Rashard Lewis's Terrible Defense

hra8700 · Post #1 » by **hra8700** » Thu Feb 7, 2013 9:52 pm

Rashard Lewis has been KILLING the heat defensively this season. I looked at his on court/off court stats taking away all plays with garbage time players (Pittman, Varnado, Harrelson, Harris, Jones).

League average: 102.5 points per 100 possessions allowed
League leader: 96.3 points per 100 possessions allowed (Indiana)
League worst: 108.2 points per 100 possessions allowed (Sacramento)
Rashard on court: 113.5 points per 100 possessions allowed
Rashard off court: 101.1 points per 100 possessions allowed

If you want to say this is just because Rashard never plays with the big 3, here are the numbers:
Rashard plus big three: 111.8 points per 100 possessions allowed
Big three without Rashard: 98.9 points per 100 possessions allowed

I went through play by play for the Houston game and counted the number of poor defensive plays Rashard Lewis had (these are only the negative plays, not the average or positive plays). There were a lot of them:

2nd quarter:
9:06: Joel traps off p&r, rotates back quickly but rashard stays on joel’s man waaaay too long, leaving his man wide open for a 3-pointer.
7:53: Rashard traps off p&r, but is way too slow in getting back to his man, forcing cole to stay on Rashard’s man, leaving Cole’s man wide open for a 3 (missed).
4:52: Lebron traps harden, rashard seems confused at first trying to switch with joel and doubling joels man, then when joel does not switch (which he shouldn’t), rashard runs to cover his own man on the weakside, when he should have left him open and covered lebrons man on the strongside. Harden passes to lebron’s initial assignment for a wide open 3 (lebron looks upset).

3rd quarter:
2:04: Lebron traps up top, Rashard’s responsibility is to block Lebron’s man from cutting until lebron has time to rotate back. Rashard just stands there, Lebron’s man cuts for layup (nice rotation by Anderson there, but not enough to prevent the layup). Lebron again looks upset.

4th quarter:
10:23: Terrible job doubling harden off p&r by rashard, allows harden to drive right past him towards the hoop, at this point entire heat D collapses into paint (as it should) leaving wide open corner 3 (miss)
6:20: Lewis is beat off the dribble from the perimeter, great help D by Haslem, turnover
6:06: Rashard for some reason doubles the ballhandler in semi-transition at the top of the key before he even drives to the hoop, leaving a wide open corner 3, miss.

He had one positive play where he knocked the ball out preventing a transition layup, otherwise the rest were just mistake free plays, nothing special.

FreshyFlames · Post #2 » by **FreshyFlames** » Thu Feb 7, 2013 11:16 pm

No need for the extra s.

Vertical Limit · Post #3 » by **Vertical Limit** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 1:28 am

He's never been a good defensive player but man has he fallen off ever since he got caught for steroids. And to think, he could have gotten a bigger contract to play for another team. Instead he chose here with a second year player option I believe? Pretty sure he will want to pick that up, though I'm not sure we will want him after this year unless he decides to improve.

LikeABosh · Post #4 » by **LikeABosh** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 2:14 am

Oh, wow, he's been averaging 13 minutes a game and you're gonna use on/off stats to show how bad he is?

Slot Machine · Post #5 » by **Slot Machine** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 3:17 am

The problem is Rashard brings nothing else to the table but shooting so his shot needs to be on at all times to make up for his lack of rebounding and defense. His margin for error is essentially too small for him to deserve rotation minutes.

GreenHat · Post #6 » by **GreenHat** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 4:49 am

He is a bad defender but you can't really use on/off stats for a guy with this few minutes who doesn't play much with the top guys. If you take out garbage minutes how many minutes are in each of your bundles?

Also Lewis has also been played in a lot of small ball lineups.

Bad defender but a bad way of illustrating it.

Heat_Fan_87 · Post #7 » by **Heat_Fan_87** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 6:25 am

I dont need numbers to see how bad he is

narmerguy · Post #8 » by **narmerguy** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 11:36 am

LikeABosh wrote:Oh, wow, he's been averaging 13 minutes a game and you're gonna use on/off stats to show how bad he is?

He's visibly terrible on defense, don't think the on/off stats are off the mark here.

Great work OP, though I agree, I don't need numbers to tell me our defense sucks with him. Just check Ray Allen's affect on our defense. That one is sad too.

RexBoyWonder · Post #9 » by **RexBoyWonder** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 12:48 pm

GreenHat wrote:He is a bad defender but you can't really use on/off stats for a guy with this few minutes who doesn't play much with the top guys. If you take out garbage minutes how many minutes are in each of your bundles?

Also Lewis has also been played in a lot of small ball lineups.

Bad defender but a bad way of illustrating it.

