For 10:08 of game time in their home opener, the Charlotte Hornets did something that was completely unthinkable under their former head coach Steve Clifford. Clifford was hesitant to play Marvin Williams, 6’10”, at the Center. In fact, in the last four years, Marvin Williams spent a total of 30 minutes at Center, most of it in the 2015–16 season based on the high frequency of Marco Belinelli appearing next to him in those lineups.

Except the Hornets glossed straight over that step and went all the way to playing Michael Kidd-Gilchrist at the Center. Those lineups with +8 in the aforementioned 10:08 and were a large part of closing the gap against the Bucks as much as it did.

So with any lineup like that, there’s an inherent assumption that if anything suffers, it’s going to be the defense. Taller lineups tend to produce better defenses on average, and vice versa for shorter lineups and offense. That’s the, albeit somewhat flimsy, justification for including height in the prior for splitting ORPM and DRPM.

Except those lineups, in part because of small sample size, but also in part because of some well-played defense, only allowed 21 points across 24 possessions, a Defensive Rating of 87.5.

So let’s look at how they actually managed to defend at a handicap against the Bucks.

First, they attacked Giannis Antetokounmpo’s handle with smaller defenders, as well as help defenders threatening the strip. It’s most clear in the travel below, where Kemba Walker is the primary defender and Giannis, not yet a convincing threat to pull up, has to try to drive on him.

Walker stays down, and Batum puts a disruptive hand in as well, and the result is a turnover. This harks back to an old Steve Clifford method of defending Giannis back when Jason Kidd was having Antetokounmpo bring the ball up the court as a symbolic gesture. Clifford would consistently stick Batum on him full court and have him challenge the ball handling just a little bit.

Second, they forced tertiary and quaternary options to make plays. Which is a kind way of saying that they ignored Tony Snell like the dead spot on the court that he was.

On the one hand, that might just be bad defense from Lamb. He doesn’t hard chase his man after the switch out to the three point line. But those lineups were consistently okay with putting less defensive pressure on guys like Snell and Ersan Ilyasova, and even Brook Lopez under certain circumstances, and if those were the guys that beat them then so be it.

Third, they both aggressively fronted the post and brought hard help where necessary. You can already see it if you pay attention to Malik Monk in that last clip where the Hornets ignored Tony Snell, but here’s a play that makes it much clearer.

It didn’t work out there, as you can see from the end of the play where Ersan Ilyasova makes a smart cut allowing Giannis to beat the double team, but it establishes what the principles were: Antetokounmpo is switched onto Kemba Walker. Walker fronts the post to make the entry pass more difficult, and as a result, when the entry pass is thrown, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is able to recover into a trap.

But the Hornets didn’t have to trap out of that situation. Here Malik Monk is the one fronting the post, and when the pass is thrown and Kidd-Gilchrist comes to help, he instantly switches back to Ilyasova and lets Kidd-Gilchrist take a one on one assignment with Antetokounmpo. Which, again, ends poorly, but it demonstrates how they are able to defend their worst plays.

Further, generally speaking, the aggressive help allowed for stuff like this beautiful block from Nicolas Batum in a non-post situation

Or this charge drawn by Kemba Walker on a Giannis Antetokounmpo drive

Effectively, in the fashion that’s worked for the Hornets for the past five years or so, they substituted having someone who can fly high and block the shot with the ability to consistently put someone in between the opponent and the basket. It’s a more extreme version of why Cody Zeller’s been an effective rim protector for the Hornets for years, and it gives this lineup the ability to fight because everyone in those lineups is incredibly quick and has the consistent ability to see two to three steps ahead of the play. It forced turnovers and bad shots and gave the “wings”, which were actually the two biggest players on the court, the ability to influence shots.

But what about Brook Lopez? After all, that should be the most obvious way to counter such a lineup, right? Take the elite post-up big man and let him feast. And the one time he managed to get the ball, he did:

Lopez hardly had to do anything on that play that required a great deal of skill, he just bumped Nic Batum off his spot, swept the ball up through his arms and then went for the basket once Batum wasn’t going to be able to jump to contest.

Except when Lopez was in against those lineups, the Hornets allowed only 8 points in 11 possessions, for a Defensive Rating of 72.7. Again, tiny sample and not worth much, but effectively, a few of those possessions looked like this:

Look at Brook Lopez on that play. Then try to figure out how he’s going to take advantage of his height disparity from 27 feet. If you haven’t come up with a solution yet either, don’t worry, I don’t think NBA head coaches have either.

And what that tells me is more that Budenholzer spent a significant amount of time preparing to not grind out twos and play the more up-tempo style he did in Atlanta with this personnel that he didn’t make the adjustment in the opposite direction when it was necessary.

Which, to me, implies that there’s not necessarily a high level of repeatability to the results from that lineup for the teams that have the personnel to appropriately attack it. Against the Warriors? Sure, go for it. At least until Cousins gets back, but if he’s half of what he was then the Hornets weren’t winning that game anyway. Lakers? James Borrego will celebrate every time they post up Javale McGee. Possibly even the Celtics and Rockets. But try that lineup against the Spurs and the Hornets will lose by 20 because they will take that mismatch and exploit it with LaMarcus Aldridge or Pau Gasol.

That lineup is a fantastic tool for a coach to have, and every other team that does any scouting or opponent based adjustment at all (In other words, everyone other than the Magic) has to be on notice of lineups like that. But it’s more a roofing shovel than a hammer. It has to be used in the right circumstances, and in the right way. And Coach Borrego’s willingness to use lineups like that is a breath of fresh air to a Charlotte team that had gotten stale, but he has to be careful not to let that lineup itself go stale or the Hornets will end up right where they were last season going nowhere fast.