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I went through the Goldsberry piece on Jokic's defense that came out a few days ago that I have seen quoted a few times.
I have two comments on such a piece (that you can find quoted in full in the interweb).
* it states something we all know, Jokic is very poor at protecting the rim and has very low mobility on the perimeter
* it does not address why the Ain1 stats rate him so high and Denver's defense has been at least ok, and very good in some stretches, with him on the floor

Opponents have shot 54.2% on layups and dunks when Jokic is the contesting defender AND he heavily contests the shot, per Second Spectrum tracking. That ranks 64th among 65 players to heavily contest 250 layups and dunks this season. The only player worse? His teammate and backup, Thomas Bryant.

Big men win a disproportionate share of Defensive Player of the Year awards because they have the most important assignment in the sport: defending the bucket.

I have a feeling that many analysts have incredibly strong biases coming from their priors that will take them years to abandon them.
And they're going to wait for any moment to come out with the "I told you so", ignoring all the other data points.
This is what I felt reading that article I learned nothing out of it.
The complexity of understanding how good Jokic's and then the Nuggets defense can be is imo very stimulating and it's based on understanding the value of his unusual defensive strengths and how his team can take advantage of them.
An article like this explaining me that he's bad at traditional center things is just useless, i can't imagine any reader of nerd stuff like that not knowing it alreaady.

I can see how this is going to go, so I will get quickly and say the media always has a weird obsession with big men. Remember when “LARRY SANDERS!” was a thing?

His defensive strength is that Denvers transition defence is so ****, when he's on the floor, they score more, so they can set their defence up

It's also telling Thomas Bryant is the worst, which tells me it's more a Denver problem. defence really is heavily involved with schemes and depending on team-mates, ect. It's not as simple as "shoot 3 pointer at good % and Isolate and attack" rather then, we want to force X shot, if team-mate **** up I got a split decision to either rotate, scramble, guard space. and give the player a look


*I also think Jokic is an average defender, Not ****, not "Oh hes better then he looks" just average

brutalitops wrote:His defensive strength is that Denvers transition defence is so ****, when he's on the floor, they score more, so they can set their defence up

It's also telling Thomas Bryant is the worst, which tells me it's more a Denver problem. defence really is heavily involved with schemes and depending on team-mates, ect. It's not as simple as "shoot 3 pointer at good % and Isolate and attack" rather then, we want to force X shot, if team-mate **** up I got a split decision to either rotate, scramble, guard space. and give the player a look


*I also think Jokic is an average defender, Not ****, not "Oh hes better then he looks" just average

That part I'm not sure about. Bryant has always been a poor defender and Bryant played 876 minutes with the Lakers and 187 minutes with Denver, so it would be quite tough for his Denver minutes to make him the worst.

since march 15, theyve been 4th in d rating btw. denver can play defense, even if jokic cant defend the basket. This is like steph curry in 2015 to me. They have to prove that this system on defense works before i believe it. Im not holding the last 2 years against them because im interested to see what this thing is supposed to be.

jokic has some stuff he can do on defense.... I just need to see if it matters in the playoffs against the suns warriors or anyone else good.

The nuance is that jokic kicked the ball 46 times this season, yay. hes playing more drop this year and its working. playing at the level is okay, but it puts pressure on teammates to rotate. the offense is so good with him, that they always score and they dont have to play transition defense or early shot clock.

Harden was good at deflections, had quick strong hands, good in the post, and solid switching onto wings, but we still roasted his defense. ditto curry, kyrie lebron gets it a lot too. I dont see anything wrong with highlighting a guy whos historically bad by some measurements at doing the main thing we associate his position with(protecting the basket)

Ryoga Hibiki wrote:I went through the Goldsberry piece on Jokic's defense that came out a few days ago that I have seen quoted a few times.
I have two comments on such a piece (that you can find quoted in full in the interweb).
* it states something we all know, Jokic is very poor at protecting the rim and has very low mobility on the perimeter
* it does not address why the Ain1 stats rate him so high and Denver's defense has been at least ok, and very good in some stretches, with him on the floor

Opponents have shot 54.2% on layups and dunks when Jokic is the contesting defender AND he heavily contests the shot, per Second Spectrum tracking. That ranks 64th among 65 players to heavily contest 250 layups and dunks this season. The only player worse? His teammate and backup, Thomas Bryant.

