Point Blank – March 27, 2017
Can Cleveland win with a ‘cavalier’ defense…Frank Martin is a nicer guy than most folks think…
An NCAA tournament that brought so many signs of being a wide-open affair has turned out to be just that, and over the course of the week there will be plenty of time to delve into the Final Four, at some point narrowing down a key talking point for each matchup in “The Game Inside the Game” framework.
For now it is time to shift the attention to the NBA, and guess what we have coming down the pipe? Yet another post-season tourney that brings the prospects of being wide open, a far different mural than what would have been painted not all that long ago, this one actually more resembling some random graffiti. It will bring some opportunity for the shrewd handicapper, because there will be a lot of scrambling going on across the marketplace. Like what it the defending champions, and one of the favorites to repeat, can’t play a lick of defense…
Item: The Cleveland Defense stinks
Most sports books are sitting with the Cavaliers at #2 to win it all, but was LeBron James & Company head to San Antonio tonight, they face the prospect of a loss that will drop them out of the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, and after losing that head-to-head against the Wizards on Saturday they are also just 2.5 games from being #3. There is no appearance of any form, with a 5-7 SU over the last dozen games, albeit a couple of those being giveaways with LeBron sitting out, but there is a unifying theme whether he is in the lineup or not – the defense is simply awful. That raises the most real question of just how far can a team go in the post-season when they aren’t very good at guarding the other team.
Let’s first talk full-season to set the perspective. The Cavaliers rate #23 in the NBA, allowing 108.1 PP100 (that will be the standard measure for all of this today). Of the bottom 10 defensive teams in the league, how many are going to make the playoffs? Just two, Cleveland and the Portland/Denver winner of the #8 seed in the Western Conference. The Trail Blazers and Nuggets are tied at 35-38 with nine games remaining, but should Portland get the nod it would mean something unique based on the numbers at this moment – the Cavaliers would enter the playoffs with the worst defensive numbers of the 16 teams.
So let’s set a first perspective – where would that 108.1 rate in terms of winning championships over the past decade? Nowhere in the ballpark -
NBA Champions, Defense PP100
2007 San Antonio 97.4
2008 Boston 96.2
2009 LA Lakers 101.9
2010 LA Lakers 101.1
2011 Dallas 102.3
2012 Miami 97.1
2013 Miami 100.5
2014 San Antonio 100.1
2015 Golden State 98.2
2016 Cleveland 102.3
This history tells us that the current Cavaliers aren’t even close to a championship. But even that is not quite proper, because using the full-season defensive numbers actually aids them in the comparisons. The harsh reality is that the defense has been getting worse. And I mean much worse. There is currently a dramatic race going on to be the NBA’s worst defense since the All Star break, and this one may go down to the final game –
2017 Post-Break Defense
29. Cleveland 113.5
30. LA Lakers 113.8
To understand just how awful those two counts are, consider the gap before we find the next team –
28. Sacramento 110.5
So how about some historical context, which is important here. Post-break stats can naturally run lower on defense, with some teams choosing to pack it in down the stretch. What happens if we look at the worst post-break defenses over the past decade?
Worst Post-Break Defense, Last 10 Years
2017 LA Lakers 113.8
2017 Cleveland 113.5
2010 New York 113.2
2008 Milwaukee 113.1
2013 Milwaukee 113.0
2009 Phoenix 112.5
2010 Detroit 112.3
2013 Utah 112.1
Yes, that is how bad the Cavaliers are playing on that end of the court, and while the key cogs sitting out has been an issue, James has only missed three of the 17 post-break games. These numbers are real. What is the worst post-break defense over the past decade of any team that went on to win a championship? Last year’s Cavaliers at 104.4, and the current crew is not even in that ballpark.
Can this be fixed? There is naturally a personnel problem, Cleveland having challenges at some key spots. While not a measure one can put a full trust into, NBA Real +/- has Kyrie Irving near the bottom of starting point guards, which certainly fits the eye test. Of those playing at least 30 minutes per game, only Derrick Rose, Dennis Schroeder, Zach LaVine and Isaiah Thomas rate worse. With J.R. Smith again in the starting lineup as of last week, Irving is now back to guarding the other team’s PG, and how about this for production from the opponents at that position over the last two games –
Pts Ast +/-
Kemba Walker 28 5 +12
John Wall 37 11 +12
Irving was a collective -12 for his +/- across those games. Then there is the interior, where Tristan Thompson works hard but is a bit under-sized and also over-used, not just his log of minutes but the fact that he has played all 72 games, as part of compiling the NBA’s longest consecutive games streak.
