc Rivers is getting blasted today for all the wrong reasons.
That brings me to one final point of discussion: the counter-strategy we saw LeBron attempt to implement on one of last night's possessions: shoot a crazy three right before Wallace gets fouled—if it goes in (as LeBron's did, although unfortunately they ruled that LeBron was a second too late), Ben has the chance to make it a four-point play. Worst case, if it doesn't go in, Ben gets three FT attempts instead of two. This is a very clever strategy, of course, but it can only be employed once or twice, I think, since the opposing team would merely have to "fake" fouling Ben, and they'd have forced the Cavs into wasting a possession on a ridiculous shot that was unlikely to go in. So ultimately, I'm not sure the "Calling Their Bluff" counter-strategy will ultimately tip the scales into the Cavs' favor (for long, anyway). At most, it may serve to put a momentary end to the Hack-A-Ben shenanigans.
In closing, the question "To Hack or not to Hack?" is far from clear-cut. At a minimum, I am willing to conclude that it is the correct strategy sometime, meaning if every NBA coach was both smart and unconcerned about his reputation, we'd see it much more often. The better the Cavs get (or, the more people realize the Cavs are for real), the more often Hack-A-Ben ought to make sense. I guess we'll see.
Ben Wallace is the worst free throw shooter of all time, in case you've forgotten, so if the Hack-a-Shaq is going to be effective against anyone, ever, this is the guy. Wallace's career FT% is 41.8%; however, his 2008-09 FT% is currently a lofty 45.5%, which still makes him the NBA's worst by a considerable margin. Never in his career has Ben cracked 49.0%.
So does Hack-A-Ben pay dividends? Obviously, we cannot draw any conclusions based on one game's anecdotal evidence. What it boils down to is this: the Cavaliers' current Offensive Efficiency is 113.1—that is, the Cavs can be expected to score 1.131 points per possession—does Hack-A-Ben reduce that number, on a per-possession basis, enough to offset the amount of personal fouls your team will have to rack up?
If we assume Wallace will make 45.5% of his FT attempts, then we can assume he will score .455 points per attempt, which means, each time you foul him, he can be expected to net his team about .91 points with his two shot attempts. Of course, the Cavs will be able to rebound a few of Ben's misses. Offenses tend to recover about 30% of reboundable missed free throws, and we can assume that there will be about .545 reboundable misses per Wallace trip to the line. So the Cavs can be expected to pick up an extra possession about 16.4% of the time. Further, each time the Cavs do get the ball back, we can expect them to come away with about one extra point (I'm roughly averaging the 1.13 they score normally with the 0.91 they might score if Ben gets Hacked again). In short, a typical Hack-A-Ben possession should result in a net gain of about 1.074 points for the Cavaliers. That means that if every single possession were a Hack-A-Ben possession, the team would have an Offensive Efficiency of 107.4—worse than their usual, to be sure, but hardly anything to sneeze at. In fact, 107.4 is better than the current NBA average Efficiency of 106.8.
Consider this, too: 113.1 is the Cavs' Offensive Efficiency against an average defense. The Celtics have one of the best defenses in the NBA (99.9, which is currently edged only by the Cavs' own 99.3). And when the Celtics Hack-A-Ben, they're taking that off the table. So really, we shouldn't be comparing 107.4 (the Hack-A-Ben offense) to 113.1 (the normal Cavs offense). We should be comparing 107.4 to something a lot closer. Last night, I was convinced Doc Rivers was doing the smart thing, but now I'm beginning to think I may—gulp—agree with the consensus here.
That said, I'm certain that Hack-A-Ben is still the correct strategy for some teams in some situations. I'd like to try to define what those situations are. For starters, we've already reasoned that the strategy becomes less effective as the Cavs' "normal" scoring chances go down. So if, for example, your defense sucks (meaning the Cavs can be reasonably expected to score 1.25 points on every possession, or some such ridiculousness), then by all means, Hack-A-Ben. If, for example, LeBron seems to have decided that all of His shots that night will go in, and also that they will each be worth 5 points, then by all means, Hack-A-Ben. On the other hand, if your defense is amazing, consider just sticking with that. Or if, for example, LeBron is not playing because He had to travel to Switzerland on short notice to stop the Large Hadron Collider from destroying the Earth, then Hack Not!
