Are our defensive woes overblown?

[Krodis]

Now, 13th in Defensive Efficiency isn't great. But there was a trend I was looking when looking at the rankings. Here's the Top 7 in Defensive Efficiency:

Philadelphia
Chicago
Boston
Dallas
Atlanta
Miami
Indiana

Notice a trend? Yeah, 6 of them are from the Eastern Conference. 5 of the 6 and 8 of the 10 worst offenses in the NBA are also from the Eastern Conference. We're actually 5th in the West in Defense, which isn't bad (ahead of San Antonio and Minnesota, for example).

I think there might be some serious conference-skewing in the rankings.

[slick_watts]

Maybe a little bit. OKC is 6th in shooting defense, and that's the most important aspect of being a good defensive team. Problem is that they are below league average at the three other factors (forcing turnovers, fouling, defensive rebounding). Even though on the whole the shooting defense has been good, I'd be concerned a bit about the PnR defense (highlighted last night by Nash and Gortat). A team like Memphis might be able to slice us up offensively in the playoffs.

[dream_catcher_9]

If we ever make it to the Finals and we play Chicago, they would give us fits. Rose loves to run the PnR and is damn good at it.

[SinJackal]

Yep. Thunder are 4th best in defense in the west right now. Only Dallas and Memphis are considerably better. OKC is about the same as Portland/SA/LA in defense.

Philly and Chicago are better defensive teams than OKC though. Their D' is legit.