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I decided to chart to the 2012 finals focusing primarily on LeBron and Durant. I didn't chart every possession, just the possessions that ended in a FGA, foul, or a turnover.

Here is the % of time each of these guys guarded Durant during one of Durant's FGA, fouls, or TOVs (excludes open shots)

LeBron 57 (41.9%)
Battier 37 (27.2%)
Wade 21 (15.4%)
Bosh 9 (6.6%)

Here is the % of time each guy guarded LeBron (excludes open shots):

Sefolosha 43 (29.7%)
Durant 41 (28.3%)
Harden 32 (22.1%)
Ibaka 13 (9.0%)

LeBron drew 35 fouls (8 durant fouls), Durant drew 28 fouls (4 LeBron fouls). LeBron was doubled 30 times, Durant was doubled 30 times.

Here is how the Thunder defenders did when guarding LeBron

Durant: 14-29, 1-4 3P, 9-10 FT, 3 TOV, .559 TS%
Sefolosha: 15-32 FG, 2-6 3P, 7-8 FT, 4 TOV, .549 TS%
Harden: 5-15 FG, 0-3 3P, 5-8 FT, 4 TOV, .405 TS%
Ibaka: 6-14 FG, 0-1 3P, 2-3 FT, 1 TOV, .457 TS%
Open: 7-8 FG, 0-1 3P, .875 TS%


Fisher: 1-4 FG, 0-1 3P, 5-6 FT, 2 TOV
Collison: 0-2 FG, 6-7 FT, 2 TOV
Perkins: 2-2 FG, 2-2 FT
Westbrook: 1-2 FG, 2-2 FT,3 TOV


This is what the Heat defenders did when guarding Durant

LeBron: 19-37, 4-11 3P, 0-0 FT, 6 TOV, .568 TS%
Battier: 17-29 FG, 2-7 3P, 7-8 FT,1 TOV, .661 TS%
Wade: 6-11 FG, 1-3 3P, 3-4 FT, 5 TOV, .627 TS%
Bosh: 2-8 FG, 1-5 3P, 5-5 FT, 2 TOV, .490 TS%
Open: 11-13 FG, 5-6 3P, 1.038 TS%


Jones: 0-0 FG, 3-5 FT, 1 TOV
Chalmers: 0-1 FG, 3-4 FT,3 TOV
Haslem: 0-1 FG, 4-4 FT, 1 TOV
Miller: 1-3 FG, 0-1 3P, 1-1 FT
Anthony 1-1 FG

Interestingly enough, Durant and LeBron shot almost the same when being guarded by each other. LeBron shot .569 TS% vs Durant while Durant shot .568 TS%. LeBron scored 38 points vs. Durant while Durant scored 42 points.

That's why it's hard to say Durant is even close to the same level of player.... he'll have to outscore LeBron by a LOT to make up the massive playmaking and defense gap.

There were also a lot of plays Lebron guarded Durant where he denied him the ball and KD just stood like 30 feet out uninvolved.

Scoring and rebounding theyre close but passing and defense is Lebron easy. Kd wont be close to his level unless he lowers turnovers b/c hes not a talented playmaker like Lebron and improves team defense. Ive been looking high with Kds man defense since the series against Lakers in '10 his length and athletics bothers player a lot but the Iq needs to get better. Westbrook and Thabo are there best perimeter dfenders IMO

I am not really aware of defensive stats but based on the eye test Durant seems like a better defender then Westbrook imo both give good effort, are good on man defense but i will give the nod to KD over Westbrook because of his length, team defense both could improve but i think Westbrook has more mental lapses on defense then KD. KD imo is probably their 2nd best perimeter defender that might not be saying much but that's what i think.

What this analysis shows is that lebron owns kds soul. What this doesnt show when kd is not on lebron and him continuing to own him when he is either helpig to early or not recovering on time when he was on chalmers battier and miller

BattleTested wrote:There were also a lot of plays Lebron guarded Durant where he denied him the ball and KD just stood like 30 feet out uninvolved.

