Why did Lebron team defenses collapse so often in the playoffs?

[Djoker]

I've been combing through some rDRtg of different teams and I noticed that Lebron's teams collapsed on defense way too often in the playoffs. Even more than just a few finals series as I believed before.

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2. From 2020 onwards AD is the defensive anchor and Lebron isn't in his prime anymore.

Note that rDRtg is defense relative to opponent ORtg. So any positive number means your team played worse defense than an average team did against this opponent in the regular season. Around +5 is league worst defensive level and +10 is historically bad defense.

2009 ECF vs. Magic: +4.1 rDRtg
2010 ECSF vs. Celtics: +1.1 rDRtg
2011 Finals vs. Mavericks: +1.0 rDRtg
2012 ECF vs. Celtics: +2.5 rDRtg
2012 Finals vs. Thunder: +0.8 rDRtg
2013 ECF vs. Pacers: +2.9 rDRtg
2013 Finals vs. Spurs: +1.0 rDRtg
2014 ECF vs. Pacers: +6.1 rDRtg
2014 Finals vs. Spurs: +10.3 rDRtg
2017 Finals vs. Warriors: +5.7 rDRtg
2018 Finals vs. Warriors: +11.0 rDRtg

There are several possible explanations:

a) Lebron, being the pseudo defensive anchor of these teams, is a wildly inconsistent defender. His individual struggles or lack of effort on the defensive end largely contributed to these results.

b) The teams' defensive makeup was flawed. For instance these teams not having traditional big men to protect the rim relied more heavily on pinpoint rotations to stop penetration and recover quickly. Fatigue late in the playoffs along with generally facing better offenses caused these collapses.

c) The teams were offensively slanted in essence sacrificing defense for better offense.

Honestly I think it's a combination of all three reasons.

[HeartBreakKid]

Depends on the team I reckon.

I would say that it is likely because most of his teams did not have any rim protectors. The Lakers do not seem to be apart of that list so suspect having Davis and supplementary players like Howard/McGee helped with the consistency.

For the Cavs they were certainly offensive slanted. They had Kevin Love as their big, they were never going to be much of a defensive force. They were like the 29th ranked defense during the regular season in 2018 or so.

The Heat were a good defensive team. They just got bombed on by the Spurs who were great at shooting 3s. The Spurs beat everyone up to that point hence why they were in the finals.

The others do not seem like gigantic outliers. Orlando was pretty similar to the Spurs if I can recall, they just drained a lot of 3s and it did not help they didn't have the size to contend with Howard. The Cavs were not very talented during James first run.

[rk2023]

If we were to take the rDRTGs of those series at face values (particularly the ones from 2009-13, seasons people are pointing to most-so in favor of James’ defensive utility) - it only makes sense to keep a consistent thought process and do the same for rORTGs. Which in that case, there are various playoff series that are north of a +10 relative team offense (AKA outlier amongst outliers level of quality).

[Colbinii]

Is this unique to LeBron James teams?

[OhayoKD]

I've been combing through some rDRtg of different teams and I noticed that Lebron's teams collapsed on defense way too often in the playoffs. Even more than just a few finals series as I believed before.

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2. From 2020 onwards AD is the defensive anchor and Lebron isn't in his prime anymore.

Note that rDRtg is defense relative to opponent ORtg. So any positive number means your team played worse defense than an average team did against this opponent in the regular season. Around +5 is league worst defensive level and +10 is historically bad defense.

2009 ECF vs. Magic: +4.1 rDRtg
2010 ECSF vs. Celtics: +1.1 rDRtg
2011 Finals vs. Mavericks: +1.0 rDRtg
2012 ECF vs. Celtics: +2.5 rDRtg
2012 Finals vs. Thunder: +0.8 rDRtg
2013 ECF vs. Pacers: +2.9 rDRtg
2013 Finals vs. Spurs: +1.0 rDRtg
2014 ECF vs. Pacers: +6.1 rDRtg
2014 Finals vs. Spurs: +10.3 rDRtg
2017 Finals vs. Warriors: +5.7 rDRtg
2018 Finals vs. Warriors: +11.0 rDRtg

There are several possible explanations:

a) Lebron, being the pseudo defensive anchor of these teams, is a wildly inconsistent defender. His individual struggles or lack of effort on the defensive end largely contributed to these results.

b) The teams' defensive makeup was flawed. For instance these teams not having traditional big men to protect the rim relied more heavily on pinpoint rotations to stop penetration and recover quickly. Fatigue late in the playoffs along with generally facing better offenses caused these collapses.

c) The teams were offensively slanted in essence sacrificing defense for better offense.

