If Cleveland Cavaliers Stop Contradicting Themselves, Change Patterns, They’ll Be Fine Defensively

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ defensive turnaround will start with Tyronn Lue and LeBron James.

If the Cleveland Cavaliers want a defensive turnaround they need to point the fingers at Tyronn Lue and LeBron James.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, who are ranked 22nd in opponents points per game, 20th in defensive rating and 24th in opponents three-point percentage, are terrible defensively to be frank. Their biggest problem on defense though aren’t the numbers. It’s effort and focus. Sure, the Cleveland Cavaliers are trying to win games. However, there’s no doubt that they aren’t giving maximum effort and exhibiting laser focus on either end. On any given night, the Cavs will coast through portions of the game.

Do you want to know why the San Antonio Spurs are great year-after-year, no matter the personnel at Gregg Popopvich’s disposal? He doesn’t let them slack off. Lue, like David Blatt, let’s his team slack off. It’s because his best player, whether it’s David Robinson, Tim Duncan or Kawhi Leonard, doesn’t slack off on the defensive end.

James plays defense well enough to give him solid defensive stats. For instance, James has a defensive box plus/minus of 1.7, is tied for second on the team with a defensive rating of 108 and is averaging 1.6 steals and 0.6 blocks per game.

James, whose lead the Cavs follow, plays with an abundance of energy on most nights but all too often fans can see him playing matador defense or failing to get back to impact the fast break.

In a day and age where pundits wrongly say that the regular season doesn’t matter, the Cavs built up this bad habit of playing lackluster defense for years. 227 games later, the Cavs defensive peak came when they inserted a hungry defensive specialist in Liggins in the starting lineup. Liggins promptly began to lock down the other team’s best perimeter player on a regular basis.

Lue then opted to not just bench Liggins, but take him out of the rotation entirely, so that he could have more shooting in the starting lineup. More shooting beside Kyrie Irving, who is averaging 25.1 points per game on 39.0 percent shooting from three-point range, James, who is averaging 26.0 points per game on 39.8 percent shooting from three-point range and Kevin Love, who is averaging 20.0 points per game on 38.4 percent shooting from the field.

To Lue’s credit, he did put in a player who is supposed to be a three-and-D specialist in Iman Shumpert and it’s not his fault that Shumpert is in a shooting slump. Or, perhaps it is. Players get used to a role and, according to Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz, Shumpert has said that his shots go awry because his energy level makes the height of his jump shot inconsistent (in addition to a problem with his shooting mechanics).

Unless there’s a new hitch in the flick of Shump’s wrist, it’s likely that Shumpert’s problem, based on his self-diagnosis, is the energy in which he plays.

Crazy right?

Anybody who watches basketball knows that the energy in the starting lineup has more variance than the energy of a player who comes off the bench. As a matter of fact, the bench players come into the game to give the team a certain amount of energy. The starting unit can come out too hyped or too flat. It happens all the time.

That problem is borne out in Shumpert’s numbers since he started in place of Liggins. Shumpert has shot 28.8 percent from three-point range since February, all games he has started. However, the fact that he doesn’t defend the opposing point guards with the same consistency, efficacy or intensity of Liggins is a big reason why the Cleveland Cavaliers only outscore opponents by 4.1 points per 100 possessions with him in the starting lineup compared to outscoring opponents by 32.1 points per 100 possessions.

When Tyronn Lue spoke on Liggins this is what he had to say (article by Chris Fedor of cleveland.com):

"“Just every night competing,” Lue said. “Every single night guarding the best player, the 1, 2 or 3, and taking that challenge. It kind of became who T.A. was. He loved it and got up for it every single game. He got up to play and guard the best players and I think Liggs can do the same.”"

Here’s more from Lue on Liggins (article by Joe Vardon of cleveland.com):

"“I think high energy from a guy, it’s contagious,” Lue said. “Guys tend to play harder, seeing him flying around the floor, picking up full court, that’s the juice and spunk we need.”"

Isn’t this exactly what the Cavs are missing?

