Perusing the 82games.com numbers today, I noticed that our defensive efficiency falls into clumps:
- DJ, Gooden and Gibson could all be considered fairly poor defenders, with opponent PER’s in the 18s. The numbers certainly agree with that assessment on each. Gooden, also, is probably worse than the number indicates since, as an interior defender, he’s counted on to provide help on rotations and penetrators.
- Devin Brown, Pavlovic and Andy fall into the next group, all allowing 16.4. In this case, Andy earns the extra credit that Drew lost.
- Newble and Hughes fall into the next group, at 14.8. Despite Hughes’s lack of jumping ability, his length, especially since he often guards smaller guards, forces his opponents into more awkward shots than unusual, leading to more misses and better defensive efficiency. Newble is used sparingly, only when shorthanded, off the end of the bench, against opponents with whom he matches up well.
- And of course, by this metric as with most others, our best defender is Lebron. In this case, defense is the best offense. Lebron’s vast improvement has come in the form of help blocks and he still too often sags off a shooter (though not as often and as far as he used to), but having him matched up against an opponent dedicated to slowing him down gives him the benefit of a tired match-up at the other end.
This whole exercise has me thinking about what we need and what we have to work offensively while building a reliable defense, but I’ll save that for another post.
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Shifting gears:
I heard Steve Levy say on SportsCenter this morning that last night was the first time the Cavs had allowed 100 points and won since Lebron’s 11th birthday. No doubt Levy misspoke, meaning to say 120, but it turns out there was a greater power at work here.
On December 30th, 1995, a 26 year old Bobby Phills dropped 43 points all over the Portland Trailblazers. 7 years ago this past Saturday, he died in a car accident, reportedly driving over 100. The symmetry strikes me as eerie, causing me for the first time to stop and reflect on Lebron’s recent offense.
Phills’s scoring display came on Lebron’s birthday, the same as Lebron’s ticket. About 2 weeks later, word leaked about as we mourned 7 years without Phills. Now Lebron’s explosion starts an unusual sequence bringing us here.