Let’s go to Tyronn Lue on that front - "When Tristan plays against those big centers it's tough on him. To play every single night for four straight years -- you don't want him to have to wrestle with those big guys every single night on a night-to-night basis. It's tough on him." Before finishing with “He’s the only center we have. He has to play right now.” The loss of Andrew Bogut means so much more here than most will appreciate.
And of course there is the matter of coaching. Lue has now had more than a full calendar year as the head man, and perhaps we should start with what happened to the Cleveland defensive numbers the more he got control of the playbook last season –
Pre-Break 101.1
Post-Break 104.4
Again, this has nothing to do with tempo, since that is adjusted away, but it reflects on the simple ability to make stops. The Cavaliers aren’t particularly designed well to do that, and Lue’s inexperience may be making that issue worse instead of better.
Here is what particularly matters in the Eastern Conference – a couple of prime contenders that struggled early are “getting it” on defense as the season progresses -
Pre-Break Post-Break
Boston 106.2 (#18) 102.7 (#5)
Toronto 106.0 (#16) 100.9 (#2)
I wrote about Raptors futures a while back, and they are very much alive – Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker really were big plusses for their rotation, while Kyle Lowry’s injury may bring the silver lining of him being fresher come playoff time. Meanwhile the Celtics are making major strides in terms of building their defensive chemistry as the playoffs approach. It has been a different story for the Wizards – as noted a few times here last week they look a bit worn down, and have allowed an unsightly 109.4 since the break, rating #24. But they have shown in their last two head-to-heads vs. Cleveland that there is no intimidation of any kind.
The Cavaliers are going to have to win two tough series to get to the Finals this season, and the prospect of one of them being as the visiting team is growing. But it isn’t just the Futures that we can be scouring to take advantage, there is something out there this evening, which I will get to in a moment. First a bit of a detour from the betting boards...
Item: It’s going to be a week to appreciate Frank Martin
One of the great joys of this week’s NCAA landscape will be the opportunity for folks to get a better appreciation of Frank Martin, who comes across as a maniac on the sidelines somethings, and hence gets misunderstood. This week will offer plenty of time for a more sincere appreciation, and I will start here by reposting something that was deep in the weekend thread, and may have been missed by some -
That was also sent to a dinner companion from Saturday night, when Oregon/Kansas in the background only got minor attention, and the discussion went more to some on-going non-sports research fronts. What Martin said above was on-point, if slightly off to the side – one of the issues we are finding in a developing media age is indeed that parents are treating children differently, but a huge part of the problem is that they are treating them less. It isn’t just being softer, but in fact not being there enough, as television and other entertainment options become distractions for the first generations to grow up with them.
That is for another place and another time, but for now let’s at least open the window for a better appreciation of Martin.
In the Sights, Monday NBA…
I did not expect the Cleveland defensive notions to lead to anything immediate today except for a magnified eye test vs. the Spurs in front of the TNT cameras. But the early marketplace has taken an unexpected stand in dropping the Total from 213 to 210, and that opens the door for #736 San Antonio Team Total Over (8:05 Eastern). The value meter is a bit tight – it shows for me at 107, which was out there for a while this morning but did not last, and at 107.5 I would reduce the wager amount by about one third.
The Spurs have all hands on deck now, and that means a lot of ways to exploit bad defense – in particular note the 19 points and 10 rebounds in 25:53 off the bench by Pau Gasol on Saturday. Gregg Popovich can go 10-deep in his rotation and tweak the parts as he sees openings, and there should be plenty out there for him to exploit, with the Cavaliers playing their fourth game in six nights in a heavy travel cycle. They have gone from Denver on Wednesday to Charlotte Friday, back home vs. Washington on Saturday, and now this one, a rare sequence in which they will have played in every time zone in a span of only eight nights.
In the Sights, NBA Part II…
Since this one was already in pocket, and was brought up in a thread question, let’s post it this way, another case of the marketplace creating added value. The ticket is #731 Orlando Team Total Under (7:35 Eastern), and there is now 98.5 available at Pinnacle and a few others, with value here at 98 or better.
As noted in the lead essay today, while Cleveland playing bad defense was the main focus, the major improvements on that end of the court by the Raptors should not go unnoticed, with size and depth being added up front in Ibaka and Tucker. Yet the markets are backing the Magic offense, and bucking the Toronto defense, two different ways today, the Side dropping from -9.5 to -8, and the total rising from 205.5 to 207.5, which creates the new value for the Orlando TT.
While Toronto is sitting at the #2 defensive spot post-break, the Magic are #25 on offense. That makes this a difficult matchup for them to get into a rhythm, and with this being a double-revenge setting for the favorite this focus should certainly be there.
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