Big men win a disproportionate share of Defensive Player of the Year awards because they have the most important assignment in the sport: defending the bucket.

I have a feeling that many analysts have incredibly strong biases coming from their priors that will take them years to abandon them.
And they're going to wait for any moment to come out with the "I told you so", ignoring all the other data points.
This is what I felt reading that article I learned nothing out of it.
The complexity of understanding how good Jokic's and then the Nuggets defense can be is imo very stimulating and it's based on understanding the value of his unusual defensive strengths and how his team can take advantage of them.
An article like this explaining me that he's bad at traditional center things is just useless, i can't imagine any reader of nerd stuff like that not knowing it alreaady.

It's very simple. BPM derived defensive stats include AST% for centers.

You don't even have to look at advanced stats to see Jokic is a poor defender. Other teams put him in the high PnR every single time down the floor. Denver plays a deep drop with Jokic and he's going to get lit up by a team like Phoenix with 2 elite mid range shooters. Booker and Durant are going to pull up all day if Jokic is in drop and mid range him to death.

Jokic is a the Alberto Einstein of basketball for sure, and the confusion over his defensive rating is further evidence of this.

jasonxxx102 wrote:It's very simple. BPM derived defensive stats include AST% for centers.

You don't even have to look at advanced stats to see Jokic is a poor defender. Other teams put him in the high PnR every single time down the floor. Denver plays a deep drop with Jokic and he's going to get lit up by a team like Phoenix with 2 elite mid range shooters. Booker and Durant are going to pull up all day if Jokic is in drop and mid range him to death.

well, you're totally not biased.

Ryoga Hibiki wrote:

jasonxxx102 wrote:It's very simple. BPM derived defensive stats include AST% for centers.

You don't even have to look at advanced stats to see Jokic is a poor defender. Other teams put him in the high PnR every single time down the floor. Denver plays a deep drop with Jokic and he's going to get lit up by a team like Phoenix with 2 elite mid range shooters. Booker and Durant are going to pull up all day if Jokic is in drop and mid range him to death.

well, you're totally not biased.

Biased against what?

The way you beat a deep drop is to have elite pull up shooters and Phoenix happens to have 2 of them.

Jokic can’t move on the perimeter or defend the rim. He’s really smart and a good enough team defender but why do you think Denver has developed an entire scheme to hide him and teams relentlessly attack him in the high PnR? You don’t go after good defenders

While I understand why you posted this thread the fact of the matter is most people only understand rim protection for defense in basketball, sadly that includes some "analysts".

Steals are considerably better than blocks as they actually stop the scoring attempt which blocks actually don't do. Deflections are as good as blocks, they stop the opposing teams play and make them regroup at a minimum or result in a teammate getting a steal. Jokic is always at the top of both catagories, but it takes more than a basic understanding of defense only being rim protection and logical thought that most Jokic haters are incapable of.

People want to talk about midrange shooters, newsflash for some but pretty much every team's defense in the league has that hole. They are designed that way as it is the worst shot for the offense to take. Teams would rather have offenses take shots where the league average is in the low 40s than where it counts for 3 points or the opposing team shoots 60+%.

No 7 footer is capable of chasing elite guards around the perimeter. They all get cooked all the time including Embiid and Giannis, yet for some reason the only one that has lowlight videos show up constantly is Jokic, thanks to some people in Philadelphia having to much time on their hands.

The Nuggets have had one of the best 4th quarter defenses in the league for years, why is that? Could it possibly be that Jokic has to be careful of fouls for the 1st 3 quarters because he isn't allowed to defend like others?

