The Wood Shop: Dealing with the Defense

Check out Robert’s wonderful Point Four -Ward from earlier today here.

When I think of a wood shop, I think of a place people go to contemplate things. Wood working happens in them for sure, but it’s really just a convenient hobby. It takes a long time to complete even a small piece of wood work, which means many trips to the shop to really examine the intricacies of life. This article is part of a continuing series where I take some aspect of this Cavalier team into the wood shop and hang out with it for a thousand or so words. My own personal Cavs Wood Shop.

Listening to talking heads ramble on about the Cavs and actually watching the Cavs won’t always lead you to conclude that they have a good defense. They do though. Just look at the numbers. The Wine & Gold are holding opponents to 96 points a night, which is third in the league. And, according to ESPN.com, they have a defensive efficiency of 100.2 (6th).

Those numbers are legitimate, even when examined closer. Opponents are taking 22.9 3-pointers per game against the Cavs. That’s good for sixth least in the NBA. Overall, Cleveland opponents are hitting 44.2% of their attempts (12th), which leads me to this bold declaration: The Wine & Gold aren’t getting lucky on the defensive end. Opponents are shooting fairly average against them. The 15th team in the league holds their opponents to 44.6% shooting, which isn’t that big of a difference from Cleveland. The Cavs are just doing a great job of running opponents off of the 3-line and forcing them into mid-range shots or contested layups.

Still, recently named Cavalier coach Tyronn Lue has his work cut out for him on the defensive side of the ball. If the Cavs are willing to cut ties with David Blatt mid-season for issues revolving around the feeling of the locker room, when they have the best record in the East and a top ten offense and defense, they’re obviously willing to do anything for the sake of progress. Lue must realize the Cavaliers’ defense isn’t getting the credit they deserve because they mess up in the worst ways. They mess up in ways that are easily avoidable.

“Oh, Was That My Man?”

If you have ever played pick-up basketball, you know this move. I pull it quite often. When a guy runs by you, and he is going in the general direction you are leaning, you just follow him. It saves a lot of energy. You don’t have to do anything crazy like cut backwards towards your own man, which could damage your precious joints. When your original assignment scores, you say something under your breath to a teammate like, “oh, we switched, I thought.”

Against the Spurs, during a crucial possession, Kyrie Irving decided to leave Kevin Love paddling up embarrassment creek with this “oh, we switched” move. After being screened by Tim Duncan, Kyrie says, “nah, I won’t fight to get back in front of Parker. I was planning on getting stuck to this Timmy quick-pick that was set up for several seconds before Tony denied it. I’m not gonna let Kevin know this either.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Otc2nnKBY

In that play, Kyrie is fine with getting matched up on Tim Duncan, despite a severe size mismatch. He doesn’t even body him, which is his only way of helping out in the play after making the decision to switch. Although, none of that previous sentence really matters, because Love didn’t get the memo Kyrie was switching onto Tony, and Tony just drives to the hoop uninhibited.

In the next video, Love shows how to give an opposing offense an instant advantage. Love’s man, Alex Len, sets an off-ball screen on J.R. Smith. Smith does a great job of avoiding it and gets back to his man. Love, however, stays on J.R.’s man too, while Len rolls to the hoop for an easy attempt. Thankfully, Len misses it.

What’s even more troubling about this play is that Love is watching the ball the whole time. If he were actually paying attention to his man and the weak side action, he would have stopped the first off-ball action on J.R. dead in its tracks by dropping into the paint. By ball watching, Love ends up leaning the wrong direction. That has to factor into his decision to simply stay on J.R.’s man, rather than cut back to the rolling Len.

Both of the mistakes in the previously discussed plays were easily avoidable by talking. If Love or Kyrie were to say, “I’m switching,” these two embarrassing events could have been avoided.

Fighting Through Picks Is Overrated

Sometimes fighting through a screen and recovering is just too tough. In the play below, Kyrie simply takes too long to recover onto former Cavalier Donald Sloan. Sloan takes a high screen from Brook Lopez and Kyrie goes over it (mainly because Brook did a nice job of switching the screens’ direction at the last minute). Kyrie then jogs to get back in front of Sloan, instead of sprinting to get back in the play. This forces Timofey Mozgov to keep hanging back to stop a layup. Meanwhile, Brook is wide open from one of his favorite spots.

Mozgov could have stopped the action by stepping up to slow Sloan, but  Lopez would have just cut to the hoop for a bucket.

Kyrie has a bad habit of forcing the Cavalier Big men to stay committed to the person dribbling off a screen for too long. He subjects Mozgov to cruel Catch-22 esque situations nightly: stop penetration and a rolling big scores off a drop off pass, or allow penetration and give up a layup to a point guard.

I Love the Way Your Back Looks

I don’t want to pile on Kyrie Irving, but he also has a bad habit of getting behind the ball handler in pick and roll situations because he takes so long to recover after being hit by a pick.

(This piece is the result of me jotting down notes about the Cavs since late November. Kyrie has only been around for about a month now, and he has the most negative notes against him in relation to the defensive end of the floor. If this piece appears to be a hit job, it isn’t on purpose.)