Here’s James on Liggins’ impact (article by Joe Vardon of cleveland.com):

"“What Delly gave us was grit,” James said. “Delly gave us a grit like ‘I don’t care what y’all say, I’m out on this floor to defend, I’m out on this floor to make plays and no matter what y’all say that I can’t accomplish, I’m gonna try to overachieve that.’“We lost that in Delly and rightfully so for the first part of the season, first few weeks we was missing that. Liggs gives us that. He gives us that pit bull out on the floor that’s like, ‘I’m here to just work. I’m going to make you work every single possession.I know you don’t know my name yet, I know you don’t know my game yet or what I’m about, but I’m going to make you work.’“We’ve got that in Liggs. And that’s huge for our team.”"

Stop me when you understand my confusion.

Just one more quote, this time from Sports Illustrated’s Jake Fischer:

"Cleveland’s defensive efficiency tails off by 6.5 points per 100 possessions when he heads to the bench: the same chasm between the Grizzlies and the league’s 21st ranked defense in Philadelphia. Liggins’s impact is that transparent. “It’s great to have some youth out there—athletic, some length and somebody that’s not afraid to guard,” Cavs assistant coach James Posey told SI.com."

So, what is Lue doing besides contradicting himself, making his team play worse and probably alienating a player who they should be re-signing and will get a decent contract elsewhere? Showing an undying loyalty to Shumpert.

J.R. Smith will return to the starting lineup soon, a player who Lue called the Cavs best perimeter defender last season, so the starters may play better but it’s obvious that there needs to bea change in the second unit.

Kyle Korver, Derrick Williams and Channing Frye are all expected to play regularly in the second unit and are the most deserving of being the 6th, 7th and 8th men. Richard Jefferson should play with this group but is also capable of playing in place of Korver and Williams at times. That’s a solid 10-15 minutes per game Jefferson can be effective in the frontcourt.

That leaves Deron Williams, Shumpert, Liggins sharing minutes in the backcourt. Williams (Sr.) is the backup point guard for the club in a clearly defined role, nonetheless he isn’t going to stop perimeter penetration, isn’t always effective and isn’t always going to have to be a playmaker for the club. That should leave more than enough minutes for both Shumpert and Liggins to be on the court.

What Lue needs is better substitution patterns.

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It’s understandable to want Irving, Williams (Sr.) and James on the court at the same time, to have Korver and Smith on the floor at the same time and to want to use their “jumbo” lineup, as it’s been called by Fear The Sword’s Carter Rodriguez.

It’s not understandable to bench your best defensive player and wonder why the defense is all of a sudden terrible. Especially considering that when reading quotes from the team, everyone know what changed.

One way to get Liggins playing time is to play him with the starting lineup sans J.R. and to play him with the second unit in a platoon swap. A platoon swap would put Williams (Sr.), Liggins, Korver, Williams and Frye on the floor at the same time. Liggins will be able to cover for one of Williams (Sr.) or Korver defensively while Williams guards the other. A solid two-way unit with two exceptional shooters, two strong defenders who aren’t volume shooters but efficient (they won’t need to be volume shooter beside Korver and Frye) and an experienced floor general. From there, Jefferson and Shumpert can be inserted in place of Williams (Sr.) and Williams.

The subsequent lineup will lockdown the backcourt with two combo guards who can also set up the shooters in Frye and Korver. Jefferson will be an all-around player who makes the right plays around the rest of the group.

From there, Lue can move back to the starting lineup and play with putting Williams (Sr.) and Korver in lineups with the starting unit.

Those opportunities would come at expense of Irving, Love and Tristan Thompson.

However, of the Big Three, Love is used to playing the least minutes while having a fresh Thompson throughout the playoffs will make the team incredibly hard to contend with. Irving is a player you want on the court but his style of play often causes stagnation and putting in a facilitator like Williams in his place could keep the offense from getting stale.

Williams (Sr.) and Korver don’t have to play with the starting unit at the same time but they should get the chance to play together beside three James and Smith on a regular basis.

Would making sure Liggins has a place in the rotation be enough to make the Cleveland Cavaliers more effective on defense? Yes. However,they must also give more effort in rotations, closing out players and preventing perimeter penetration. The Cavs, who follow the lead of James, need the best player in the world to give maximum effort on the defensive end as well.

What do you think will spark a defensive turnaround for the Cleveland Cavaliers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.