Is defense still even a thing?

[LilRip]

I love watching good defense. I might be in the minority that enjoys watching defensive slugfests over a good ol' shoot out. That said, by all accounts we should be a terrific defensive team. We have Smart and Bradley (two guys with shots at All-Defensive teams imo), we have Crowder and we have Horford. We should be scary on defense.

And yet, it seems like teams so often get what they want against us. What gives? Is a defensive player that much less valuable now than say, a shooter? Is building your team around toughness and bulldogs the wrong way of going about things? Is it practically impossible to guard offenses now with the rise of 3 point shooting?

[PhoSita]

Refer to my post of a week or two ago in which I listed the height and standing reach of the Cavs starting lineup versus the Celts starting lineup.

Length, versatility, and discipline are the characteristics that make the biggest impact on defense in today's league. It doesn't help that the Celts longest defenders are their least versatile (Amir)  or least disciplined (Jaylen, Gerald).

[obnoxiousmime]

I think that:

1, we don't have a rim protector and that is a huge part of team defense, not individual defenders.

2, In the playoffs we're playing against the very best teams with GS and CLE on a whole other level compared to the rest. Cleveland (especially Kyrie) was making shots against very good one-on-one defense. You can't do anything but tip your cap when that happens. If we had doubled him, they are good enough to swing the ball to an open man where an even better shot opportunity might be there. We can't double Kyrie, LeBron, AND Love after all. Finally with LeBron you really you could count the number of guys who can guard him one-on-one with one hand.

3, When our offense struggles and misses shots, it gives the other team more transition chances. Teams with good rebounding get more opportunities from offensive rebounds.

4, In the playoffs, every weakness is gameplanned for and magnified.

5, Isaiah isn't good at defense.

6, Our best defensive lineup has too many holes on offense and our best offensive lineup has big holes on defense.

[Busta]

You cant defend elite offensive players like Kyrie and Lebron straight up. The team needs to really look into how it plays team defense in the off-season because obviously a collection of very good to at times elite defenders individually did nothing to help us this series.

Defense matters, but rim protection and defensive rebounding is our glaring weakness. Also the key to beating the cavs is to expose their porous defense with your own shot makers. We were able to swing the ball around and expose those weaknesses, but it all too often ended up in a guys hands who is not a competent shot maker.

If we add guys like Fultz and Hayward in the offseason, mixed with some defensive rebounding then you have something to work with. Fultz and Hayward have the ability to defend at a competent enough level to make sure we do not take that huge of a step back defensively while upgrading offensively.

[tazzmaniac]

I went back and forth on whether I wanted him but the player we may regret not trading for is Noel.  It depends on how much he signs for this offseason but it would not have taken much to beat the Dallas offer.   He'd give us the rim protection and he's a very good defender in space.  His offense is limited but he runs the court well and is good in the pick and roll. 

[Who]

Defenses are less effective than they were in the past.

They have changed the rules too much in favour of offensive players. Particularly ball-handlers.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Defenses are less effective than they were in the past.

They have changed the rules too much in favour of offensive players. Particularly ball-handlers.

They surely have, but it's also a fact that this Boston team has virtually no length, shot-blocking, or rebounding. Having any or all of those things would help tremendously.

[Chris22]

Fultz, Brown, Hayward, Horford, and George.

[td450]

My take is that great defense is cumulative. One great defender isn't very effective, but 3 or more strong defenders start to make things very difficult.

If you have an Avery Bradley, but your bigs don't to play the pick and roll effectively, it doesn't do much good to have Avery.

Our bigs just didn't hedge enough for Bradley and Smart to recover on Irving. As soon as he had forced a switch, he just blew by who ever was in front of him. LeBron did the same thing.

Horford is a good defender, but not particularly physical. I don't see us beating Cleveland unless we can get a second big on the floor that can defend picks and win the matchup against Tristan Thompson.

[LilRip]

I'm curious, so if we had a guy like, say, Dwight Howard instead of Horford, would our defense have improved drastically? And also, is he too much of a liability on offense (aka no range) that it'll negate that (which sort of circles back to the question: are good defenders even worth it? Or does offense trump every time?)

I see the point people are making about length and it seems that our team has none of that (except when Smart plays PG). Are our "defenders" worth holding onto then?

[Rhyso]

Great defenses are anchored by good help defenders ie Bigs. We were spoiled with having a top class defender with KG, Horford however is no where near KG's ability. Guarding the pick and roll requires both the guard and big to shut it down, I don't think we have the bigs necessary to have a top defense, and that doesn't even take in to account the rebounding aspect. Amir looked toast, Kelly IMO is NOT a good defender at all, nor Zeller, and small ball gives us even less length. Defense can still win championships, we just don't have it yet. 

[cons]

i wonder if some of its coaching too - we had great defense in 08 and w those teams when Thibs was our lead assistant and drilled it in. KG and perk down low helped too but paul, ray were not know as great defenders. so i think sometimes its just a team mindset that isnt drilled in as often as it used to be - i do think the league is much more about just outshooting and outscoring the other team these days than it used to be.

[droopdog7]

In the 80's games were extremely high scoring and then the Pistons happened.  Changed the game toward defense.  Over time offense has caught up. 

So yeah, defense is not much of a thing anymore.  Players are simply too good.

[Big333223]

I still can't make sense of it. Sure they don't have an elite rim protector or a lot of size but they didn't have either of those things last season either when they were the #4 defense in the league. This year, they were #13.

Whatever caused that big of a drop needs to be figured out and addressed.