This.

Lewis isn't a good defender, but he's being played in lineups that emphasis it, instead of masking it.

Plus he's still working on getting in better shape, i think he looked better lately getting his legs back.

His offense lookes good, he just has to play next to LBJ and Birdman or Joel so his deficiencies would'nt be so glaring. He's more of a SF then a PF at this stage, but you got a coach that plays him as PF next to fake Centers so no suprise - he looks soft and bad.

hra8700 · Post #10 » by **hra8700** » Fri Feb 8, 2013 5:33 pm

If you guys prefer individual stats, the best player to compare him to is battier since they are the only two that are almost always used as power forwards on defense.

Battier allows 0.82 points per possession for players he's guarding, rashard allows 1.07 points per possession.

Some more plus/minus:

Battier + Lebron + Allen (without wade, bosh, or deep bench players on the court) = 1.053 ppp allowed over 319 possessions.

Rashard + Lebron + Allen (without wade, bosh, or deep bench players on the court) = 1.195 ppp allowed over 118 possessions.

Rashard Lewis has played 361 minutes, that's not THAT small a sample size. And even if you don't want to look at it statistically, just watch the games. That's why I put the summary of the rockets game, this is not a statistical anomaly. No matter what way you look at it, he has been awful on defense. The question is whether he will improve with more time in the system. That's why I think Spo is playing him. I have little doubt he will not be getting minutes in the playoffs.

lecola · Post #11 » by **lecola** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 3:58 am

i love shard. yeah his defense is far away from being good but he used to be an elite player in this league and his offence is still pretty good even in this limited minutes. he should be in the rotation whatever the case is.

narmerguy · Post #12 » by **narmerguy** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 4:07 am

hra8700 wrote:If you guys prefer individual stats, the best player to compare him to is battier since they are the only two that are almost always used as power forwards on defense.

Battier allows 0.82 points per possession for players he's guarding, rashard allows 1.07 points per possession.

Some more plus/minus:

Battier + Lebron + Allen (without wade, bosh, or deep bench players on the court) = 1.053 ppp allowed over 319 possessions.

Rashard + Lebron + Allen (without wade, bosh, or deep bench players on the court) = 1.195 ppp allowed over 118 possessions.

Rashard Lewis has played 361 minutes, that's not THAT small a sample size. And even if you don't want to look at it statistically, just watch the games. That's why I put the summary of the rockets game, this is not a statistical anomaly. No matter what way you look at it, he has been awful on defense. The question is whether he will improve with more time in the system. That's why I think Spo is playing him. I have little doubt he will not be getting minutes in the playoffs.

Where are you getting these stats? Can you do this for Ray Allen? Our offense and defense are both worse with him on the court.

Ratchet_Rio · Post #13 » by **Ratchet_Rio** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 4:10 am

Poster couple of posts up absolutely hit the nail on the head..Shard looked very good on the defensive end tonight, largely because Spo played him between LeBron and Birdman. Putting him out there with Bosh is a disaster but when you have 2 other active defenders in the front court you are able to mask most of his deficiencies. Great point Rex

LeChosen1 · Post #14 » by **LeChosen1** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 4:49 am

He was guarding Lamar Odom, so I dont know how many minutes that translates to

Post #15 » by **GameTime_3** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 4:49 am

Shard was a huge part of today's win. I thought he came in and gave us a huge spark off the bench.

EscapoTHB · Post #16 » by **EscapoTHB** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 5:32 am

If we gave rays minutes to share and miller we'd prolly be better.

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The Gump · Post #17 » by **The Gump** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 9:50 pm

Miller's minutes will go up in the playoffs, but I do think Rashard will end up playing a role in the playoffs at some point. His shooting will help in a game or two in a big series I predict. But yes, he's absolutely brutal on defense and you don't need stats to illustrate that. He's better in individual defense than help, but that's not saying much seeing as how he may be the worst help defender I've ever seen play organized basketball.

But the guy is a spot player, so it's really not that big of a deal. It's not like they've got to depend on him or anything.

Vertical Limit · Post #18 » by **Vertical Limit** » Sat Feb 9, 2013 11:43 pm

Well the nice thing is he can kinda create his own shot, KINDA.. he does like two moves with the ball to create separation.

Heats_Finest · Post #19 » by **Heats_Finest** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:34 am

I thought that Rashard played really well on offense yesterday, and was good on defense. The first game that I've thought he was good on defense.

RexBoyWonder · Post #20 » by **RexBoyWonder** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:39 am

He did have a pep in his step. He's still getting his legs under him..his offense looked decent for a while, hopefully defense is coming along. I can see him as a rotation player in the playoffs..him, Miller and Battier will share minutes and whoever is in the best rhythm will play the most.