Honestly I think it's a combination of all three reasons.

Is this unique to LeBron James teams?

It's not even true of Lebron James teams generally. Djoker just cherrypicked a few data points. 15 and 16 were all-time examples of defensive elevation. Lebron's teams track-record of overall improvement is only really rivalled by hakeem's,so "slanting" is a silly compliant.

Djoker is just desperate now that more people on this board have started realizing how silly it is to use per when arguing ronaldo peaked higher than two-way messi

Depends on the team I reckon.

I would say that it is likely because most of his teams did not have any rim protectors. The Lakers do not seem to be apart of that list so suspect having Davis and supplementary players like Howard/McGee helped with the consistency.

For the Cavs they were certainly offensive slanted. They had Kevin Love as their big, they were never going to be much of a defensive force. They were like the 29th ranked defense during the regular season in 2018 or so.
.

Except they were a defensive force in 15 and 16. One that specifcally scaled up vs better offenses. This narrative is dumb. The 2016 cavs and 2017 cavs were two of the greatest overall playoff teams ever by what djoker is listing. The 2015 cavs were also crazy successful given the injury context. I

[Cavsfansince84]

Part of it is his teams never had any great def anchors up until AD in 2020. LeBron was the def anchor more or less by default most years. Verajao was decent in Cleveland but wasn't even a big minute player. So asking the guy who is semi carrying the offense to also be the def anchor through the rs then 3-4 rounds of the playoffs isn't a great recipe for success most of the time.

[OhayoKD]

Part of it is his teams never had any great def anchors up until AD in 2020. LeBron was the def anchor more or less by default most years. Verajao was decent in Cleveland but wasn't even a big minute player. So asking the guy who is semi carrying the offense to also be the def anchor through the rs then 3-4 rounds of the playoffs isn't a great recipe for success most of the time.

It was successful most of the time though. Dude cherrypicked 11 series and evidently no one thought it was worth checking if that was a consistent trend...

[Colbinii]

It seems fairly obvious why LeBron's teams "collapsed" in the post-season.

His teams almost always lacked an elite rim protector. Rim Protectors have been the staple for elite defenses for 70 years in the NBA. But, here is some food for thought [Playoff Numbers below]:


LeBron James On-Court Drtg [2007-2010]: 101.8
LeBron James Off-Court Drtg [2007-2010]: 108.6

LeBron James On-Court Drtg [2011-2014]: 104.7
LeBron James Off-Court Drtg [2011-2014]: 104.2

LeBron James On-Court Drtg [2015-2018]: 108.6
LeBron James Off-Court Drtg [2015-2018]: 109.9

How does this compare to Tim Duncan from 2001-2013?

Tim Duncan On-Court Drtg [2001-2013]: 103.3
Tim Duncan Off-Court Drtg [2001-2013]: 105.7

[Colbinii]

Part of it is his teams never had any great def anchors up until AD in 2020. LeBron was the def anchor more or less by default most years. Verajao was decent in Cleveland but wasn't even a big minute player. So asking the guy who is semi carrying the offense to also be the def anchor through the rs then 3-4 rounds of the playoffs isn't a great recipe for success most of the time.

It was successful most of the time though. Dude cherrypicked 11 series and evidently no one thought it was worth checking if that was a consistent trend...

I did actually thought it was worth checking

[Cavsfansince84]

Part of it is his teams never had any great def anchors up until AD in 2020. LeBron was the def anchor more or less by default most years. Verajao was decent in Cleveland but wasn't even a big minute player. So asking the guy who is semi carrying the offense to also be the def anchor through the rs then 3-4 rounds of the playoffs isn't a great recipe for success most of the time.

It was successful most of the time though. Dude cherrypicked 11 series and evidently no one thought it was worth checking if that was a consistent trend...

