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I've seen this question posted to the thread before but I don't think anyone answered but its a good question. Jerry West vs John Havlicek purely on defense whose better and why?

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West to me, mostly due to his insane help defense and ability to play on passing lanes. Havlicek was less disruptive defender than Jerry, which is the main difference between them.

I like Havlicek against bigger guys though, he was very good and physical man defender.

Havlicek was a real shadow with how good he was at contesting shots. He always appeared to anticipate his opponents jumps so they never got good separation on him.

But I agree with 70sFan: West was a more well-rounded defender who's impact went beyond his man-to-man defense. Havlicek was bigger, and though he wasn't the fastest guy ever, he was really dialed in when guarding his guy and contesting shots.

I'd think West may have had a big size/length advantage at his position which Hondo didn't really have as a 6-5 sf(granted he also played sg but 12/16 seasons listed as a sf). I would guess that Hondo was better earlier on in the Russell years when he was playing far less minutes and had less of a load on off while West had a huge off load his entire career.