The Minnesota Timberwolves of 2016-2017 had a lot of good things on paper, an emerging superstar in Karl Anthony-Towns, a great player in Andrew Wiggins, and a new defensive coach in Tom Thibodeau. So what went wrong, why did they miss the playoffs and only win 31 games? I will tell you in one word, defense. Looking at their basic team stats, you can see that they had a top 10 offensive rating (points scored per 100 possessions), but their defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) was 27th out of 30. I had the opportunity to use Synergy over the summer and something that fascinated was how good Minnesota was offensively, but how terrible they were defensively. As I watched defensive possessions you could see that they were constantly out of position and when teams got into multiple actions they just could not keep up.
This is why defense is so important. This is why it is hard for me to take players like James Harden or Russell Westbrook seriously. They do not play defense. They are liabilities for their teams on that end of the floor, but all people want to talk about is how great they are offensively, but shouldn't defense matter more? I get that to a casual fan it is exciting to see 3 point shots or drives to the rim, but I get excited when I see a team just really clamping down defensively. The truth of it is that Golden State is otherworldly offensively, but they are one of the best defensive teams in NBA history. They are just in tune with each other. Watch a Golden State Warriors game and pay attention to their movement on defense. Watch what happens when teams screen and try different actions. Watch how they switch with ease and how they help when they need to help and get back when they have to get back. There is no wonder that they are one of the greatest teams ever.
How to watch basketball and look for defense is important and one thing that I never knew as I started my love of this game. I had someone really smart when it comes to hoops explain it to me like this. If you want to know what is going in the game and figure out what to look for defensively and offensively, don't watch the ball. As you watch the game, do not watch the ball. Watch what is happening all around and try to see what you notice. Do you see the other team constantly getting open? Do you see the defense switching? Do you see a player lazily running after his man as their man is running through screens? The other trick is to try and figure out how every basket was made. If a player gets a dunk, how did he get it? If a player gets an open jump shot, how did he get open? I promise that doing this will help you enjoy basketball more and really start to see the guys that are playing great defense and the teams that are terrible because of it.
So, I hope that you will heed my words. A couple of quick things though before I finish this, let's all promise that we are no longer going to pretend that every point that someone scores means that he ate up the match up. For example, if the Spurs play the Cavs and Lebron drops 50, it doesn't mean that he ate Kawhi for breakfast. So many things happen on offensive possessions and so many screens and movement and help defense occur that Lebron did not literally score on Kawhi for 50. An example I always think of involves college basketball. De'aaron Fox and Lonzo Ball. In the Sweet 16 De'aaron Fox went off and after the game all people could do was say how bad Lonzo Ball was going to suck in the NBA because he could not handle Fox and point guards like Fox, etc., etc. First, there are five offensive players on the court meaning that there were times when Fox was coming off a screen or running a pick and roll. There were also times when he got out into transition. He did not score all of his points on Lonzo Ball. Watch the game for yourself and see that Fox scored his points in many different ways and on many different players. The last thing to remember about the NBA is that you can have perfect defensive possessions and still get scored on. It happens. Let's all make sure that we watch both sides of the court and really watch how teams play defense.