In a league where 60% of the shots taken our outside of 16 feet the people pushing that rim protection is all that matters on defense tells you all you need to know about that their lack of knowledge about basketball and nothing about the game. This isn't 2002 when most shots were taken in the paint.

Pretzel-twisting when we all can see he's a great offensive player and so-so defender. And that might be okay depending on circumstances. It's still a team game.

He is smart at reading passes(kicked ball violations and steals per game) and great at rebounding. But he is will always be in the lower half of Centers in rotating.

jasonxxx102 wrote:
Biased against what?

The way you beat a deep drop is to have elite pull up shooters and Phoenix happens to have 2 of them.

Jokic can’t move on the perimeter or defend the rim. He’s really smart and a good enough team defender but why do you think Denver has developed an entire scheme to hide him and teams relentlessly attack him in the high PnR? You don’t go after good defenders

biased in the sense that you have already decided how a good defense must look like. Not in terms of results, but in terms of what a good center must do to be considered as such.
as I mentioned, the real challenge here is figuring out HOW MUCH Jokic's unusual strengths can balance his very evident weaknesses, and my perception is that there's prejudice around as I have often seen in the last few decades.
For so long people knew that good offense = always shooting as close to the rim as possible, for instance. I am wondering if we're missing something about defense that will be obvious for future generations, just because we think we know how defense should be played.

PS: drop defense is meant to give up mid ranges to ballhandlers, with a rear view contest as good as the screen navigation of the POA defender. I am not so sure Embiid or any other big center like him would look much better against Phoenix with the guards Jokic used to have. Even worse if they put him and Harden in the pick and roll. What I think makes some of this kind of analysis lazy is that many of the weaknesses Jokic have can be exploited also on almost any other center.

The Rebel wrote:While I understand why you posted this thread the fact of the matter is most people only understand rim protection for defense in basketball, sadly that includes some "analysts".

Steals are considerably better than blocks as they actually stop the scoring attempt which blocks actually don't do. Deflections are as good as blocks, they stop the opposing teams play and make them regroup at a minimum or result in a teammate getting a steal. Jokic is always at the top of both catagories, but it takes more than a basic understanding of defense only being rim protection and logical thought that most Jokic haters are incapable of.

People want to talk about midrange shooters, newsflash for some but pretty much every team's defense in the league has that hole. They are designed that way as it is the worst shot for the offense to take. Teams would rather have offenses take shots where the league average is in the low 40s than where it counts for 3 points or the opposing team shoots 60+%.

No 7 footer is capable of chasing elite guards around the perimeter. They all get cooked all the time including Embiid and Giannis, yet for some reason the only one that has lowlight videos show up constantly is Jokic, thanks to some people in Philadelphia having to much time on their hands.

The Nuggets have had one of the best 4th quarter defenses in the league for years, why is that? Could it possibly be that Jokic has to be careful of fouls for the 1st 3 quarters because he isn't allowed to defend like others?

In a league where 60% of the shots taken our outside of 16 feet the people pushing that rim protection is all that matters on defense tells you all you need to know about that their lack of knowledge about basketball and nothing about the game. This isn't 2002 when most shots were taken in the paint.

Rim isn’t the only thing that matters, but if it’s something that can be exploited it’s the hardest to overcome, that’s why teams value it. If we can run a strategy like attacking Demarcus cousins, who also had great deselections, rebounding but poor rim protection it’s a bigger problem than Lopez conceding mid range shots because of the expected value. Teams game 35 of their attempts within 6 feet on Denver, middle of the road. If a team schemes Denver and that number goes up, the potential is devastating as anyone can attack the rim, whereas there are less than a dozen guys who can pull-up efficiently enough to beat the nuggets 4 times.

This team is a case study because anyone this bad at the rim, just gets subbed off and doesn’t play. Jokic is the franchise player. We’re going to find out if the rim is as important. Doc and popovic set the tone by not offensive rebounding.that’s standard now, can Denver do the same in this league. There’s no easy answer to if this will work

Lockdown504090 wrote:

The Rebel wrote:While I understand why you posted this thread the fact of the matter is most people only understand rim protection for defense in basketball, sadly that includes some "analysts".

