Cavs: John Henson is right for highlighting how many young teams struggle with transition D

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ transition defense continues to be a massive issue, as a few veterans emphasized recently and John Henson’s right for highlighting how young teams often struggle in that area.

The Cleveland Cavaliers were ground to a pulp on the defensive end by the Toronto Raptors on Monday in a 133-113 road loss, as the unselfish and tough Raps shot 58.4% from the field and had 31 assists, as noted by ESPN.

The biggest problem, which veterans Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and John Henson emphasized and was hit on by The Athletic‘s Kelsey Russo (subscription required) and Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, was defensive transition.

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That’s not new as Russo and Fedor demonstrated, and Cavs fans can often hear Wine and Gold legend and play-by-play announcer Austin Carr mention time and time again that the Cavaliers’ transition defense is an ongoing problem.

The Raptors were able to get pieces such as emerging star Pascal Siakam, who had 33 points, Norman Powell (who had 26 points), and OG Anunoby, along with Terence Davis, favorable opportunities in transition on Monday.

Toronto is averaging the most transition points per game in the 2019-20 season and they are second in transition frequency, according to Synergy Sports, and that was on display on Monday.

Fedor illustrated how Love said it’s something the Cavs desperately need to get figured out and that Cleveland continues to get in unfavorable matchups, and Cleveland head coach John Beilein said the Cavaliers need to continue to work on transition defense, as Fedor also noted.

To me, though the Cavs’ perimeter defensive issues and realistic lack of length doesn’t help there, I believe them playing so many young pieces big minutes probably accentuates the issue even more.

John Henson was right for highlighting how young teams tend to struggle in defensive transition, too.

To me, however, in this rebuild, as I’m sure the 28-year-old Henson understands, Cleveland needs to keep playing the young guys, such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Cedi Osman and Kevin Porter Jr. big minutes. That’s how they’ll continue to develop.

Anyway, here’s what Fedor said in regards to Henson’s perspective, of which Henson discussed his time in a rebuild with the Milwaukee Bucks before.

"“John Henson remembers having similar issues early in his time with Milwaukee. He believes many young teams have this same problem, not truly understanding the speed of the game and the importance of running, not jogging, back on defense. Things got so bad for the Bucks at one point, the coach wouldn’t let anyone go for an offensive rebound. He implored all five guys to get back on the raise.”"

Toronto had 29 fastbreak points in Monday’s game, as shown by ESPN and after that, as Russo expressed, the Cavs’ dropped to giving up the second-most fastbreak points in the NBA, of which you can see per NBA.com.

Again, though, with youngsters, such as Garland and Sexton, who are both 6-foot-1, along with Osman, who tends to get mixed up off the ball at times, for example, good teams such as Toronto or say the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday are going to get favorable matchups in transition.

Granted, the Cleveland Cavaliers have staggered Sexton and Garland more in the last few games, and that’s been a nice wrinkle, but even so, the Cavs still don’t have players that are going to deter opponents from driving to the rim by their presence, so helpers need to wall up more and help off the ball to prevent early-clock drives from players such as Siakam.

As Fedor noted, Cavs players stressed how communication needs to be better to prevent transition defensive problems and opponents getting easy baskets. Again, though, with young pieces out there big minutes combined with a lack of rim protection from others outside of Henson (who could feasibly be traded relatively soon anyway) realistically, transition defense is going to be difficult.

This sort of thing can improve gradually with those youngsters continuing to gain valuable experience, which is paramount in this rebuild, though.

Are players such as Sexton and Garland (who needs to get stronger in coming years) going to continually get targeted?

Yes, but the Cleveland Cavaliers need to be proactive in helping those types of pieces, along with others, such as Osman or Porter in defensive transition, so opponents don’t feast on young players with bigger players, and ones with often considerably more experience.

Beilein and company can chalk up defensive transition struggles to growing pains, and again, Henson’s right for highlighting how many young teams tend to have his issues in that area, which is no simple thing.

Hopefully in coming drafts, though, the Cavs can get some rim protection from bigs that get up and down the floor, along with a few promising wing defenders to at least alleviate some opponent by-default mismatches on the break.

Porter is showing plenty of positive signs in wing defense, though, but again, struggles can be expected for a 19-year-old and fouls and/or mistakes in early-clock scenarios hopefully will happen less as the 2019-20 season progresses.