The Cleveland Cavaliers' terrible defense cannot be ignored any longer
For weeks we've heard about the Cavaliers' proverbial "switch" — the one they would flip before the playoffs, subsequently turning their lax defense into a unit capable of defending their title.
It's easy to believe the switch exists — the Cavs have good defensive players, right? And we all know how seriously they take the regular season. (They aren't exactly smacking the floor, Duke style.) It made perfect sense — eventually, Cleveland will stop giving half effort on the defensive end, lock-in, and enter the postseason at the peak of their powers.
But the Cavaliers have eight games remaining in the regular season and the switch has not been flipped.
Following Thursday's puzzling loss to the suddenly surging Bulls (that adjective doesn't seem right, but alas, they're climbing in the standings), it has to be asked:
Does the switch even exist?
If it does, the Cavs are taking a fascinatingly circuitous route to it.
Cleveland currently ranks 22nd in the NBA in defensive rating, allowing 108 points per 100 possessions — that's not good, but it's not a death blow to their title chances. That's a team that can still, theoretically, get stops when they want, one assumes.
Well, there's not much evidence to back that up.
The most concerning thing is that the Cavs' defense has worsened as the season has progressed: Since the All-Star Game in February, the Cavs are 29th in defensive rating (112.6) and in March, they're allowing 113.7 points per 100 possessions.
Even the all-offense, no-defense Rockets are getting some stops — they have a defensive rating of 107.3 this month. The Warriors and Spurs — the Western Conference's two best teams — are at 99.3 and 100.5, respectively.
There's never been an NBA champion that's even close to as bad defensively as the Cavs are this year. The closest corollary would be the 2001 Lakers, who were 21st in defensive rating.
But that Lakers team was sandbagging — they were the NBA's best defensive team the year before and once the postseason started, they "flipped the switch."
The Cavs might be reigning champions, but they don't share context with that Lakers team. The 2016 Cavs shot their way to that title — the Warriors had an offensive rating of 108.5 in the NBA Finals.
And since that Lakers' title, no team outside of the top 10 in defensive rating has won a championship.
This year, the Cavaliers are the NBA's worst defensive team in transition (1.20 points per possession allowed) and against the ballhandler in pick-and-roll (0.91 PPP). Those are two of the most important defensive areas in the modern game.
No, there isn't much of an argument to be made that there is a switch that the Cavs can flip.
This might just be a bad, concrete-footed defensive team. It might have LeBron, who can lock down an entire side of the court by himself, but Kyrie Irving (112 on-court defensive rating) and Kevin Love (107) provide little resistance. Tristan Thompson has no one behind him that can protect the rim. Iman Shumpert is the team's only other viable perimeter defender, and he looks a step behind, as the constant stream of injuries seems to have caught up to him.
Outside of center Larry Sanders, who is currently playing in the D-League, defensive reinforcements aren't coming for the Cavs.
Any team with LeBron James deserves the benefit of the doubt, and it's not as if the Eastern Conference is a gauntlet of formidable, title-worthy foes. There might only be eight regular season games remaining, but the Cavs' offense is so good that they actually have a bit more time to figure out how to manufacture a viable defense.
But so long as the Cavaliers' defensive trend continues, repeating as champions is out of the question and a third-straight Finals berth is put more and more into question.