Steals are considerably better than blocks as they actually stop the scoring attempt which blocks actually don't do. Deflections are as good as blocks, they stop the opposing teams play and make them regroup at a minimum or result in a teammate getting a steal. Jokic is always at the top of both catagories, but it takes more than a basic understanding of defense only being rim protection and logical thought that most Jokic haters are incapable of.

People want to talk about midrange shooters, newsflash for some but pretty much every team's defense in the league has that hole. They are designed that way as it is the worst shot for the offense to take. Teams would rather have offenses take shots where the league average is in the low 40s than where it counts for 3 points or the opposing team shoots 60+%.

No 7 footer is capable of chasing elite guards around the perimeter. They all get cooked all the time including Embiid and Giannis, yet for some reason the only one that has lowlight videos show up constantly is Jokic, thanks to some people in Philadelphia having to much time on their hands.

The Nuggets have had one of the best 4th quarter defenses in the league for years, why is that? Could it possibly be that Jokic has to be careful of fouls for the 1st 3 quarters because he isn't allowed to defend like others?

In a league where 60% of the shots taken our outside of 16 feet the people pushing that rim protection is all that matters on defense tells you all you need to know about that their lack of knowledge about basketball and nothing about the game. This isn't 2002 when most shots were taken in the paint.

Rim isn’t the only thing that matters, but if it’s something that can be exploited it’s the hardest to overcome, that’s why teams value it. If we can run a strategy like attacking Demarcus cousins, who also had great deselections, rebounding but poor rim protection it’s a bigger problem than Lopez conceding mid range shots because of the expected value. Teams game 35 of their attempts within 6 feet on Denver, middle of the road. If a team schemes Denver and that number goes up, the potential is devastating as anyone can attack the rim, whereas there are less than a dozen guys who can pull-up efficiently enough to beat the nuggets 4 times.

This team is a case study because anyone this bad at the rim, just gets subbed off and doesn’t play. Jokic is the franchise player. We’re going to find out if the rim is as important. Doc and popovic set the tone by not offensive rebounding.that’s standard now, can Denver do the same in this league. There’s no easy answer to if this will work

If it can so easily be exploited than why do teams struggle to exploit it?

The Nuggets have faced more pick and rolls on defense than anybody else for years, but yet they do not give up more points at the rim.

Going by average possessions a player faces per game of 85, Jokic gives up 1.7 more points per game at the rim than the elite shotblockers. However he stops 3.5 more drives and pick and rolls per game through deflections, steals, and kicked balls. Meaning he is saving more points per game on the floor than the best shotblockers in the league save at the rim. Add in the elite rebounding and Jokic is very effective on defense.

For all the blame he catches for the playoff defense, the fact is it hasn't been points at the rim that have killed us, it has been perimeter players outside. Anybody who actually watched the games knows that.

I don't know why it is so hard for some to understand, but if you actually look at all the numbers it is clear as day that Jokic is very good if not elite on defense. Advanced stats try to tell people but I guess most are to simple to even understand that not allowing a shot is better than allowing a shot even if that shot is at a slightly lower percentage.

The bottom line is that if you have to build a defensive scheme to take a specific player off the ball, that player isn't a good defender. This isn't rocket science. Some Jokic defenders have to attack literally every criticism about the guy regardless of whether it is valid or not.

The Nuggets have absolutely no defensive versatility with Jokic on the floor. They have to play a drop, use peel switching or nexting, to get Jokic as far away from the ball as possible. If you want to learn more about the concept, watch this.

Btw it's not even just about mid range, it's just a pullup jumper in general. If Jokic is doing a deep drop, that's a really easy pull up 3 for Durant. Just watch this playoffs, teams are going to do it over and over again. Then it just comes down to making shots or not. At some point people won't be able to make excuses anymore

The Rebel wrote:

Lockdown504090 wrote:

The Rebel wrote:While I understand why you posted this thread the fact of the matter is most people only understand rim protection for defense in basketball, sadly that includes some "analysts".