So when the Cavs take on the league-worst defense of Golden State on January 23, the Warriors should definitely practice their fouling technique. But when in the game would it appropriate to start Hacking-A-Ben? You can't just start intentionally fouling in the opening minutes of the first quarter; your entire team would foul out. So how long can you sustain it? Assuming you have 12 men suiting up, you can commit up to 67 personal fouls before you literally have to field a four-man team. And of those 67, you can expect that about 21 will occur in the normal course of things. That leaves 46 fouls to work with, but even then, you're definitely going to want to leave a cushion, so to speak, so that your core players don't all foul out. Let's be conservative and say that you can afford to earmark 30 intentional fouls to your Super Hack-A-Ben strategy (you'll have plenty of opportunities to sub players in and out, with all those free throws being attempted).
Now the question is, how many minutes of clock could you eat up by Hacking-A-Ben 30 times? The average NBA possession lasts about 15.7 seconds, but you could intentionally prolong your own team's offensive possessions, so let's say you'll take about 20 seconds off the clock each time you get the ball back. Let's also say that you'll be forced to Hack-A-Ben about 5 seconds into each Cavs possession. Remembering that the Cavs will rebound some of Ben's misses, let's say that each Cavs possession will take about 10 seconds, total. That means each "cycle" will take about 30 seconds off the clock. Now, there won't be a full 30 cycles, because you'll have to Hack-A-Ben more than once per possession (each time the Cavs get an offensive rebound), so let's say there will be about 25 cycles.
That translates to about 12.5 minutes of game time, which is less than I would have expected, but still, it means you could reasonably start Hacking-A-Ben at the outset of the fourth quarter, and never have to stop. Of course, eventually Mike Brown might take Ben out of the game, so my recommendation would be to try to spread those 12.5 minutes of Hacking out across the third and fourth quarters.
Regardless of the timing, the Hack-A-Ben will severely shorten the length of each Cavs possession, so if you are trailing by a heck of a lot, it might increase your chances of getting extremely lucky (this was probably Doc Rivers' reasoning). But other than that, if Hack-A-Ben does indeed decrease the Cavaliers' Offensive Efficiency over the time period in question, then it is not a strategy that should be reserved for blowouts, or tight games, or losing efforts, or even winning ones. If you really believe it works (for your team), you should use it every time you play the Cavaliers, regardless of the game circumstances.
The problem is, it's such an uncommon strategy that it has the connotation of being either desperate or unsportsmanlike. That's why you'll generally only see it employed in so-called "desperate" situations. As a coach, you'll get blasted in the press if you make significant use of the Hack-A-Ben without ultimately winning the game. And against the Cavaliers, winning the game is generally going to be a long shot, slight advantage or no. Take last night's game: the strategy appeared to be a terrible one for the Celtics (instead of just a possibly questionable one), not because Ben made many free throws, but because Boston's offense suddenly went cold, meaning they made up no ground. Doc Rivers is getting blasted today for all the wrong reasons.
That brings me to one final point of discussion: the counter-strategy we saw LeBron attempt to implement on one of last night's possessions: shoot a crazy three right before Wallace gets fouled—if it goes in (as LeBron's did, although unfortunately they ruled that LeBron was a second too late), Ben has the chance to make it a four-point play. Worst case, if it doesn't go in, Ben gets three FT attempts instead of two. This is a very clever strategy, of course, but it can only be employed once or twice, I think, since the opposing team would merely have to "fake" fouling Ben, and they'd have forced the Cavs into wasting a possession on a ridiculous shot that was unlikely to go in. So ultimately, I'm not sure the "Calling Their Bluff" counter-strategy will ultimately tip the scales into the Cavs' favor (for long, anyway). At most, it may serve to put a momentary end to the Hack-A-Ben shenanigans.
In closing, the question "To Hack or not to Hack?" is far from clear-cut. At a minimum, I am willing to conclude that it is the correct strategy sometime, meaning if every NBA coach was both smart and unconcerned about his reputation, we'd see it much more often. The better the Cavs get (or, the more people realize the Cavs are for real), the more often Hack-A-Ben ought to make sense. I guess we'll see.
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