If you’re a Cleveland fan, one thing comes to mind when you look at your calendar and see that the Cavs are headed out west; no defense. It’s a trend that has developed over the past few seasons, where the Cavaliers seemingly abandon their half-court defensive principles in favor of the run-and-gun style popular out west.
But, even with last night’s letdown in Golden State, how has Cleveland’s defense been during these westcoast road trips this season? How about compared to last season?
Well, as always, I have to start with a little definition. In this case, we’ll define a westcoast road trip as three or more away games in a row against a western conference opponent without an away game against an eastern conference opponent interrupting the games or starting or ending the road trip. In other words, a road stint that is at least three games long that involves only western conference games.
With this definition in mind, the Cavaliers had two westcoast road trips last season. The first came in January, which saw the Cavaliers battle the Lakers, Trailblazers, Warriors, and Jazz. And the second one was a clean sweep in March, with the Cavs beating the Clippers, Suns, and Kings.
Also, the Cavaliers were a solid 6-1 over these two road trips, with the sole loss coming in Los Angeles at the hands of the Lakers. But how did the defense fair?
Over these seven games, the Cleveland Cavaliers defense gave up an average of 103.1 points per game. While this seems like a lot of points considering the Cavs allowed only 91.4 points per game last season (90.3 ppg in the 75 games outside of the two wc road trips), keep in mind that these seven teams play a fast pace and collectively averaged 103.4 points per game last season.
However, just because they held those seven teams below their collective average by 0.3 points per game, I wouldn’t go singing the team’s praises on their two westcoast road trips last year; at least not defensively. Add in the fact that way too many of those games were close calls and that none of them were won by more than single digits, and it appears the team let their out-of-conference opponents dictate the pace. Lastly, despite winning six of the seven games, the team was only +10 (+1.4 points per game) in those two westcoast road trips.
Now, flash forward to this season. The team is in the middle of their second and final westcoast road trip, with seven such games having already been played, yet they have a worse record than last season at 5-2. But there are several things to consider...
