Is this the NBA’s Era of Gegenpressing?

The pressure is rising, and it’s leading to excellent results

Pressure can overwhelm and obliterate, but it also creates through brute force. It will crush a ship in the depths like a tin can, yet it can rearrange carbon into diamonds. Pressure is a singular force with a dual nature, and this duality is what makes it a winner.

The 2025 NBA Finals feature two teams that have mastered the art of pressure. The Oklahoma City Thunder are the league’s preeminent turnover machine. Their waves of unrelenting pressure crack even the best players. And in the blink of an eye, defense becomes offense.

The Pacers play a different pressurized game. Unlike the Thunder, they aren’t a defensive juggernaut. But they’ve led the league in full-court pressure the past two seasons to supplement a half-court defense that is far from elite. Their embrace of pressure and dismissal of calm has led them all the way to the NBA Finals.

The Thunder and Pacers’ embrace of high-intensity, high-pressure tactics feels like a turning point. For the past decade, offense and skill have come to control the sport, with defense and physicality in a perpetual backpedal. But now, defense, athleticism, and physicality have finally found their footing and are launching a counteroffensive to regain ground lost over the decades. The NBA is embracing the reality that the only way to beat control is through chaos, and the same tactical push-and-pull that gripped European football a decade earlier is now entangling the NBA.

Tiki-Taka-Toe

The Spanish national football team embarked on the greatest run of dominance in international football history starting in 2008. They won the European Championship in 2008, the World Cup in 2010, and then the European Championship again in 2012. Their style of play, dubbed tiki-taka, was built around short passing, movement, and above all, retaining possession. Against teams that dropped deep, they would methodically progress the ball into their opponent’s final third and patiently wait for an opportunity.

Simultaneously, FC Barcelona, under Pep Guardiola, utilized similar tactical principles as they went on their own unmatched run of dominance in the modern game, winning 14 trophies between 2008 and 2012, with a treble winning season (La Liga, Copa Del Rey, and Champions League) in 2009, and redefined the modern game along the way.

By 2012, tiki-taka had a vice grip on world football, and outside of a few sides maintaining discipline in a deep defensive shell and capitalizing on counterattacks, it had no real foil. That was until gegenpressing took the world by storm.

Gegenpressing is just German for “counter-pressing.” The tactic, popularized and perfected in Germany, prioritizes winning the ball back as quickly as possible in the transitional phase from offense to defense. The benefits of this strategy are numerous.

First, you prevent the opposition from getting closer to your goal, which means they can’t score. Second, a high turnover is more easily turned into a great goal-scoring opportunity. It’s a tactic that limits opponent scoring chances when executed properly, while increasing the quality of your own, and it’s why almost every high-level football club utilizes some form of a counter-press.

There are downsides to a counter-press. When beaten, the defense is more exposed than if they had immediately dropped deep and put as many bodies between the ball and the goal. A physically demanding system, it can lead to injuries and sudden declines in performance from fatigue. However, the benefits, particularly for elite teams, far outweigh the downsides. But why gegenpressing swept the highest levels of professional soccer is equally as pertinent.

One of the drawbacks of the tiki-taka style of play is the reality that you will have to play out of the back. All this means is that your goalkeeper, defenders, and deepest lying midfielders are major contributors in your offensive build-up. Essentially, you’re trading the risk of losing the ball closer to your own goal with defenders out of position for the upside of control. If you have incredibly technical players, it usually works out, but not always.

The basic principles of gegenpressing work in any tactical environment, but it is far more powerful when teams are eager to play out of the back. While the goal of a well-executed counter-press is to win the ball back, it isn’t the only objective. If you can’t regain possession quickly, the next best outcome is to force the opposition into a speculative longball, which is best described as a clearance. But if your whole tactical ideology is predicated on maintaining control and possession, then you’re far less likely just to hoof the ball forward and hope for the best.

With the wide adoption of gegenpressing, tiki-taka suddenly had more downside risk than before. Control was more difficult, mistakes were more costly, and defense had stopped backpeddling. The result hasn’t been the death of tiki-taka, but a melding of styles. Now, the best teams counter-press and control, and live with the risks for the upsides they provide.

The NBA appears to be entering its equivalent of the early phases of the gegenpressing explosion. Starting with the success of the Golden State Warriors in the middle part of the 2010s, a 3-point arms race ensued, as teams quickly realized that the key to offensive efficiency was volume and proficiency from beyond the arc.

With all the space afforded by a newly spaced-out court, teams entrusted their most talented perimeter creators to either isolate on the perimeter or orchestrate the pick and roll to generate offense. In broad strokes, these developments explain the NBA’s explosion in offensive efficiency over the past 15 years.

However, many of the best defenses of the past decade and a half basically conceded defeat at the hands of NBA offenses and instead looked to cull the bleeding. Teams built defenses designed to win the shot chart battle, but against elite offenses, they were still helpless. It took time and experimentation, but NBA teams have begun to realize that the best way to combat an elite offense is by taking the fight to them.

NBA Tiki-Taka

For the past 20 years, offensive efficiency has steadily climbed and wrestled control of the league. And the most obvious area where offense has won out is effective field goal percentage.

