Let's talk defense!

[fujikuro]

Habits.

 

[Chris Parker]

hard to believe how defense has slid down a hole in a dramatic continual month by month decline since he took over....

 

[BigJ]

To be fair even in the Loss i really liked out Defense for 3 Quarters. the 3rd was obviously shit but especially the First half our defense looked elite.

I am not satisfied with the loss or the 3rd Quarter but we made some good steps in the right direction defense and effort wise.

 

[Omar The Horse]

Watching South Carolina...can they just hire Frank Martin as the new defensive head coach?

Goodness

 

[ACisKING]

hard to believe how defense has slid down a hole in a dramatic continual month by month decline since he took over....

Interesting stuff. So basically the Cavs offense did get better from Blatt to Lue last season (by 5.1 more points per 100 possessions) and then has more or less remained the same this year. But the defense got worse last year from Blatt to Lue last year by the same margin (conceding 5.1 more points per 100 possessions) and then continued to decline this year. The poor defensive rebounding percentage also pops out on that chart and is probably a big part of that decrease. I'm sure the loss of solid defenders like Mozgov and Delly hurts too. And we've all talked about the effort and the strange half-ass trap scheme the Cavs have been running (and ran last year too after Longo came on board until it was scrapped in like March or April). It's also somewhat surprising to learn that the Cavs are playing at a faster pace overall this season as I felt they have been playing too slow (though the last month to two months they actually have been playing slower).

 

[buzzdog]

So... last night Indy ran PG off a wholebunch of different arrays of screens, double screens, lots of off-ball movement by PG running very specific actions to get him open looks from a bunch of different spots on the floor.

Obviously Lebron was working his ass off trying to stick with PG but from what I could see there was no way he could get through the various blockades Indy had set up.

There were a lot of times where other guys were slow to switch or to jump out on PG. It looked like most of the time they were unsure of whether they were supposed to switch, or if they were supposed to stay back on their man who was setting the pick.

I listened to AC during the broadcast saying they had to switch and jump out aggressively but nobody was doing it. Then I heard Lue make it sound like that guy was supposed to drop back off of PG.

It really looks like nobody really knows just how the fuck they're supposed to work together on any of these defenses.

Is that the case? Or are certain people just blowing their assignments? After seeing all this it isn't clear to me just what they're really trying to do.

Is there anybody here who understands any of this who can explain what we do and don't know about what the Cavs are trying to do, who is executing, and who is failing to execute?

 

[Chris Parker]

From what I've heard and read, the scheme was for LeBron to stay with PG. the couple times LBJ tries to switch his teammate (Love) looks befuddled at him doing this.

https://youtu.be/rMRhW0dvQ-w

My assumption is that they wanted to keep PG from driving (see, lack of rim protection) by icing those screens and making him take jumpers. Which he hit. Repeatedly.

I think James was frustrated with the scheme and how it sort of exposed him but would maybe rather passive-aggressively attack a teammate than bitch at Lue.

 

[buzzdog]

From what I've heard and read, the scheme was for LeBron to stay with PG. the couple times LBJ tries to switch his teammate (Love) looks befuddled at him doing this.

https://youtu.be/rMRhW0dvQ-w

My assumption is that they wanted to keep PG from driving (see, lack of rim protection) by icing those screens and making him take jumpers. Which he hit. Repeatedly.

I think James was frustrated with the scheme and how it sort of exposed him but would maybe rather passive-aggressively attack a teammate than bitch at Lue.

I saw times where Love and TT did switch to PG and PG just dished the ball for an easy basket. I saw other times where Indy ran PG off multiple screens that were very well designed, and there is just no way in hell anyone on the planet could possibly fight through or go over them.

To me it looked like either way we tried to defend it we were fucked. Indy was executing at a high level and PG was on fire.

Then on top of that we still looked tentative and indecisive and it didn't look like we were communicating very well.

IDK, the only thing I could see slowing PG down would be hard traps but good teams can make you pay for those too.

I'm just not completely sure what the answer is, and I'm sure a lot of teams feel the same way about trying to defend the Cavs.

I'm actually happy to see that they're fighting over this. It shows a sense of urgency, passion about trying to get it right, all good things.

Anyone who plays with Lebron knows they're going to have to deal with his disapproving looks and body language at times. I think this is probably the biggest issue. I think the key players have had a heart to heart with Lebron about not showing them up on the floor and Lebron just couldn't help himself. That's probably why Kyrie and JR left without doing their post game interviews, they probably wanted things to get sorted out by Lebron himself before they answer the inevitable questions.

 

[Ohio]

 

[pinoycavsfan]

Missed the game because the mrs and i had a bit of a squat.. Just wanted to know how the cavs defended the pnr with thomas? The cavs have also outrebounded the celts without thompson.. How did that happen? And how did the cavs defended the 3pt line? Were they contesting shots with good rotation or did the celts just missed shots?

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

Missed the game because the mrs and i had a bit of a squat.. Just wanted to know how the cavs defended the pnr with thomas? The cavs have also outrebounded the celts without thompson.. How did that happen? And how did the cavs defended the 3pt line? Were they contesting shots with good rotation or did the celts just missed shots?

The Cavs kicked the Celtics ass up and down the floor. They were all over them in the half-court and they hustled hard to prevent transition buckets. They crashed the glass as a team and they closed out hard to the three point line. It was the best game we've played since Christmas probably.

 

[wuck]

The Cavs kicked the Celtics ass up and down the floor. They were all over them in the half-court and they hustled hard to prevent transition buckets. They crashed the glass as a team and they closed out hard to the three point line. It was the best game we've played since Christmas probably.

The Celtics did get open looks from the 3-point line, but the Cavs did a good job for the most part of keeping track of Thomas, and conceded open shots to players like Smart. The defensive effort was consistent for the whole game, and they won all the 50-50 battles. Plus LeBron just destroyed them physically when the game was still somewhat in question.

It seemed to me like they showed and recovered on pick-and-rolls, and there was a lot of stepping up and covering open men for teammates. Because they trust Thompson to cover guards one-on-one, sometimes they get complacent about conceding switches and just let him try to win those battles. Today, lot of communicating and covering for each other on defense. Everybody under 6'9" had a chance to run around after Thomas, and the scheme was different in that they put a lot of effort to keeping him in check...and he still scored 25+. But none of the other Celtics stepped up to help.

Oh, and the rebounding from the whole team, and especially Love on the defensive glass kept them from having to deal with extended defensive possessions.

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

The Celtics did get open looks from the 3-point line, but the Cavs did a good job for the most part of keeping track of Thomas, and conceded open shots to players like Smart. The defensive effort was consistent for the whole game, and they won all the 50-50 battles. Plus LeBron just destroyed them physically when the game was still somewhat in question.

It seemed to me like they showed and recovered on pick-and-rolls, and there was a lot of stepping up and covering open men for teammates. Because they trust Thompson to cover guards one-on-one, sometimes they get complacent about conceding switches and just let him try to win those battles. Today, lot of communicating and covering for each other on defense. Everybody under 6'9" had a chance to run around after Thomas, and the scheme was different in that they put a lot of effort to keeping him in check...and he still scored 25+. But none of the other Celtics stepped up to help.

Oh, and the rebounding from the whole team, and especially Love on the defensive glass kept them from having to deal with extended defensive possessions.

To me it seemed like they were basically refusing to rotate off of their shooters to help on Thomas. Now, Smart really isn't one of their "shooters", so the strategy was similar to how we played Golden State in the finals---Only doubling Curry if you're leaving Barnes. It's smart basketball.

Looked like the Cavs finally bothered to read a pre-game scouting report for this one.