Virginia Basketball: Comparing dominant 3PT defense with the Toronto Raptors

Conclusion

Both the Virginia Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors have managed to excel at 3PT% defense while also allowing an abundance of 3PT attempts. Both teams have implemented some similar strategies, but it would be a mistake to confuse Toronto’s defense with Virginia’s pack-line approach.

While Virginia has been replicating this kind of success for years now, this is unfamiliar territory for Toronto. So although the Cavaliers’ elite 3PT% defense has definitely benefitted from some luck here and there, the degree to which the Raptors have simply “gotten lucky” this season is a more legitimate question. The defense’s success defending wide open 3PT attempts provides perhaps the strongest argument in favor of “luck.”

Still, a few aforementioned factors push back against the idea that “luck” has been the driving factor in Toronto’s success:

• Eyewitness accounts of the team’s elite defensive chemistry
• Eyewitness accounts of team’s ability to close out on shooters  (partially backed up by data – see “tight” 3PT attempts)
• Eyewitness accounts (partially backed up by data) that Toronto is challenging better shooters while “ignoring” others
• The high proportion of threes its opponents take late in the shot clock, which tends to be less efficient

It will be interesting to monitor the Raptors going forward. Will the team continue to defend the 3PT line so well? If it truly has developed a Virginia-like formula, then there’s reason to expect this to continue. If “luck” has been the driving force, however, then it could very well be the reason the team loses in the postseason.