Charles Lee's defensive framework shines despite Charlotte's disappointing campaign

Breaking down Charlotte's defense when Lee had all of his tools to work with.

Matthew Hinton-Imagn Images

Before the team's overall level of health took a turn for the worse, the Charlotte Hornets were playing some decent basketball. Led by head coach Charles Lee's defensive mind, the Hornets were humming on that end of the floor, flirting with a top 15-20 defense in the Association through much of December.

That all fell apart when Charlotte was forced to re-engineer their entire rotation as defensive stalwarts Cody Martin and Grant Williams were either traded or hurt, and key rotation players like LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, Brandon Miller, and Tre Mann missed extended periods of time.

However, when they were mostly healthy, Charlotte showed flashes of what is to come in the years ahead with Charles Lee at the helm. I looked back at what could be considered the Hornets' best six minute stretch of basketball last season, a half-quarter romp against the Indiana Pacers in early November where Rick Carlisle's squad didn't score a point for the second half of the third stanza as Charlotte came back from down 13 to end up winning by 20, to figure out what makes Lee's defensive mind tick.

Effort, communication, timing, connectivity

Eric Canha-Imagn Images

When trying to summarize what made Charlotte's defensive effort so staunch in that third quarter, the four words above came to mind: Effort, communication, timing, and connectivity.

After his defense got beat on multiple possessions, Lee changed up his defensive strategy. Charlotte began to switch everything in an attempt to muck up Indiana's offense and force the Pacers to hunt for an advantage. The clip below is a masterclass in switch-heavy team defense.

Tre Mann operated as the point of attack defender and immediately got switched onto Indiana's star point guard Tyrese Haliburton. A pick came from Myles Turner, forcing Grant Williams onto Haliburton and sending Mann into the post against Turner where he was proverbially bringing a knife to a gun fight against the seven-footer.

Haliburton recognized that there was mouse in the house and swung the ball to the wing for Bennedict Mathurin to have a clear path at an entry pass to Turner.

Not so fast.

While that was happening, Moussa Diabate scram switched (a defensive strategy where a team quickly reassigns defenders to avoid a bad matchup on a play) onto Turner and sent Mann to the corner to guard Diabate's original matchup before Mathurin had a chance to load up his pass.

Mathurin, now without a clear passing option, decided to drive past Miller before Diabate swallowed up his shot at the rim, showing impeccable timing and instincts to help off of Turner on the block.

The five players danced around the court like a quintet of marionettes being conducted by their astute puppet master Lee. This type of defensive action isn't easy. Indiana, in their five-game first round shellacking of the Milwaukee Bucks, feasted against Doc Rivers' switch first defense, forcing the veteran head coach to abandon his preferred strategy as their season slipped away.

In this next clip, a similar situation occurs. After rejecting a dribble hand-off opportunity, Turner gets Mann switched onto him again, this time on the perimeter. Turner looks to take advantage of the switch, dishes the ball, cuts to the block, and hopes that Jarace Walker is able to create a look for him.

Walker drives with Cody Martin guarding him and sees Grant Williams sloughed into the paint to help either Mann or Martin on the interior, leaving Obi Toppin, a 36.5% three-point shooter, open to fire away from the corner.

This may look like poor team defense on the surface, but it is a key tenet of what Charles Lee wants to do on defense. The first-year head coach would rather leave middling shooters open in the corners than allow easy looks at the basket. The modern NBA is all about trading twos for threes, but Lee would rather force a team to beat him from outside before he gives an inch in the paint: a sound strategy when the opposing shooters leave something to be desired.

Switching pick-and-rolls, hard helping off poor shooters, and doubling big man touches at the free throw line are all things that Charles Lee can control. His schematic principles are in place, and when he has the talent, length, and IQ on the court, his defense is going to cause problems for opposing teams.

However, the effort and communication, things that the players in the lineup can control, in that third quarter were otherworldly. Cody Martin, Brandon Miller, and Grant Williams specifically were roaming the court like banshees waiting to pounce on any unassuming Pacer that turned their back. Their wingspans deleted Indiana's passing lanes, leaving Carlisle's perimeter creators no choice but to create scoring opportunities off the dribble, playing right into the hands of Lee's defense.

Tre Mann, a super-sub not known for his defense, is at least a dogged, prideful competitor when he's asked to guard on the perimeter. The results don't always tilt in Mann's favor, but it's not for lack of effort.

It wasn't always perfect, but it was effective. Defense wins championships (shoutout Nico Harrison), and Charles Lee knows championship level defense. And if you squint hard enough, the peripheries of it are beginning to peek through in Charlotte.

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