Steals are considerably better than blocks as they actually stop the scoring attempt which blocks actually don't do. Deflections are as good as blocks, they stop the opposing teams play and make them regroup at a minimum or result in a teammate getting a steal. Jokic is always at the top of both catagories, but it takes more than a basic understanding of defense only being rim protection and logical thought that most Jokic haters are incapable of.

People want to talk about midrange shooters, newsflash for some but pretty much every team's defense in the league has that hole. They are designed that way as it is the worst shot for the offense to take. Teams would rather have offenses take shots where the league average is in the low 40s than where it counts for 3 points or the opposing team shoots 60+%.

No 7 footer is capable of chasing elite guards around the perimeter. They all get cooked all the time including Embiid and Giannis, yet for some reason the only one that has lowlight videos show up constantly is Jokic, thanks to some people in Philadelphia having to much time on their hands.

The Nuggets have had one of the best 4th quarter defenses in the league for years, why is that? Could it possibly be that Jokic has to be careful of fouls for the 1st 3 quarters because he isn't allowed to defend like others?

In a league where 60% of the shots taken our outside of 16 feet the people pushing that rim protection is all that matters on defense tells you all you need to know about that their lack of knowledge about basketball and nothing about the game. This isn't 2002 when most shots were taken in the paint.

Rim isn’t the only thing that matters, but if it’s something that can be exploited it’s the hardest to overcome, that’s why teams value it. If we can run a strategy like attacking Demarcus cousins, who also had great deselections, rebounding but poor rim protection it’s a bigger problem than Lopez conceding mid range shots because of the expected value. Teams game 35 of their attempts within 6 feet on Denver, middle of the road. If a team schemes Denver and that number goes up, the potential is devastating as anyone can attack the rim, whereas there are less than a dozen guys who can pull-up efficiently enough to beat the nuggets 4 times.

This team is a case study because anyone this bad at the rim, just gets subbed off and doesn’t play. Jokic is the franchise player. We’re going to find out if the rim is as important. Doc and popovic set the tone by not offensive rebounding.that’s standard now, can Denver do the same in this league. There’s no easy answer to if this will work

If it can so easily be exploited than why do teams struggle to exploit it?

The Nuggets have faced more pick and rolls on defense than anybody else for years, but yet they do not give up more points at the rim.

Going by average possessions a player faces per game of 85, Jokic gives up 1.7 more points per game at the rim than the elite shotblockers. However he stops 3.5 more drives and pick and rolls per game through deflections, steals, and kicked balls. Meaning he is saving more points per game on the floor than the best shotblockers in the league save at the rim. Add in the elite rebounding and Jokic is very effective on defense.

For all the blame he catches for the playoff defense, the fact is it hasn't been points at the rim that have killed us, it has been perimeter players outside. Anybody who actually watched the games knows that.

I don't know why it is so hard for some to understand, but if you actually look at all the numbers it is clear as day that Jokic is very good if not elite on defense. Advanced stats try to tell people but I guess most are to simple to even understand that not allowing a shot is better than allowing a shot even if that shot is at a slightly lower percentage.

because you need the personnel to do it and most teams don't have dynamic ball handling shot creators. Nuggets have always struggled with GSW, PHX is a nightmare matchup because of Booker and Durant. The Lakers can easily exploit it if AD just attacks whoever is switching onto him...

jasonxxx102 wrote:The bottom line is that if you have to build a defensive scheme to take a specific player off the ball, that player isn't a good defender. This isn't rocket science. Some Jokic defenders have to attack literally every criticism about the guy regardless of whether it is valid or not.

The Nuggets have absolutely no defensive versatility with Jokic on the floor. They have to play a drop, use peel switching or nexting, to get Jokic as far away from the ball as possible. If you want to learn more about the concept, watch this.

