The Cleveland Cavaliers loss against the Atlanta Hawks highlighted how bad Kyrie Irving’s defense has been all season.
The Cleveland Cavaliers first game of the season resulted in blowout victory over the New York Knicks but since then the Cavs have struggled to win every game.
While the team has the talent to beat any team when they take an opponent serious, the Cavaliers haven’t played hard for a complete game since opening night. The Toronto Raptors, Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers have all taken advantage of that.
These teams have also taken advantage of the Cavs three main weaknesses. Every game that the Cleveland Cavaliers have played has progressively illuminated these problems. Teams key in on their biggest weaknesses and the Cavs have had a harder time winning games each night.
It all came to a head in their match against the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers behind a great gameplan to attack the paint and the Cavs own inability to get their offense going as they try to operate without a point guard. The Cavaliers should be glad it did.
First and foremost, the Cleveland Cavaliers main issue this season is defense. The Cavaliers aren’t just letting teams slip back into games with poor defensive effort, though that’s an issue the group has as well. They’re being beaten as soon as they cross halfcourt because Kyrie Irving plays “matador” defense.
How Irving expects to stop opposing ball-handlers by standing a yard away from them and with his body in a lackadaisical defensive stance beats anyone’s guess.
Against the New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors, Derrick Rose and Kyle Lowry each finished the contest with 17 points as they got to the paint time and time again. When the Cavs played the Boston Celtics, Isaiah Thomas scored 30 points as he attacked the rim without relenting. Last night, Dennis Schroder dropped 28 points against Irving.
Once the point guard, who is usually the team’s best-handler and passer, has penetrated the lane the Cavs defense is forced into the unenviable position of trying to defend the rim and make it back out to open shooters.
As a result, the Cavs have ended up letting teams shoot 30.6 threes against them per night, putting them 27th out of 30 teams in that statistic. Teams convert 34.6 of their threes against the Cavs which is about league-average. What that means is that shooters have more space against the Cavs than other teams and that the Cavs usually don’t effect their shots at all. When watching the Cavs play, this is because the lane has been compromised by the point guard’s penetration and as the Cavs collapse the paint, shooters are left open.
However, the onus isn’t completely on Irving. J.R. Smith, after being praised as the team’s best defender last year, has been anything but that this season.
After playing solid defense on Courtney Lee on opening night, and holding Lee scoreless, Smith has been terrible defensively since then. Smith allowed Evan Fournier to drop 22, DeMar Derozan to drop 32, James Harden to drop 41 and Avery Bradley to drop 26 in the Cavs next four games. That’s not all on Smith but that’s 121 points from one position, his primary matchup, in four games. Last night, Kent Bazemore scored 25 points and was generally open on every shot he took except for a nice three in the corner with LeBron James closing out.
Defensively, Smith is consistently out-of-position, perhaps cheating off of his man to help Irving. Regardless of the reason, Smith is rarely there to contest a three-point shot. Instead, he’s being caught on screens and rubs. Ultimately, he’s a step behind his man when they foray into the lane.
James has also had trouble stopping lane penetration. While the biggest scoring nights to come against James have been 19 points apiece for the New York Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony and the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, James always concedes more space to his man than he should be.
James literally hulks over his matchups and is usually just as athletic and nimble. With his physical profile, it’s a wonder the Cavs allow him to stand back so far from his man. Then Irving or Smith gets blown by on the perimeter and it makes all too much sense.
While James could do a much better job positioning his body to force the ball-handler to go baseline and funnel him towards Tristan Thompson (averaging 1.1 blocks per game this season) at the rim, it’s made abundantly clear that James is the team’s safety net on defense with how he positions his body.
James, like the rest of the perimeter, appears to play straight-up man-to-man defense. What he’s really doing is playing a man-zone defense that allows the Cavs to disrupt the passing lanes and get back to the rim to quickly to help Thompson and Kevin Love.
Love, while being more athletic than last year and Thompson, while appearing stronger than last year, have their own disadvantages on the defensive end as well. Love is prone to being beat on the perimeter as a forward and Thompson isn’t explosive enough to make up for his lack of size at center.
At the end of the day, the Cavs defensive scheme works theoretically. However, in its application, Irving doesn’t possess the athletic package to be effective in a man-zone defense. Consequentially, the Cavaliers overcompensate for Irving and leave the defense vulnerable to lane penetration.
How the Cleveland Cavaliers solve this problem is going to be interesting. The team could replace Thompson with Iman Shumpert in the starting lineup as the point guard.
Related Story: Kevin Love: The Unsung Hero
What do you think is the Cleveland Cavaliers biggest issue defensively? Let us know in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.