Cleveland Cavaliers: A Lack Of Interior Defense Is Now The Team’s BIGGEST Problem

The Cleveland Cavaliers have had trouble defending the paint all year and it’s a “big” problem.

The Cleveland Cavaliers aren’t reeling but they can’t be feeling too good about their effort on defense right now. The problem is, their biggest issues a team isn’t a lack of a backup point guard now. It’s their inability to defend the paint.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have had issues defending the paint this season and the reason why is because of their insistence on using lineups with both Channing Frye and Kevin Love on the court at the same time and because they continuously use Love at center by himself.

Lineups with both Frye and Love or lineups with Love at center are lineups that the Cleveland Cavaliers need to avoid in order to stop teams from targeting the interior of the defense. Not only are these lineups where an offense feels like they can feast in the paint, it’s where they actually do feast.

Love and Frye too, have flashes of rim-protection ability. Unfortunately, Love and Frye lack the leaping ability to alter shots above the rim, the defensive awareness to jump out towards players running straight at the rim, or the size to deal with the bigger centers in the league on a consistent basis.

According to NBA.com, lineups with Kyrie Irving, Iman Shumpert, DeAndre Liggins, LeBron James and Love get outscored by 2.5 points per minute, despite the team’s three best defenders being on the floor, because of Love’s inability to protect the rim.

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Replace James and Shumpert with Richard Jefferson and Kyle Korver, their two backups at their position, and the team starts to give up 4.7 points per minute. The defensive tradeoff actually isn’t as much of a factor as many would think, as Jefferson and Korver play solid team defense. While it’s also true that both James is are absent from the lineup, and he’s the team’s primary playmaker, the team has Irving to score and a player with a very green light in Korver.

Of course, the team will have its success with Love at center because of the three-point that he is. The same holds true for lineups with him and Frye. Yet, when watching games, it’s the elephant in the room.

The Cavs need a rim-protector behind Thompson. That would allow the Cavs to make Frye Love’s primary backup.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are a better team with James playing at power forward obviously, but it’s better to give him to rim-protecting options behind him as he’s not a true power forward.

Some players who will play power forwards will make James work more than others, obviously. So having a player like a Timofey Mozgov, a Zydraunus Ilgauskus, would help. However, in such a perimeter-oriented league that’s nearly positionless, the center doesn’t necessarily need to be a big center but one with length and the ability to have an intimidation factor around the rim.

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Jefferson, who hasn’t performed great this season but has done decently, can have a few of his minutes given to Liggins. Liggins hasn’t been able to impact the game with his defense as much as he should be and Jefferson has looked like he needs to rest, so it’s the best way to kill two birds with one stone.

Then, when J.R. Smith returns, there will be plenty of opportunity to have Korver and Shumpert on the court still because they can sap some of the 38.4 minutes per game James has been playing over the last two months.

That is, unless Lue is willing to give some of James’ minutes to Liggins in order to allow the King to rest now.

Three to four minutes wouldn’t kill the Cavs without James if Lue places the mix of players around Liggins that he would with James: a better ball-handler, someone to run the pick-and-roll with, and shooters. In fact, a lineup with Liggins in place of James has the starters outscores opponents by 2.9 points per minute.

So, once again, the Cleveland Cavaliers biggest need may be their lack of interior defense. They’ve given up 48.7 points in the paint per game over their last three contests. There are only five teams that have been worse at defending the paint in that span. The New Orleans Pelicans, Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves.

It’s worth pointing out that getting a big could also help them defeat the Bucks and Warriors in a playoff series.

In theory, getting a big could solve everything. That is, unless the Cavs just want the luxury of having one more playmaker to throw at opposing teams.

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What do the Cleveland Cavaliers need to do about their interior defense? Let us know in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.