Standing at 6-foot-6 with a near-identical wingspan, Dillon Brooks isn’t the lengthiest or tallest defender out there.
Still, that has never deterred him or his team’s coaching staff from attaching him to an opposing team’s primary offensive threat on a nightly basis. The Houston Rockets, and their much-improved defense, can attest to that (as can the Memphis Grizzlies from his past life).
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Most assignments Brooks receives have been taller, longer and more physically imposing than him. The seventh-year forward has often talked about the mental aspect that comes with playing defense at a high level. To reach the heights Brooks has (being named to an All-Defense team last season), there has to be a certain edge that comes with it.
Simply put, Brooks regards defending as a mental test, and everything is inbounds. The stare downs before tipoff. The rolling supply of grabs, bumps and technical fouls. And the sound bites. Oh, the sound bites.
When it comes to actual mano a mano defending, Brooks’ creativity proliferates. He’ll do anything to contest a jump shot if it means the ball doesn’t go through the basket. Brooks doesn’t mind invading a shooter’s personal space and he might get offended at the mere thought of an opponent considering him too close for comfort.
Ninety-nine percent of NBA players, or basketball players in general, are taught to contest shots by extending their hands in the direction of an opponent’s jumper to cloud their vision and hopefully throw them off rhythm. Solid process.
Then, you have the one percenters, the Brookses of the world. When all else fails, he’s going to clap. As in, clap in your face.
“I feel like everyone in the league knows I slap people’s hands on jump shots after the ball’s released,” Brooks told The Athletic. “So it puts a thought in their mind that when I close out, you’re not getting a free shot. When they work out, they’re so used to following through. But when I close out, I like to mix in different things like that.”
Now, clapping in a shooter’s face isn’t a foolproof measure, the same as any other defensive mechanism. Sometimes, great players hit tough shots. But the process — especially for Brooks and a Rockets team tied with Oklahoma City for the fourth-best defense in the league as of Dec. 1, per Cleaning the Glass — is more important than the result.
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Houston forces the 13th-most “late” 3s (between seven and four seconds left on the shot clock) and third-most “very late” (less than four seconds left) 3s per game, but teams are hitting 38.4 percent of them. Dive in a bit deeper and you see the opposite of luck meeting opportunity. The Rockets have been undone by some tough opponent makes. They force the most very tightly contested 3s per game (defender within 0-2 feet of the shooter), but teams are hitting 42.9 percent on such looks. They’re also second in the league in tightly contested 3s surrendered per game (defender within 2-4 feet of the shooter), yet opponents are making 37.7 percent of those attempts. At some point, the math will even itself out.
“Just always vocalizing it,” Brooks said of stressing contests. “Most of these guys close out short. Realizing that we have to make every shot tough, even if it’s open for a second.”
Until it does, Brooks is still going to jump, wave, clap in his opponent’s face – anything to throw them off. He started clapping two years ago in Memphis, and once he realized it wasn’t going to be called a foul, it became a part of his defensive package.
Before the season, Brooks promised himself and his teammates that he would pass on some tricks of his trade, but understands that an acquired skill like this takes patience and timing.
“You gotta be able to close out to the side, you gotta be able to know where the shooting pocket is, where he likes to release,” Brooks said.
Tune in to a Rockets game this season and watch closely. You just might catch Brooks giving your favorite player a round of applause. Just a different kind, though.
“It just strikes fear, that’s it,” Brooks said with his trademark grin. “Some people are copying it now.”
GO DEEPER
Dillon Brooks explains Rockets' defensive mindset by getting 'skinny'
On most game nights, San Antonio Spurs wing Devin Vassell goes through his warmups in the same manner.
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He works on spotting up and launching treys, catching the ball at odd angles to mimic NBA games where things don’t always go according to plan. He navigates quirky ball screens, having to move around in space and find ways to finish through contact. And he does all of this while moving further and further away from the rim, maximizing his playground.
Vassell’s size – 6’7 with a 6’10 wingspan – puts him in rare air as a scorer and ballhandler. His elite shooting, and the gravity that comes with it, makes him such an intriguing player, not only for this season playing alongside Victor Wembanyama, but also as a centerpiece for San Antonio’s future. It’s a big reason the Spurs signed him to a lucrative extension over the summer. The Spurs envision Vassell thriving in whatever roster and rotation the next few years bring.
One of the only things holding Vassell back from unlocking the best version of himself is health. He appeared in 38 games last season and has already missed some time this year, causing Gregg Popovich and the Spurs coaching staff to keep him on a minutes restriction as he works his way back into the rotation.
But Vassell’s improvement is too jarring to ignore. He’s already shooting a career-best 41.9 percent on 3s, even while adjusting to having the ball less. His usage is down from 23.9 percent a year ago to 22.3 now, good for the 64th percentile among wings, according to Cleaning the Glass. He’s a lethal release valve, shooting a career-best 43.9 percent on catch-and-shoot 3s.
San Antonio has struggled offensively for most of the year, but are turning a corner over the last three games, scoring 112, 120 and 135 (!) points, respectively. Vassell has accumulated 12 triples in that span and increasingly looks like the perfect complementary piece to Wembanyama.
San Antonio is notoriously rigid with their lineups, but has loosened their grip some as it pertains to Vassell, deploying him with the second unit in addition to uber-spaced groups to get the best out of him.
It’s going to take some time, as the Spurs still have some kinks to work out in terms of ball movement and shot selection. But even in Thursday night’s loss to Atlanta, Vassell’s presence was well-received and his gravity seemed to open things up for others around him, especially when used in conjunction to Wembanyama’s constant threat.
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San Antonio uses quick-hitting actions like this to serve multiple functions: getting Jeremy Sochan more reps at point guard, forcing gambling defenses to pick their poison and making them honor their spacing. For some reason, the Hawks thought playing both of their centers at the same time (Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu) was a viable strategy. The Spurs made them defend in space and showed that wasn’t the smartest decision.
The pairigin of Vassell and Wembanyama is the eighth most common two-man grouping on the roster. I think that number needs to increase.
Vassell’s gravitational pull is so strong that the defense’s attention will naturally shift to wherever he is, even when Wembanyama isn’t on the floor. San Antonio routinely took advantage of Atlanta’s communication breakdowns, often keeping Vassell on the same side as the ball handler and deploying shooters on the opposite end to make defenses pay for scrambling.
Vassell played only 27 minutes on Thursday, but he looked like he could have played 35. If the Spurs want to rise above the ghastly 3-15 record they currently own, it’s time to let Vassell loose.
(Photo: Alex Bierens de Haan / Getty Images)
