A lot of thoughts on Jokic's, wait, Gobert's? Defense
Some interesting results in the NBA Playoffs give a good place to rant about defense.
In game three of the Western Conference Semifinals, Nikola Jokic put up a 32-20-10 triple-double. Oddly though, in the midst of such a performance, Jokic was getting criticized for his defense. I had a few problems with this. The first and most obvious was how the Nuggets were getting torched. DeAndre Ayton scored 10 points on 4-8 shooting with two free throws. 56% True Shooting, which is what Ayton’s output amounted to, isn’t that bad. The Suns, however, shot 46% from three, and really the Suns perimeter players are what hurt the Nuggets. So the question is, how much of that was Jokic’s fault? It’s hard to credit defense to individual players, and what made this abundantly clear is that the same story played out for another Western Conference team.
Boxscore for game three above.
The Nuggets finished the season with the 12th best defense in the NBA. Part of what they were good at was rebounds and turnovers, two things Jokic was good at. Where they were bad was at opponent shooting and fouls. While Jokic’s foul rate was low, the Nuggets’ weakest point was at shots close to the rim. At 74.8% on shots 0-3 feet, the Nuggets clearly had trouble close to the rim, likely Jokic’s domain. [Basketball-Reference link for team shooting efficiency] But another team had a much more straightforward story. The Utah Jazz finished with the 4th best defense in the NBA. And they were led by the 2021 Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, who has now won the award three times. And yet, when it came to the playoffs, Rudy Gobert got the same story as Nikola Jokic.
In a must-win game six, the Utah Jazz fell to the Clippers. And, “allegedly” Rudy Gobert’s defense was exposed. The Jazz were lit up by the Clippers, but that fell to two players:
Reggie Jackson — shooting guard, 27 points on 76.0-% True Shooting
Terance Mann — shooting guard, 39 points on 89.1% True Shooting
The Jazz’s woes, like the Nuggets, were due to the perimeter. Part of the issue was Gobert was tasked with dealing with Mann, but that gets to a larger issue. But before we get further down the defense rabbit hole, let’s take a second to talk about another large issue.
INJURY TO KEY PLAYERS MATTERS!
Going into the second half of game one of the Western Conference Semifinals, the Nuggets lead by 1 point. It was all downhill after that. The Nuggets went on to lose game one by seventeen points and get swept in four. There was an obvious problem. Michael Porter Jr., the Nuggets’ second-best player, tweaked his back in the first half. He was able to keep playing, but he was never his full self. Against the Portland Trail Blazers in round one, Michael Porter Jr. averaged 18.8 points per game on 66.6% True Shooting. He fell to 15.3 points per game on 51.3% True Shooting against the Suns. Others argued he also didn’t look great on defense, and we’ll get back to that in a second. The big point is, a key starter got injured, played below their normal levels, and that hurt the Nuggets.
Mike Conley missed five games due to injury in the NBA playoffs. He returned to try and help the Jazz in a must-win game. He went 1-8 from the floor, had six turnovers, and only got in three assists. Conley is also, as you might recognize, a perimeter player.
There is a slight difference between the two. The Nuggets, on paper, were a worse team than the Suns. And when a key player got injured, who then kept playing, they lost quickly. The Jazz, on paper, were a heavy favorite to the Clippers. And when a key player got injured and then returned, they lost! But there, before even approaching defense, a major point stands out. If one of your starters is injured in the playoffs and keeps playing, there is no guarantee they will be good! And that should return us to defense.
Defense is a team activity.
Let’s talk about a team that didn’t even make it to the second round of the playoffs. The best defense in the NBA this season belonged to the Los Angeles Lakers. And there are some remarkable things about that. Both LeBron James and Anthony Davis missed significant time, so the roster for the Lakers was fairly fluid. And, the voters for Defensive awards and accolades seemed to agree. For Defensive Player of the Year, the Lakers garnered one third-place vote for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope total! For the All-Defense team, the Lakers mustered two first-team votes (out of 100) and 11 second-team votes (again, out of 100) across four players (Alex Caruso, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Dennis Schroeder, and Anthony Davis). Somehow the Lakers put together the best defense in the league without any standout defensive player.
And that’s the key! Defense is a team activity. It should get your spider-sense tingling when Jokic, admittedly not known as a great defender, is being blamed as the Suns’ guards score from the perimeter. And let’s point out another obvious issue here. If defense is a team activity, and one of your starters is injured, what is the net result of that? While Jokic earned the lion’s share of the blame for his defense, Michael Porter Jr. was also scrutinized. And while he was not great at defense either, it’s likely a back injury with limited recovery time didn’t help him out. It’s unlikely Mike Conley, who couldn’t shoot or hold onto the ball, was locking up his defensive assignment on the perimeter.
Defense is difficult because it basically requires a team working together. One of my favorite examples, in 2007, Kevin Garnett was on the 21st worst defense in the NBA with the Minnesota Timberwolves. In 2008, he teamed up with the Boston Celtics superteam, who were the best defense in the NBA that year, and he won the Defensive Player of the Year award! And when you throw in injured players to that mix, it gets tough to point to exactly which player was responsible for the problem. It’s tempting to point to the Center. They are, after all, the last line of defense and seem very much like a hockey goalie. But just like hockey, they are beholden to how well the players in front of them do holding off attacks. And I feel it’s much harder to judge this than people think. But that lets me end with an old point.
Why are we focusing on the margins?
As I already noted, there were two very clearcut narratives in both playoff series:
The Nuggets were a worse squad than the Suns, with injury to their second-best player.
The Jazz had an injured starter, who played horrendously from his basic boxscore, even before we get into defensive nuances.
From a narrative perspective, these are boring stories. I don’t want to claim that defense doesn’t matter. I don’t want to claim that players like MPJ and Jokic can’t hurt their team with their interior defense and that any team building around such players should account for that. But I do think focusing on that is putting the cart in front of the horse! When your team loses a game and wants to ensure it doesn't happen again, it makes sense to perhaps look at the biggest causes of the team loss and correct them first.
The Nuggets and Jazz basically have to deal with injuries to starters. For next season can these players get healthy, or can the team get suitable replacements? After that question is resolved, we can address how to improve Jokic’s defense or how/if Gobert should handle perimeter defense. But it was very bizarre to see Jokic and Gobert, two players who won awards of the highest honor this season being the first place people were worried about, not the more obvious issues. This narrative repeats in every playoffs, but at least that means I get a chance to repeat some of my old arguments about defense!
-Dre