I didn't say it was or wasn't. What I'm saying is relying on one guy to anchor both sides of the ball isn't a great recipe for success. LeBron being able to do it quite often is just a credit to him as a player.

[Djoker]

I've been combing through some rDRtg of different teams and I noticed that Lebron's teams collapsed on defense way too often in the playoffs. Even more than just a few finals series as I believed before.

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2. From 2020 onwards AD is the defensive anchor and Lebron isn't in his prime anymore.

Note that rDRtg is defense relative to opponent ORtg. So any positive number means your team played worse defense than an average team did against this opponent in the regular season. Around +5 is league worst defensive level and +10 is historically bad defense.

2009 ECF vs. Magic: +4.1 rDRtg
2010 ECSF vs. Celtics: +1.1 rDRtg
2011 Finals vs. Mavericks: +1.0 rDRtg
2012 ECF vs. Celtics: +2.5 rDRtg
2012 Finals vs. Thunder: +0.8 rDRtg
2013 ECF vs. Pacers: +2.9 rDRtg
2013 Finals vs. Spurs: +1.0 rDRtg
2014 ECF vs. Pacers: +6.1 rDRtg
2014 Finals vs. Spurs: +10.3 rDRtg
2017 Finals vs. Warriors: +5.7 rDRtg
2018 Finals vs. Warriors: +11.0 rDRtg

There are several possible explanations:

a) Lebron, being the pseudo defensive anchor of these teams, is a wildly inconsistent defender. His individual struggles or lack of effort on the defensive end largely contributed to these results.

b) The teams' defensive makeup was flawed. For instance these teams not having traditional big men to protect the rim relied more heavily on pinpoint rotations to stop penetration and recover quickly. Fatigue late in the playoffs along with generally facing better offenses caused these collapses.

c) The teams were offensively slanted in essence sacrificing defense for better offense.

Honestly I think it's a combination of all three reasons.

Is this unique to LeBron James teams?

It's not even true of Lebron James teams generally. Djoker just cherrypicked a few data points. 15 and 16 were all-time examples of defensive elevation. Lebron's teams track-record of overall improvement is only really rivalled by hakeem's,so "slanting" is a silly compliant.

Djoker is just desperate now that more people on this board have started realizing how silly it is to use per when arguing ronaldo peaked higher than two-way messi

Depends on the team I reckon.

I would say that it is likely because most of his teams did not have any rim protectors. The Lakers do not seem to be apart of that list so suspect having Davis and supplementary players like Howard/McGee helped with the consistency.

For the Cavs they were certainly offensive slanted. They had Kevin Love as their big, they were never going to be much of a defensive force. They were like the 29th ranked defense during the regular season in 2018 or so.
.

Except they were a defensive force in 15 and 16. One that specifcally scaled up vs better offenses. This narrative is dumb. The 2016 cavs and 2017 cavs were two of the greatest overall playoff teams ever by what djoker is listing. The 2015 cavs were also crazy successful given the injury context. I

How am I cherrypicking if in 6/8 Finals and 4/9 ECF during Lebron's prime, the defense underperformed. That's a majority of the series that the defense was below league average level...

[parsnips33]

Is it really accurate to call LeBron the defensive anchor of those Heat teams? To say nothing of Cleveland

[Djoker]

Depends on the team I reckon.

I would say that it is likely because most of his teams did not have any rim protectors. The Lakers do not seem to be apart of that list so suspect having Davis and supplementary players like Howard/McGee helped with the consistency.

For the Cavs they were certainly offensive slanted. They had Kevin Love as their big, they were never going to be much of a defensive force. They were like the 29th ranked defense during the regular season in 2018 or so.

The Heat were a good defensive team. They just got bombed on by the Spurs who were great at shooting 3s. The Spurs beat everyone up to that point hence why they were in the finals.

The others do not seem like gigantic outliers. Orlando was pretty similar to the Spurs if I can recall, they just drained a lot of 3s and it did not help they didn't have the size to contend with Howard. The Cavs were not very talented during James first run.

Very good post.

Not really a lot more consistency. I didn't want to post those years because Davis was the anchor plus it's not Lebron's prime any more but the 2020-2023 Lakers were still inconsistent defensively. The Denver series in 2023 was particularly bad. But that's more on Davis than Lebron to be totally honest.

