As was reported earlier on Monday, the Cleveland Cavaliers have found their next head coach in former University of Michigan head coach John Beilein, and his team’s defense is the main reason for fans to be excited about the hire.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers had agreed to a five-year deal with former Michigan Wolverines head man John Beilein to be the team’s next head coach.
Michigan’s John Beilein has agreed to a five-year deal to become coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 13, 2019
Many expected the Cavs to go after younger candidates with NBA assistant coaching experience, as those were predominately who they reportedly interviewed for the head coaching vacancy, however, that wasn’t ultimately the case, as they went with the 66-year-old Beilein, who has never coached in the NBA, but has a lifetime collegiate head coaching record of 829-468 (per Sports Reference).
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Even with it seemingly coming out of left field, Cavaliers fans should be excited about Beilein. One big reason is Cleveland should be playing better defense next year.
This past season, the Wolverines ranked second in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. In scoring defense, they were behind only national-champion Virginia, giving up just 58.3 points per game, per NCAA.com.
Beilein coaches to his players’ strengths. This past year, he had aggressive guards like Zavier Simpson who could attack and pressure the ball.
He also had strong wings such as Charles Matthews who could defend multiple positions, and he’s also used a 1-3-1 zone in the past to force turnovers and consistently tailors his defense to match the talent he has; Michigan would often force opposing offenses into 7-foot-1 rim protector Jon Teske last season, too, illustrating versatility.
For a Cavs team that had a historically bad 116.7 defensive rating last year (per NBA.com), Beilein’s development-focused coaching should bring an immediate improvement attached to assignment and detail-driven defense.
While you cannot really compare the professional and college game, Michigan last year allowed opponents to shoot just 39.7% from the field (per NCAA.com) while the Cavs’ opponents shot 49.5% (per Fox Sports).
Roughly half of this video, courtesy of hoopsvision68, demonstrates how sound Michigan was last season on defense, and hopefully Beilein can take some of these defensive principles to the next level, and enable Cavs such as Cedi Osman and Ante Zizic to improve their defensive awareness and positioning in the near future.
Beilein is somewhat of an unknown at the NBA level, but he is held in high regards in all basketball circles.
He may lack NBA experience but he’s been a head coach since 1978 at Erie Community College, and he’s had success at every level, as the aforementioned Wojnarowski highlighted in his report.
Beilein’s defense that has been known to force turnovers and take opponents out of rhythm while often heavily contesting three-point looks and not over-helping will be a much-welcomed change for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who struggled mightily in all defensive areas in 2018-19 and conceded the worst opponent three-point percentage last year at a mark of 38.0% (again, per NBA.com).