Analysis: Trying to play good NBA defense ‘wild, hot mess’
DENVER (AP) — Contrary to all those highscoring games, players still are playing defense in the NBA.
Seriously, they are.
It’s just the task of stopping two-time reigning MVP Nikola Jokic or Luka Doncic or Joel Embiid or anyone else in the league has become more challenging than ever.
Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle may have described the assignment of locking down a premier — or even a reserve — player the best: “It’s a wild, hot mess trying to guard in the NBA now,” he said.
A combination of rule changes, style-of-play alterations, the ongoing addiction to the 3-point shot and more have added up to the game being significantly tilted toward the offensive player.
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“Defensive will Player of win the
Year” this spring, even after a season where no one seems to be able to stop anyone with the ball. It’s almost certain that more players will average 20 points per game than ever before. A decade ago, there were a dozen or so players. This season, 50 isn’t out of the question (there were 27 last season and 31 in 2020-21).
The NBA will analyze all the variables after the season. But since its sense is fans love scoring, and there’s nothing out there contradicting that stance, a massive swing of the rules pendulum toward helping out defenders doesn’t seem likely.
“For me, a fan, the talent level is just off the charts, and that has a lot to do with what we’re seeing,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in Paris last week. “Of course, the enormous increase in 3-point shooting is going to lead to more scoring, too, especially when these guys, even the big men, shoot 3-point shots as well as they do.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a case that defense is not being focused on as it once was,” Silver added.
“I’ve been around the league long enough to remember when the claim was guys played no defense at all, and so there’s a fair amount of defense played.”
From zone defenses to constant rotations, teams are trying a little bit of everything to slow down offensive stars. Still, the stars shine. In January alone, Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points on Jan. 2; Chicago’s Zach LaVine knocked down 11 3-pointers on Jan. 6; and Miami’s Jimmy Butler went 23 of 23 from the free throw line on Jan. 10.
Playing defense harder these days, but is not impossible.
“It just requires a real connectedness defensively,” Carlisle explained.
Scoring is up again this season, with teams averaging more points (114.1) than the league has seen at any time in the last half-century. Sacramento leads the way with 120 points per game, with six players averaging 12 or more points.
It’s hardly a surprise to longtime NBA veteran Ish Smith that 44 players are currently averaging at least 20 point a game.
“I guarantee you, when I come and show my kids the game in 10 or 15 years, we’re going to be talking about how it might be 100 guys now averaging 20,” cracked Smith, the Nuggets guard who broke into the league in 2010. “It’s just a tribute to guys getting better. Everybody can dribble, shoot, pass — and it makes it difficult.”
Bottom line: The standouts are simply doing what they do best — stand out. Doncic and Embiid lead in points per game (33.6), Jokic in tripledoubles (14), Shai GilgeousAlexander in two-point field goals (398) and Buddy Hield in 3-pointers (181).
“The league is in such a great place and people are so into checking out highlights and seeing high scores for entertainment,” said David Adelman, an assistant coach for the Nuggets and son of longtime NBA coach Rick Adelman. “I don’t think the NFL is any different. I mean, it’s hard to be a defensive back these days. That’s probably the hardest job in sports, maybe.
“So I don’t see (the NBA) changing it. My son is 9 years old and he loves watching the NBA because we’re scoring 130 points. That’s just the way it is.”