You're right about Love. When he was hurt in 2015 and/or got limited minutes (like 2016 Finals) the Cavs' defense was very good. A lot of that is Tristan Thompson got more minutes and he's a very good defender.

The Heat were subpar on defense even against Indiana though and even in 2012 and 2013 they weren't good on D in the Finals. Not 2014 level terrible of course but still subpar.

2009 was a very weird collapse. Cavs were -6 all regular season and then -13 through the first two rounds. Honestly if they play even league average defense they win the Orlando series easily. It's easy to blame shooting but they could have run Rashard and Hedo off the line. And plus Howard torched them as well and had arguably the best series of his career which is unacceptable when you have Varejao, Big Ben and a strong 6'8'' MVP who can defend all 5 positions.

Is it really accurate to call LeBron the defensive anchor of those Heat teams? To say nothing of Cleveland

That's why I said "pseudo anchor". Lebron is touted as those teams' best defender and a viable rim protector.

[tone wone]

2009 was a very weird collapse. Cavs were -6 all regular season and then -13 through the first two rounds. Honestly if they play even league average defense they win the Orlando series easily. It's easy to blame shooting but they could have run Rashard and Hedo off the line. And plus Howard torched them as well and had arguably the best series of his career which is unacceptable when you have Varejao, Big Ben and a strong 6'8'' MVP who can defend all 5 positions.

ORL was a horrible matchup. No one to guard Dwight. Wallace was a shell of himself after he broke his leg. And there lack of viable wings ment they couldn't matchup with Hedo/Lewis. They finished game 4 and game 5 with West at SF with Boobie and and Mo in the backcourt. Absolutely tiny.

[LA Bird]

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2.

You know you have an agenda when you can't even be consistent with your own arbitrary thresholds and have to sneak in a second round +1.1 rDRtg as a defensive "collapse".

Anyways, looking at the list, only the 09 ECF and the 14/17/18 Finals stand out as particularly bad defensive team performances and the obvious theme there is hot opponent 3pt shooting. The +6.1 rDRtg in the 14 ECF looks horrible on paper but considering ORtg/DRtg sometimes get wonky for outlier paces (as noted in this thread of mine) and the fact the Heat had a +18.7 rORtg in that same series, it's a nothingburger.

And OP's proposed explanations don't even make sense:
a) If LeBron is so bad that he is only a "pseudo" and not the real defensive anchor of his teams, why is he the one blamed for the team's defensive shortcomings rather than the actual anchor whoever that is?
b), c) A team build being biased towards offense does not reflect poorly on LeBron's individual defense at all. That's a question of roster construction and considering his teams' overall success, it's not necessarily a bad trade off. But it's kind of obvious OP only brought this point up to downplay how good the rORtg of LeBron-led teams are.

[OhayoKD]

Is it really accurate to call LeBron the defensive anchor of those Heat teams? To say nothing of Cleveland

considering how they looked without him and the trackrecord of his teammates(kyrie, love, smush, mosgov, ect) before they got there...

i'm not really sure what the case against it is.

Even first cleveland, ben wallace was the best defensive teammate but he was washed half the seaosn 2009 and gone in 2010(replaced by negative washed shaq) when they were still very good(-3) with big z also scaling back. And then you have the defensive collapse with those same starters

if lebron wasn' the anchor in cleveland who are you giving that too?

im pretty sure his absence also had the biggest effect in miami though they held out better without him. Playing power-forward certainly muted his influence there situationally

[lessthanjake]

It’s an interesting question. The second-stint Cavaliers were a below-average defensive team in general (i.e. even in the regular season they were below average 3 out of 4 years), so it’s not particularly surprising for a below-average defense to be below-average in playoffs series.

But the shocking defensive collapses of LeBron’s teams from 2009-2014 shown in the OP are harder to explain. In that time period, LeBron’s teams had good and usually great regular season defenses every season, and yet, when we look at conference finals, finals, or prior series’s where LeBron’s team lost, they had a positive rDRTG in 9 out of the 10 series. Based on this data, the only such late-stage series in those years where LeBron’s team did not have a positive rDRTG was in the ECF against the Bulls in 2011. That’s it.