Watch on YouTube

Btw it's not even just about mid range, it's just a pullup jumper in general. If Jokic is doing a deep drop, that's a really easy pull up 3 for Durant. Just watch this playoffs, teams are going to do it over and over again. Then it just comes down to making shots or not. At some point people won't be able to make excuses anymore

the way you put it down is not correct, as what you wrote about "no defensive versatility" just means that they can't switch, and this is true for the vast majority of centers.
the issue is more that he's ineffective on the deep drop, maybe.
moreover, being a good defender doesn't necessarily mean "not having weaknesses". what you do for Jokic is done also for guys like Rob Williams, the moment you are facing a ball handler you don't want to drop against.

Ryoga Hibiki wrote:

jasonxxx102 wrote:The bottom line is that if you have to build a defensive scheme to take a specific player off the ball, that player isn't a good defender. This isn't rocket science. Some Jokic defenders have to attack literally every criticism about the guy regardless of whether it is valid or not.

The Nuggets have absolutely no defensive versatility with Jokic on the floor. They have to play a drop, use peel switching or nexting, to get Jokic as far away from the ball as possible. If you want to learn more about the concept, watch this.

Watch on YouTube

Btw it's not even just about mid range, it's just a pullup jumper in general. If Jokic is doing a deep drop, that's a really easy pull up 3 for Durant. Just watch this playoffs, teams are going to do it over and over again. Then it just comes down to making shots or not. At some point people won't be able to make excuses anymore

the way you put it down is not correct, as what you wrote about "no defensive versatility" just means that they can't switch, and this is true for the vast majority of centers.
the issue is more that he's ineffective on the deep drop, maybe.
moreover, being a good defender doesn't necessarily mean "not having weaknesses". what you do for Jokic is done also for guys like Rob Williams, the moment you are facing a ball handler you don't want to drop against.

Let me rephrase, no scheme versatility.

If Jokic is a good defender, what is he good at, exactly?

By the way, me saying Jokic isn't a good defender doesn't mean he isn't one of the best players in the NBA. I'm just saying Nuggets team defense is not really built for the finals, it's exploitable in a playoff series against teams with dynamic ball handlers. We will see what Jokic can do this year because this is the best team he's ever had.

jasonxxx102 wrote:

Ryoga Hibiki wrote:I went through the Goldsberry piece on Jokic's defense that came out a few days ago that I have seen quoted a few times.
I have two comments on such a piece (that you can find quoted in full in the interweb).
* it states something we all know, Jokic is very poor at protecting the rim and has very low mobility on the perimeter
* it does not address why the Ain1 stats rate him so high and Denver's defense has been at least ok, and very good in some stretches, with him on the floor

Opponents have shot 54.2% on layups and dunks when Jokic is the contesting defender AND he heavily contests the shot, per Second Spectrum tracking. That ranks 64th among 65 players to heavily contest 250 layups and dunks this season. The only player worse? His teammate and backup, Thomas Bryant.

Big men win a disproportionate share of Defensive Player of the Year awards because they have the most important assignment in the sport: defending the bucket.

I have a feeling that many analysts have incredibly strong biases coming from their priors that will take them years to abandon them.
And they're going to wait for any moment to come out with the "I told you so", ignoring all the other data points.
This is what I felt reading that article I learned nothing out of it.
The complexity of understanding how good Jokic's and then the Nuggets defense can be is imo very stimulating and it's based on understanding the value of his unusual defensive strengths and how his team can take advantage of them.
An article like this explaining me that he's bad at traditional center things is just useless, i can't imagine any reader of nerd stuff like that not knowing it alreaady.

It's very simple. BPM derived defensive stats include AST% for centers.

You don't even have to look at advanced stats to see Jokic is a poor defender. Other teams put him in the high PnR every single time down the floor. Denver plays a deep drop with Jokic and he's going to get lit up by a team like Phoenix with 2 elite mid range shooters. Booker and Durant are going to pull up all day if Jokic is in drop and mid range him to death.

What stat paints Jokic as a bad defender?