RealGM

NBA teams are scoring nearly two fewer points per 100 possessions this season compared to last season, which has come in the face of criticisms of the game play where there's a belief that the league has overindexed on offense.

"I feel like all of the talk this season has been about how teams have solved offense and that's the problem with the NBA," said Jared Dubin on RealGM Radio. Dubin has previously wrote about the trend at Substack. "And it's all just everybody takes and makes too many threes. And we have to figure out ways to make defense better. Defenses are better this season.

"Scoring is down almost two points per 100 possessions. That's the first time in a while where it's down, at least down a significant amount. That's a pretty big difference year over year to go up or down two points per 100 possessions. Generally, offenses do get a little bit better over the course of a season, but going up two full points per 100 possessions to get where they were last season shows the type of improvement year over year we have seen in some seasons.

"We have also seen some of the best defenses in recent memory."

Dubin added that the Oklahoma City Thunder is one of the best in NBA history compared to league average.

Via Jared Dubin/Last Night, in Basketball

Defenses are better? Maybe offenses are worse.

ItsDanger wrote:Defenses are better? Maybe offenses are worse.

The 2 pt differential seems to be directly correlated with 0.9 more steals per game (vs 1.3 more turnovers per game) compared to last year. So it could be that players are sloppier with the ball compared to 2023, but it could be better defense or maybe even players gambling more. Dyson Daniels has 3.0 spg right now when the leader last year was D. Fox at 2.0 spg.

Toine85 wrote:

ItsDanger wrote:Defenses are better? Maybe offenses are worse.

The 2 pt differential seems to be directly correlated with 0.9 more steals per game (vs 1.3 more turnovers per game) compared to last year. So it could be that players are sloppier with the ball compared to 2023, but it could be better defense or maybe even players gambling more. Dyson Daniels has 3.0 spg right now when the leader last year was D. Fox at 2.0 spg.

Lot of teams are struggling in half court offenses because fundamentals have declined. Watch carefully, many times they don't know what to do after 1st action fails.