longstrangetrip wrote:
While I agree that Shumpert and Mozgov really help the Cavs defensively, I'm not buying your premise that they are the reason for the Cavs' dramatically improved defense during the playoffs. It can't be...the Cavs had those two guys for over half the regular season, and their defense the last half of the regular season seldom looked like it has the past few weeks.
No, the answer is that the increased minutes for Delly and TT instead of Love and Irving creates a vastly different defensive team, and that's giving the Cavs a chance against a team that looks superior on paper. Defense and offense are completely different concepts, and I continue to think that generally it's defense that wins championships. A team with a brilliant distributor like James who commands so much attention will usually still be able to score if they lose one or two scorers...NBA players can make open shots, and James creates open shots for his teammates. But even a great player like James can't turn a team into a great defensive team if 40% of the starting lineup doesn't seem to consistently care on defense. It's not that Love and Irving can't play defense, much like Kevin Martin, it's more that they are much more interested in the offensive side of the game. We have seen moments where Love, Irving and Martin all played pretty good defense...Irving in Game 1 against the Warriors, for example. But the problem is that they just can't sustain it, and that will always hurt the teams they play for. On the other hand, Delly and TT are offensively challenged, but because of the extraordinary effort they consistently bring on the defensive side of the ball, they are a net positive when they play more minutes. Blatt recognized this when he would bench Love for TT at the end of close games.
Cavs didn't play as good defense in 2nd half as they have played in playoffs but they were pretty good already then. Cavs ranked 11th in Drtg in 2nd half and they ranked higher than for example, Atlanta, Clippers or Houston.
If you check Drtg values for players that have played more than 800 minutes in 2nd half Cavs had four players already in top 40. Mozgov was ranked 10th (3rd highest ranked center after Pachulia and Bogut), Shumbert was ranked 25th, LeBron 40th and Love 17th. Ouch! This might take something away from your argument about Love's bad defense. :) It looks like trading for Mozgov and Shumbert really improved Cavs defense and it looks that Mozgov was really good compliment for Love. Those Drtg stats are ftaken from Basketball reference:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/plus/plus_minus_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id=&match=single&output=per_poss&year_min=2015&year_max=2015&age_min=0&age_max=99&is_playoffs=N&team_id=&opp_id=&game_num_min=42&game_num_max=82&game_month=&game_location=&game_result=&c1stat=mp&c1comp=ge&c1val=800&c2stat=&c2comp=ge&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=ge&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=ge&c4val=&order_by=opp_pts&order_by_asc=Y
I think it is common that teams play better defense in playoffs than during regular season since the effort level increases dramatically in playoffs. I credit Cavs improved defense mainly increased minutes for both Mozgov and Shumbert and LeBron playing with much higher intensity in defensive end. Difference in defense between Thompson and Love or Delly and Irving is quite minimal.