I should mention that I didn't take that into account. Only shots taken. So if LeBron made a play to prevent a shot, it wasn't counted.

The big difference in scoring efficiency between the two is the turn-overs. Turn-overs are strictly worse than missed shots (often much worse), and Durant commits them on a much higher percentage of his scoring attempts.

Here are some more stats on the series:

Double teamed:
Durant: 30 (11 before shot, 19 during shot)
Lebron: 30 (5 before shot, 25 during the shot)

Durant was 11-19 FG on double teamed shots with 7 TOV. LeBron was 7-23 FG on the shots I labeled as doubled, with 4 TOV.

In 1 on 1 situations (no double teams listed):

LeBron: 12-26 FG, 1-4 3P, 10-12 FT, 5 TOV (2 by Durant) vs. Durant (.559 TS%), 0.96 points per possession

Durant: 13-30 FG, 4-11 3P, 0-0 FT, 7 TOV (3 by LeBron), vs. LeBron (.500 TS%), 0.81 points per possession

By comparison here are LeBron's points per possession vs Harden and Sefolosha:
vs Harden: .359 TS%, 0.51 PPP
vs Sefolosha: .626 TS%, 1.08 PPP

Here is Durant vs Battier and Wade in 1 on 1:
vs Battier: .663 TS%, 1.33 PPP
vs Wade: .773 TS%, 1.02 PPP

Ikcelaks wrote:The big difference in scoring efficiency between the two is the turn-overs. Turn-overs are strictly worse than missed shots (often much worse), and Durant commits them on a much higher percentage of his scoring attempts.

Where are you getting that from? In the finals, Durant had 19 Turnovers compared to LeBron's 19 Turnovers. For his career, Durant is at 12.5 TOV% while LeBron is at 12.1 TOV%. Barely a difference. in the playoffs Durant has a 11.1 TOV%. His turnovers might be trending slightly up but that is because he increased his assists significantly.

I broke down the two regular season games between the 2 and charted them.

LeBron vs. Durant:
3-10 FG, 1-4 3P, 3-4 ft, 1 TOV, 3 fouls drawn

vs Sefolosha:
8-12 FG, 1-2 3P, 3-3 FT, 1 TOV, 3 fouls drawn


Durant vs. LeBron:
13-23 FG, 0-3 3P, 3-3 FT, 1 ToV, 3 fouls drawn

vs Battier:
3-5 FG, 3-3 3P, 1 TOV, 1 foul drawn

vs Wade:
3-6 FG, 0-2 3P, 6-7 FT, 3 TOV, 5 fouls drawn

So here are the numbers if you combine the finals and 2 regular season games:

Durant vs LeBron:
32-60 FG, 4-14 3P, 3-3 FT, 7 TOV, .579 TS%, 1.04 Points per possession

LeBron vs Durant:
17-39 FG, 2-8 3P, 12-14 FT, 4 TOV, .531 TS%, 0.98 points per possession


Durant rarely guarded LeBron. Sefolosha guarded LeBron when he was on the court. Then in crunchtime of the Valentines day game, Westbrook was guarding LeBron while Durant stayed on Battier. Surprisingly, LeBron guarded Durant a lot in these 2 games. He was by far the primary defender of Durant and Battier rarely guarded Durant. Wade guarded Durant for stretches of the 2nd game.

Here is a breakdown on who guarded LeBron:


Durant: 43.6%
Sefolosha: 38.5%

Now compare that to the finals:

Durant: (28.7%)
Harden: (21.7%)
Sefolosha: (30.1%)


Durant's percentage of guarding LeBron went up. So did Sefolosha. Basically, both of those guys split up all the possessions that Harden used to guard LeBron, with Westbrook sprinkled in occasionally to guard LeBron in the 4th.

