What can can do? Play our good defenders. Nurk, RoCo, DJJ, Powell, Little Dame, CJ, Kanter Ant, Melo 5 of the top 8 are good defenders. 3 on the floor at all times. Top 8 could account for all your minutes easily without overplaying CJ or Dame. Average defense or better once they gel. Top 8 should be the starting point. Injuries happen etc. so Ant will get minutes. Melo should be a 10th man at most.
HEY! Dead last in defense and assists AND SOMEHOW A WINNING RECORD! Now THAT'S something not any team can do.
Neither Jones nor Powell have even average defensive stats. They both have good REPUTATIONS, but it doesn't seem to translate.
They might not be as good as their rep but pretty sure DJ is way better defender than Melo and Powell is a way better player than Melo and better defender than CJ or Dame. But I don’t think there are stats that at all reliably measure defense. Defensive rebounds, steals, blocked shots, maybe personal fouls. A poor defender can gamble and up their steals and blocked shots. A sound defender can opt to stay in position instead of going for steals or blocks. Trying for blocked shots can lead to fouling the jump shooter (RoCo last game) which is one of the worst things you can do. A good aggressive defender might pick up more fouls than a poor defender. Of course you can have high steals and blocked shots and be a fantastic defender too. My point is a box score can’t really tell you who is a good defender. Maybe you are referring to other stats. RPM or on/off numbers.
Probably one of the best comments i have read about defensive stats in quite a while. Defense is much more team oriented. A good defender can look really bad on a team that doesn't play together on defense. We are witnessing what the Blazers can do at times when they lock in on defense. Some of the best defensive possessions we have seen in a very long time have come from this 29th ranked team. They are coming at crucial times as well.
I’d be curious to know how much that horrible blowout loss to the Mavericks contributed to the drop in DRtg since the All-Star break. Not curious enough to actually do the research and math, but curious.
Thank you. Yeah I’ve definitely seen times when there’s a synergy going on between RoCo and DJ and our D actually looks lethal. Other times when the team defense is bad they have looked individually bad or helpless to stem the tide. I’ve seen times when Kanter’s bad defense doesn’t bite us much because the team is keeping opponents from penetrating and Kanter just needs to defend a big guy and defensive rebound which he can do. The whole is definitely more than the sum of the parts which makes basketball such a fascinating sport. Hopefully with the addition of Nurk and Powell we can get the D clicking. I expect we will, hopefully at least to the point of having an average D.
Somebody made reference to that a day or two ago. Totally changed the metric. Lots of averages drop the best and worst but you have to have enough to do that and get a big enough sample size. It's coming along. The eye test is telling everyone they are seeing better defense. Nurkic is a huge addition to the defense.
Those are great headline stats, but they don't really mean much. Actually, the fact that the best offensive and worst defensive ratings in history are this season means a ton; that NBA offenses are simply more efficient on the whole than ever. What would be a lot more valuable for comparison would be how far off from league average these best offenses or worst defenses are...although I bet that would be less clickbait-worthy.
I think it's pretty obvious defensive stats can have a lot of noise, especially any single defensive number. They can be heavily influenced by rotations. I think you can still glean some things from the numbers though because they generally show what our eyes can see
I'm not going to do the work, but it might be instructive to have a comparison of team ratings to the median for that particular season. How far teams are above of below the median. That would normalize the gauges quite a bit * the median this year appears to be 112.1 - Portland is 5.6 points worse than the median in 29th place * last year, the median was 110.7. The 29th ranked team was 4.7 points worse than the median (Portland 4.1 points worse) * 10 years ago, the median was 107.3 (I see a trend!). The 29th ranked team was 4.5 points worse than the median (20 years ago the median was 103.7)
It's clear that the rule changes and 3-point shooting emphasis have skewed all the numbers - we just need to pull back that defensive rating a tad.
This. Melo and Kanter are valuable and have a place in the league, so long as their deficiencies can be mitigated with scheme. Kanter shouldn't play unless the defensive scheme prevents penetration (e.g., No Melo or Ant and only one of Dame or CJ). Melo shouldn't play unless the defensive scheme funnels penetration to a post presence (Nurk) or switches constantly (stints with Roco, Nas, and Jones). I think we actually have a lot of versatility if Terry would commit to those rules (and injuries allow it). Closers: Dame/CJ/(Powell, Jones, or Melo)/Covington/Nurk Kanter: Dame or CJ/Powell/Little or Jones/Covington/Kanter Small-ball/switching: Dame or CJ/Powell or Jones/Little or Jones/Covington/Melo Melo: Dame or CJ/Powell/Jones/Melo/Nurkic
You can take that context into account when comparing them to league history, but you can also compare them to the league average this season.