In the next play, Kyrie sees that a screen is coming. He’s on the wrong side of it for two seconds. The screener is within inches of him walling off the left side of the floor. J.J. Barea notices this and jets to the hoop. Kyrie decides to go over the screen. J.J. shoots a decent 36% from deep, but it doesn’t make Ky’s decision defensible. I’m pretty sure J.J. isn’t used to take taking 3s off the dribble and coming off of a screen. Kyrie ends up on J.J.’s back for the entire play because of going over on the screen, and J.J. just stops abruptly to draw an easy shooting foul.

While Kyrie does end up on people’s backs often, he has shown he can do some stuff when he’s playing from behind. In the play below, Kyrie goes over the screen and is stuck on the back of the ball handler. He realizes this though, and when Mozgov rotates over to cover up his mistake, he darts to Mozgov’s  man and stops an easy layup (after sort of slowing down and giving up on the play).

Kyrie’s hands stopped an easy bucket, but the play shouldn’t have needed any heroics. I fear he doesn’t get that. In some ways, Kyrie probably believes he’s doing what Matthew Dellavedova often does when he falls behind on a screen.  If Delly knows he isn’t going to recover fast enough after being screened to keep his big man helper out of trouble, he will sprint straight to the roll man and bump him out of position. In this play, Delly’s man rejects a screen, but Delly has leaned the wrong direction. He knows he won’t be able to get back in front of his assignment. He reacts instantly and stops the opposing big from rolling to the hoop for a basket.

Boxing Out Is Lame

And, boxing out isn’t fun. Sweaty guys get all over you, and if your back is sweaty, another man may push your jersey against you and you’ll feel icky.  Despite the dreadful realities of boxing out, the Cavs are still fourth in defensive rebounding percentage getting 52.3% of their opponents’ misses. They still have snafus that make you forget that fact though.

In the play below, Love finds himself in a bad position after the Nets launch their shot. He is underneath the hoop and Thomas Robinson grabs an offensive board. Robinson then puts up a shot. Love, however, has resigned himself to the Nets scoring and doesn’t box out… again. The Nets get an easy second possession after Robinson misses his put back attempt.

In the next play, LeBron has fallen behind the play and is chasing his man, who catches the ball with an open path to the rim. Thankfully, Timofey Mozgov hops over and stops James’s guy from getting the free basket. Mozgov then rotates over again and stops his own man from having a dunk. Despite all of his effort, Mozgov gets a raw deal. LeBron just watches him work instead of boxing out a crashing Nets player. The crashing Net man mucks up Mozgov’s rebound opportunity and Brooklyn eventually gets two free throws.

Knowing What’s Coming

Go look back at the plays that involve Kyrie getting embarrassed by a pick. They all have something in common. The pick is clearly coming for one to two seconds before it actually happens. No one is sneaking up to screen Kyrie. He knows it’s about to happen, or at least another Cav should see what’s going on and alert him. It’s fairly alarming that Irving can be beat in such predictable situations.

The Obligatory Warriors Comment

I hate having to talk about the Warriors, but it’s a foregone conclusion that the Cavs are going to be in the Finals against them or the Spurs. Even if the Cavs miss the Finals, this next point is worth noting because it’s a viable way to try and slow the Warriors.

The Cavs were destroyed by Golden State when they tried to trap the Stephen Curry-Draymond Green pick and roll. Curry would find Green rolling to the hoop, a Cavalier would help over from the weak side, and Draymond would find the open man without hesitation.

In the Clip below, note how Delly defends the pick and roll. He ices it. All that means is that he denies the ball handler the ability to get to the center of the court. He gets between the ball handler and the screener. When Delly does this, Kevin Love is able to shade over and provide protection from penetration, without giving up his ability to stop the roll man. In this way, Delly and Love run Russell Westbrook off the 3-line and away from deadly pick and roll play. Notice this coverage scheme doesn’t require a help defender. The Cavs have yet to try to this pick and roll defense against Stephen Curry.

Why Care?

As the season goes on, it will be interesting to watch what Lue does when these defensive slips happen. One of the reasons David Blatt was let go was because he didn’t hold the players accountable. Will Lue have the guts to call a timeout and yell at guys if they forget to box out, or blow an assignment.

This stuff matters in the grand scheme of things. If the Cavs avoided one play a night like the ones above, they would theoretically allow two less points a game, which would vault them into second place in the points allowed category with 94 a game. Two avoided plays would mean four points… I’m not asking for perfection from this team. I just want them to play defense well enough that I don’t notice the mistakes as often. I’m a chef who writes poetry and comments on basketball occasionally, and I see this stuff. An opponent making millions of dollars a year to play basketball probably notices this stuff way more often than me and exploits it every chance they get. Why give other teams an advantage if you don’t have to?

All rankings and stats are whatever was available at 7:30 AM this morning. All stats from ESPN.com, except defensive rebounding percentage, which is from NBA.com.