sorting out the defense?

[KI4MVP]

This is really the wrong thread for this, but we didn't trade Wiggins for Dion, we traded Wiggins for Kevin Love. There is absolutely no way we are better this season with Wiggins instead of Kevin Love. There is no guarantee Wiggins will ever be as good as Kevin Love is. And Wiggins wasn't even the consensus #1 pick, he only fell into that spot because of the combination of Embid's health and his trade value with the T-Wolves.

 

[Green Lantern]

I am guessing the doubling is more effective in a league where guys cannot as easily beat you individually. I think this will change as the 3 line is too open.

I think Tristan had been the best big defensively so far. He shows too hard and over helps, but I think he's been solid. Overall I think the bench was executing the defense better than the starters. The starters only play d the second half of the game.

I think they need to lose some more to some good teams before they play d all game.

They need to come out hard playing good defense and they won't have to worry about playing from behind or sorry teams hanging around.

 

[Cavatt]

They need to come out hard playing good defense and they won't have to worry about playing from behind or sorry teams hanging around.

Yeah it looks like they think they can turn it on. That's always a bad idea.

 

[Bandwagoner305]

No need to sugarcoat it. This team stinks on the defensive end. You can't just play average defense in one game and play below average defense in the next game. The scary thing is, the Cavs only need to be a consistent above average defensive team in order to be in the position they want to compete, but right now, the defense is downright shitty.

 

[Zen]

Yeah, I try not to look at scoring when considering a defense due to pace, but jesus christ. There was a period today where Boston scored something like 9 times in a row, missed one shot and then scored 5 times in a row.

The defense WILL improve with time as players adjust there is no doubt about that. But, a lot of the issues are certainly personnel based. Adding a prototypical 3 and D 2 guard with length and using the haywood contract to net a rim protecting big will do wonders for us.

 

[Cavsfan161]

Hopefully we pick it up as we need to. Offense is getting better but the D isn't.

 

[wuck]

Let's look on the plus side. The Cavs are sometimes capable of giving around 10 minutes of decent effort on defense per game. Maybe they can push that up to 15 minutes in the next week or so.

I can't tell if they're mainly incompetent, if they are going with the "our offense is our defense mantra," or if they just think they can wait to turn it on when it counts. But what looks like lame effort for quarters at a time must be driving Lue (who is supposedly in charge of the defense) and Blatt crazy.

 

[Benedict_Boozer]

I think it's a personnel issue unfortunately...

Teams are attacking us in the P&R (primarily Love and Kyrie) and off iso dribble penetration.

Some form of rim intimidation would go a long way to covering up our issues there. Reminds me of OKC when Ibaka went down and the Spurs were just running a layup drill. But once he came back things flipped.

In today's NBA you need to be able to either defend the P&R at an elite level or have some form of rim protection to deter shots when the D breaks down.

Griff will have to make a deal. Doesn't have to be a great player, we just need a mobile big with some size who is solid on D.

 

[Pioneer10]

Q 1 2 3 4 T
CLE 25 34 25 38 122
BOS 31 28 42 20 121

They can play defense when they want to.
-They didn't play good defense but the lid came off in the 3rd with Miller in the lineup. Particularly when both Lebron and Marion sat. We're not going to be able to play Kyrie, Dion, Miller, TT lineups. Way too vulnerable with both Miller and Kyrie in there with no rim protection behind them
-Kyrie is playing better defense but he is not a good one on one defender. As we say with Lillard, Rondo blew by him and with only Love back there in the 4th there is no erasure.
-A lot of Celts points came off fastbreaks/poor offense in the first half

What I would take away from this if I was Blatt:
-Have Joe Harris grab Miller's minutes
-More Marion and Lebron against PG's
-Clean up the offense: more made baskets less chance for leakouts.

 

[CSF]

-A lot of Celts points came off fastbreaks/poor offense in the first half

What I would take away from this if I was Blatt:
-Have Joe Harris grab Miller's minutes
-More Marion and Lebron against PG's
-Clean up the offense: more made baskets less chance for leakouts.

The Cavs shot 50%+ . Miss shots was not the problem.

 

[Pioneer10]

The Cavs shot 50%+ . Miss shots was not the problem.

Rewatch the first half: Cavs gave up a lot of easy baskets off of broken plays and missed shots. Cavs shot just 41% and 39% in the first and third quarters respectively which were both not coincidentally the two quarters that Boston did the best. They really should shoot well over 50% against the Celts for the whole game.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

Posted this in the game thread but thought it was worthy to put in this thread.

Twice in the last 20 years has a team won the title while finishing outside of the top 10 in defensive PPG and defensive FG.

Miami in 2005-06, who finished 13th in PPG and 8th in FG%.

LA in 2001 is the real outlier that finished 23rd in defensive PPG, but still finished 8th in FG%. Perhaps pace effected their PPG as they were one of the top scoring teams in the league that year.

In fact, most of the NBA champs finished in the top 5 in both categories. In other words, you don't simply need average defense to win a title, you need above average if not elite.

 

[Lee]

Merged two "defense" threads.

I don't care how many defensive threads you merge, it still wont help the cavs play better D.

 

[Kevin Ollie]

I honestly think the Cavs can be better on defense just given some time. They are never going to be great, but I think a lot of their problems right now are guys like Love and Kyrie not having good defensive habits ingrained in them. Hopefully, come playoff time Kyrie will know how to position himself to force defenders away from a pick, or at the very least not just die on screens. Love will know where to be so that he can show and recover or sag back in the lane depending on who's running the pick and roll.

 

[CleveRocks]

Well defensively, they dont need to be great, just average. With our offensive capability,if we hold the othe team under 100, we win...