Here it is for the guys guarding Durant:

LeBron: (44.6%)
Battier: (12.3%)
Wade: (23.1%)

compare that to the finals:

LeBron: 42.2%
Battier: 27.4%
Wade: 15.6%

The increase for LeBron is misleading because there were quite a few PnR switches in the regular season games. If you accounted for that, LeBron guarded Durant the vast majority of the times he was on the court. The Heat essentially decided to halve Battier's usage on Durant and gave those possessions up to Wade.

I assume that these two teams are pretty much guaranteed to make the finals. it will be interesting to see what they do for the series. I'm surprised the Heat don't use Battier more on Durant and are willing to allow LeBron to handle the offensive load and be the primary defender of Durant. That should have been Battier's job, why else did they get him for? The Heat used Wade on Durant a lot in the 2nd regular season game. I wonder if they will do that again. He did frustrate Durant a bit. You would expect that to be a mismatch, but Wade is stronger than durant, so posting up is not an option. If I had to bet money, I think Battier guards Durant more in the finals and I also expect the Thunder to go small more often. For the Thunder, I think Sefolosha will be the main guy on LeBron when he is on the court.

btw, here are the numbers when they guarded each other 1 on 1 with no double:

Durant vs LeBron: 5-13 FG, 0-3 3P, 2-2 FT, 2 TOV, 0.76 points per possession

LeBron vs Durant: 3-9 FG, 1-4 3P, 3-4 FT, 3 TOV, 0.73 points per possession

Good stuff, thanks for your work. Will there be an update after tomorrow's game?

In the OP, it was said that Durant had 39 shots with LeBron on. Then you said 19 of those shots were double teamed, but then you said it was 30 shots on 1 on 1 coverage.

19 (double teamed) + 30 (1on1) equals to 49, not 39.

The numbers don't match.

bbms wrote:In the OP, it was said that Durant had 39 shots with LeBron on. Then you said 19 of those shots were double teamed, but then you said it was 30 shots on 1 on 1 coverage.

19 (double teamed) + 30 (1on1) equals to 49, not 39.

The numbers don't match.

The double teamed numbers include possessions where guys other than LeBron were guarding Durant.

colts18 wrote:

bbms wrote:In the OP, it was said that Durant had 39 shots with LeBron on. Then you said 19 of those shots were double teamed, but then you said it was 30 shots on 1 on 1 coverage.

19 (double teamed) + 30 (1on1) equals to 49, not 39.

The numbers don't match.

The double teamed numbers include possessions where guys other than LeBron were guarding Durant.

Thank you.

I appreciate statistically informed arguments. But considering the noisiness of the data, I'd rather rely on eye test here.

fpliii wrote:Good stuff, thanks for your work. Will there be an update after tomorrow's game?

Possibly. Depends if someone posts the game online.

In the 2012 finals LeBron couldn't hit almost any shot outside the paint. Still he scores in great volume and efficiency.

That's really impressive, and one of the reasons why he's one of the best scorers in the history of the game. Inside the paint he's unstopable.

DavidStern was nice enough to breakdown the H2H stats for LeBron/Durant in this game:

DavidStern wrote:Stats vs different defenders (note: there was for example one play Reggie discussed during the game, when Anderson was lost on defense, Ibaka - Anderson's man - set screen and Durant made 3 off the screen. KD was guarded by LJ, but it was Anderson's responsibility here to show on the screen, so such made shot I credited to Anderson):

LeBron
vs Durant 7/9 FG, 16 pts (most in 1st Q)
vs Ibaka 2/4 FG, 4 pts
vs Sefo 2/4 FG, 4 pts (he did by far the best job on James, especially fighting for position and also forced a lot TOVs)
vs others 4/5 FG, 9 pts

Durant
vs LJ 3/6 FG, 6 pts
vs Battier 1/8 FG, 5 pts
vs others 6/8 FG, 17 pts

Great job Shane! (but your shooting drives me crazy )