In the 21st century, the linear correlation between the league average effective field goal percentage and offensive rating is 0.974. So, yes, “It’s a make-or-miss league” is pure analytics. The reason why shooting efficiency has improved dramatically over the past 25 years can be boiled down to one thing: shot selection.

The boom in 3-point shooting was simply an acknowledgement that 3-pointers were a more efficient shot than mid-range jumpers for 90% of the player population. Throw in the fact that as 3-point volume increased, 2-point field goal percentage increased, and suddenly you have a runaway train of offensive efficiency.

However, basketball isn’t just a series of shot chart inputs. Teams actually do things to create the shots they want, and the spread pick-and-roll has become the de facto offensive tactic of the modern NBA. Looking at possessions classified as pick-and-roll ball handler by NBA tracking data, we can see how integral it has become to modern NBA offense.

*Single Game Average Possessions is the league average pick-and-roll ball handler possessions run by a team in a single game

Pick-and-roll ball handler possession frequency rose from 2015-16 to 2019-20, and while its frequency has declined in each subsequent season, the play’s efficiency reached new heights in 2022-23, and it hasn’t been until the past two seasons where we’ve seen a decrease in frequency and efficiency in the same season.

As the points per possession (PPP) column shows, pick-and-roll ball handler possessions are not efficient offense on their own. However, the two most common possessions to be born out of it are pick-and-roll roll-man possessions and catch-and-shoot jumpers, are. And on top of efficient offense flowing from the pick-and-roll, it also allows the offense to dictate terms.

Over the past decade, as elite lead ball handlers have become more adept at off-the-dribble threes and centers have become more skilled, the pick-and-roll has become a way for offenses to dictate matchups and exert their will over defenses. In many scenarios, a defense has to choose between making an unfavorable switch or giving a team’s best offensive player too much space to operate. One of the reasons the pick-and-roll has come to define modern NBA offense is that it grants outsized control to the initiator, and that’s exactly why teams are resorting to gegenpressing to fight back.

The NBA’s Gegenpressing Era

The NBA is quietly witnessing a tactical shift towards high-pressure to wrestle control away from their spaced-out spread pick-and-roll overlords. The three bellwethers for high-pressure gegenpressing inspired NBA tactics are offensive rebounds, turnovers, and full-court pressure. Offensive rebounds are effectively the same as a successful gegenpress. A missed shot usually forces a team to transition from offense to defense, that is, unless they secure an offensive rebound. Meanwhile, turnovers guarantee a transition from defense to offense. And full-court pressure sees a team immediately apply pressure following a transition from offense to defense.

Offensive rebounding and turnovers have generally declined over the past 25 years, and were certainly in decline over the first two decades of the 21st century. However, starting in 2022, the league average offensive rebound rate has increased each season, and this season, turnover percentage experienced its largest season-to-season increase (0.5%) since 2007 and the largest percentage increase (4.13%) of the century.

A key reason why offensive rebounding has reemerged is due to player populations. In the 2010s, teams raced to acquire above-average positional shooters, even if they lacked the physical characteristics to play the position. For the teams that weren’t able to stockpile enough shooting, they were left with two choices. Play the same and suffer, or play differently and try to survive.

With the league shifting toward smaller, quicker, and more skilled players in the frontcourt, it gave bigger, more physical players the ability to bully their counterparts near the basket. This didn’t lead to a bully-ball drive revolution, but it did allow poor shooting teams to post top-10 offenses through sheer offensive rebounding prowess.

It often goes undiscussed how efficient elite offensive rebounding can make an offense. If a team has an eFG% of 50%, they’re expected to score one point per field goal attempt. If a team has an eFG% of 60%, they’ll average 1.2 points per field goal attempt. Over five field goal attempts, one team will score five points and the other six, but a single offensive rebound by the 50% eFG% team, providing one additional field goal attempt, levels the playing field. For reference, in 2024-25, the Charlotte Hornets had the lowest eFG% in the league at 50.3%, and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 57.8% was the highest. Elite offensive rebounding wouldn’t completely close that gap, but it can make a sizeable dent.

The sudden spike in turnover rate this season is an interesting development, considering how steadily turnover rate has declined over the past 25 years. In 1999-00, the league average turnover rate was 14.2%, and by 2023-24, it came in at 12.1%, the lowest league-wide figure on record. In fact, the most turnover-prone offense in 2023-24, the Utah Jazz, only had a turnover rate of 13.6%, which would have seen them finish with the eighth-lowest turnover rate in 1999-00. So, what changed in 2024-25 after two decades of declining turnovers?

First, deflections saw their first season-to-season increase since they began tracking them in 2015-16. While a deflection isn’t a turnover, it is an excellent proxy for turnovers forced, and it also acts as a proxy for overall defensive aggression.

Deflections 2016-17 to Present

Now, I need you to ignore the totals and focus on the per-minute deflection figures. It’s clear from the tracking data that not every stadium was equipped to track deflections (the minute totals were lower as well in those seasons), but we have to work with what we have. On a per-minute basis, deflections declined each season until a sharp increase in 2024-25. While I will concede that changes in the tracking technology could be in play, the fact that it coincides with the largest increase in turnover rate this century leads me to believe that this is real.

