Cleveland Cavaliers: Poor preseason, unresolved issues hint at long year

Transition Defense

One of the Cavaliers’ Achilles heels for several years has been their half-hearted transition defense. Two years ago they allowed the highest point-per-possession (ppp) in transition and were the 7th-most run upon team, per Synergy Sports. Last year they were the 6th most run-upon team, but improved their ppp to 10th.

During the preseason they allowed the seventh-most fastbreak points per game (15.0) and the fourth-worst overall defensive rating. It’s a tiny sample size of four games, but it reiterates what anyone watching has seen: They’ve produced the fourth-lowest points off turnovers in the preseason (15.5), while allowing 19.8, and managed a feeble 8.8 fastbreak points game, which ranked third-lowest in the league.

So for all we’ve heard that the Cavaliers are going to run more and switch everything on defense and play harder, they look every bit as bad as they did last year when they had the best player in the world. (LeBron’s defensive FG percentage within 6 feet was -7.2 percent, FTR.)

So if you’re not going to play defense you better shoot the ball great. Well….Duh.

Missing James won’t help in that department.