Spurs defense

[Spurs Brazil]

By Elias Sports Bureau


The Spurs held the Clippers scoreless for a stretch of 8 minutes, 13 seconds during the third quarter of Game 3, marking the third time during this year's playoffs that the Spurs have held an opponent scoreless for six minutes or longer. (In the first round, San Antonio blanked Utah for a span of 6 minutes, 46.1 seconds in Game 2 and for a span of 8 minutes, 9 seconds in Game 4.) Those are the three longest scoreless streaks produced to date in the 2012 playoffs.

It has been a little more than 10 years since the last time an NBA team was held scoreless in a playoff game for as long as the Clippers were Saturday. In the first quarter of a first-round game in 2002, the Pistons blanked the Raptors over a span of 8 minutes, 36.9 seconds.

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-120519/daily-dime

[wildbill2u]

In the hey-day of the era where the Spurs were known for defense, they'd keep their regular season opponents scoring in the low 90s or 80s with a relatively small spread on points in favor of the Spurs.

Lately, their opponents have been scoring pretty much in that range while the spread has been much greater, even though the opponents get more chances to score when they are taking the ball out of the net after another Spur score.

And sometimes the Spurs scoring efficiency goes down and their defense gives up a few more points when the game is clearly in the bag and defensive intensity goes down with the bench emptied.

All things considered, I'd say the Spurs defense is very under-rated. That should reassure those fans whose mantra is "Defense wins championships."

[Bruno]

A little home made stat to see how Spurs defense has been great in these playoffs.

Comparing primary defensive numbers between playoffs teams means very little since opponents qualities aren't the same. For example, it is way easier to have good defensive numbers if you face Sixers than against Spurs.
An easy way to evaluate playoffs defense would be to make the difference between what opponents averaged offensively during the regular season an what they average in the playoffs. It's not the perfect stat but it gives a good idea.

So, here is the difference between average points scored per 100 possessions by the opponents in the regular season and what the opponents have done in the playoffs:
Spurs: -12.3
Pacers: -11.4
Celtics: -9.9
Heat: -9
Sixers: -7.1
Grizzlies: -6.5
Bulls: -6.2
Hawks: -3.9
Clippers: -0.3
Thunder: +0
Magic: +0.3
Mavericks: +0.3
Jazz: +0.4
Lakers: +0.5
Nuggets: +0.6
Knicks: +4.7

To put it with words: Spurs have allowed Jazz and Clippers to score 12.3 points less per 100 possessions than what they did in the regular season.

What these stats says:
- There are 3 elite defenses in the playoffs so far: Spurs, Pacers and Celtics. Heat have faced an injury plagued Knicks team and Sixers have played against Bulls without Rose which makes their number looks better than what they are.
- 8 teams have been able to significantly slow down their opponents but only 2 (Spurs and grizzlies) are in the west.

While Spurs defensive numbers should cool off, is it really that surprising to see Spurs doing well on the defensive end?
First, Pop is a good defensive coach.
Second, Spurs starting unit of Parker/Green/Leonard/Diaw/Duncan doesn't have a single bad or average defender. They are all at least good.
Third, Spurs only have 2 weak defensive players with Neal and Bonner in their rotation. They aren't that bad when they aren't overmatched.
Fourth, some players like Duncan and Parker are obviously putting more efforts on the defensive end than in the regular season.

[tesseractive]

Awesome. Play basically sound defense and outgun teams during the regular season, then get serious about locking them down when the games get real.

Love it. :toast

[therealtruth]

Second, Spurs starting unit of Parker/Green/Leonard/Diaw/Duncan doesn't have a single bad or average defender. They are all at least good.
Third, Spurs only have 2 weak defensive players with Neal and Bonner in their rotation. They aren't that bad when they aren't overmatched.
Fourth, some players like Duncan and Parker are obviously putting more efforts on the defensive end than in the regular season.

I don't think we realized how much Blair weakened overall team defense. Diaw being a good individual defender means less help defense. Basically getting the worst defenders out of the rotation or to the bottom of the rotation has really helped. With our current starting lineup opponents have to work for their baskets.