The Advantage of Doubling: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach to Studying the Double Team in the NBA

Understand

During the 2017 NBA playoffs, Celtics coach Brad Stevens was faced with a difficult decision when defending against the Cavaliers: "Do you double and risk giving up easy shots, or stay at home and do the best you can?" It's a tough call, but finding a good defensive strategy that effectively incorporates doubling can make all the difference in the NBA.

• In this paper, we analyze double teaming in the NBA, quantifying the trade-off between risk and reward.
• Using player trajectory data pertaining to over 643,000 possessions, we identified when the ball handler was double teamed.
• Given these data and the corresponding outcome (i.e., was the defense successful), we used deep reinforcement learning to estimate the quality of the defensive actions.