Simply put, 2024-25 saw NBA defenses get more aggressive at going after the ball. And that trend also shows up in the pick-and-roll data. As the previously noted decline in pick-and-roll ball handler possessions shows, teams are forcing the ball out of elite playmakers’ hands in the halfcourt, and this increased aggression against the league’s best offensive creators has led to more turnovers from pick-and-roll ball handlers.

Interestingly, the increase in turnovers on pick-and-roll ball handler possessions is largely what’s driving the overall efficiency decline on the play, as points per field goal attempt have remained incredibly high.

What the league seems to have discovered is that the best way to shut down a pick-and-roll is to prevent a shot from happening in the first place, and bringing additional pressure seems to be the best recourse.

I don’t have access to full-court pressure data that far back, but the season-to-season increase in the tactic shows it could become commonplace quite quickly. In 2023-24, there were 6,792 full-court pressure possessions, and in 2024-25, that figure rose to 8,422. However, the most relevant data is just how efficient full-court pressure possessions were. In 2023-24, the league average points per possession on full-court pressure possessions was 0.953, and in 2024-25, it dropped to 0.935. In a league where the average offensive rating was 115.3 (1.153 PPP) in 2023-24 and 114.5 (1.145 PPP) in 2024-25, it’s clear that there are far more full-court pressure possessions waiting to be tapped into.

Doing some basic arithmetic, we can get an idea of how much teams benefited in 2024-25 from their full-court pressure. Under the presumption that the vast majority of full-court pressure possessions came after a made basket, we can calculate how many points a team saved from their full-court pressure as opposed to letting a team just bring the ball up the court unabated. I want to stress that these are ballpark figures, but the methodology shows just how jaw-droppingly powerful a full-court press is.

There is basically no argument for teams not to ramp up their full-court pressure. It simply makes your defense better, and no team capitalized on that more than the Indiana Pacers. Their -206.045 estimated points saved lapped the field and was the difference between them allowing the 14th most points in the league (9,441) and the sixth most (9,647). However, it isn’t just the defensive efficiency where full-court pressure is king, it also leads to more turnovers.

*TOV% is based on all possessions, and TOVs based on TOV% is calculated by multiplying TOV% by their total full-court pressure possessions

Only seven teams saw their turnover rate decrease on full-court pressure possessions, and many saw significant increases. While this is all small sample theater, it’s clear that more pressure leads to more turnovers, and remember, teams score much more efficiently after turnovers than any other possession.

Combining points saved through improved defensive efficiency from full-court pressure and points added through turnovers (TOV Difference x 1.293), we can see which teams saw the biggest positive point swing through their full-court press.

First and foremost, these figures are general estimates, but the results are pretty staggering. Pressing is a highly effective and underutilized tactic. According to this methodology, the Pacers went from an expected win percentage of 47% to 57% based solely on their pressing, and it doesn’t appear that any team is approaching the upper limit in volume. There is a distinct possibility that the Pacers reached the NBA Finals because they were the most aggressive team to harvest the low-hanging fruit of full-court pressure.

What Does This Mean For the Future?

Basketball, like all team sports, is constantly reinventing itself. Tactics are a response to tactics, and thus, they’re ever evolving. The 2024-25 season appears to be a turning point in the NBA's tactical approach towards high-pressure as a counter to the stranglehold spacing and the pick-and-roll has held on the game. While the Thunder’s defensive turnover-forcing machine and the Pacers’ incessant pressing are likely to become the poster children of this new era of basketball, they’re not the only teams ramping up the intensity to great effect.

The Portland Trailblazers and Brooklyn Nets were surprisingly competent this season, and both were more than willing to press. The Houston Rockets secured the two seed in the Western Conference and the league’s 13th-ranked offense (115.3), despite a bottom-third effective field goal percentage, on the strength of their league-leading offensive rebounding rate (31.7%). However, this doesn’t spell the end of the spaced-out spread pick-and-roll.

The best offenses still spread the opposition out and dictate matchups, and that’s unlikely to change. What does appear to be changing is teams’ willingness to take the fight to offenses. I would wager that in a few seasons, the best teams in the league will be able to space the floor for an elite offensive engine (some things never go out of style), and pressure the hell out of the opposition. We still haven’t seen a team go full-on gegenpressing by dominating the offensive glass, forcing a ton of turnovers, and aggressively utilizing a full-court press, but many teams over the past five seasons have capitalized on one or two of these principles to gain an edge.

For years, fans have bemoaned how easy offenses seemed to have it, but 2025 appears to be the start of a new age where defense, intensity, and physicality will once again begin to define the game. However, it’s unlikely to cause offensive efficiency to crater. The NBA’s gegenpressing tactics largely bolster offensive efficiency, but in a dramatically different way than the 3-point shot. The tactical battle is never over and nor ever won. It’s an ever-evolving game of counters and feints, and the second half of the 2020s will be defined by pressure, until someone figures out how to break it.

A big thanks to Mike Shearer of Basketball is Poetry for supplying me with the pressing data from Synergy.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.