So this is a real issue that is actually kind of shocking and somewhat disqualifying when it comes to some of the hyperbolic arguments about LeBron’s defense. Throughout probably his very peak years as a player, LeBron had good defensive teams and they just turned into bad ones virtually every time in the business end of the playoffs. Why is this? I don’t know that I have an answer. And I think some of the theories provided by Djoker’s OP as good as any. I do have one other theory I’d add: To the extent LeBron derives a lot of his defensive value from organizing the team on the court, it seems plausible that the marginal value of that goes down in the playoffs, because other teams are buckling down mentally and are actually becoming organized defensively, while LeBron already had them organized in the regular season. This could mean that peak LeBron’s teams weren’t able to take the kind of defensive jump in the playoffs that most other teams do (which is important, because you need to offset the fact that teams are also naturally going to buckle down more on offense in the playoffs too). And without that organization factor, perhaps LeBron just couldn’t do enough to make the defenses play well, because he just didn’t have either elite rim protection or truly elite one-on-one point of attack defense. The good-at-a-lot-but-only-great-at-organizing-the-team thing just may not be very effective in a playoff environment where your team would probably be organized defensively anyways. Of course, oddly enough, LeBron’s teams were a bit better in this regard in his second-stint Cavs years despite being worse defensively in the regular season. Perhaps LeBron actually found more ways to provide defensive value in the playoffs in those years, but I think it’s mostly just that they were facing mediocre teams in the Eastern Conference that simply did not actually have a playoff gear offensively. The defensive performances against the Warriors in 2015 and 2016 were good though, but Steph was nowhere near his RS level in the 2016 playoffs so a good rDRTG was not so difficult to come by IMO.

[OhayoKD]

I
So this is a real issue that is actually kind of shocking and somewhat disqualifying when it comes to some of the hyperbolic arguments about LeBron’s defense.

Yes defenses that are bad without turning decent with and then elevating to very good in the postseason is super disqualifying.

Based on this data, the only such late-stage series in those years where LeBron’s team did not have a positive rDRTG was in the ECF against the Bulls in 2011. That’s it.

and then if i add in 2015-2017 Lebron the defense is a strong positive 5 of 7 late game series. And if I just look at overall ratings the cavs look great, and of course the actual overall performances remain rather impressive, but sure. O/d distribution switching a bit(generally in series where lebron plays pf as opposed to sf) is very concerning. How dare they beat an arguably better iteration of the bad boy pistons on offense rather than defense! Oh wow, crused the suped 90's knicks but not on their defense!!!!

The defensive performances against the Warriors in 2015 and 2016 were good though, but Steph was nowhere near his RS level in the 2016 playoffs so a good rDRTG was not so difficult to come by IMO.

Great, not good, and curiously enough those ratings improve when the warriors playoff offense plays a bigger role than their offensive rating

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2.

You know you have an agenda when you can't even be consistent with your own arbitrary thresholds and have to sneak in a second round +1.1 rDRtg as a defensive "collapse".

About what you'd expect form someone who used unadjusted defensive rating to paint elite 15/16 playoff defenses as average, used a 1 point volume, 2 point effeciency "hot-shooting" spike as grounds to dimiss the 2009 playoffs as a fluke, and championed Jordan's playval in the 91 playoffs wihle disregarding lebron peaking higher in scoreval and the score-val gap being > the play-val gap so they could argue lebron was a full tier of offense behind(naturally passer-rating, ball-progression, drawing more defensive attention, and directing teammates on both ends isn't relevant)

Oh also the delta in team performance on both ends being bigger for lebron doesn't matter because helio = bad bench(please don't look at the actual bench performance of various other helios...)

[Djoker]

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2.

You know you have an agenda when you can't even be consistent with your own arbitrary thresholds and have to sneak in a second round +1.1 rDRtg as a defensive "collapse".

Anyways, looking at the list, only the 09 ECF and the 14/17/18 Finals stand out as particularly bad defensive team performances and the obvious theme there is hot opponent 3pt shooting. The +6.1 rDRtg in the 14 ECF looks horrible on paper but considering ORtg/DRtg sometimes get wonky for outlier paces (as noted in this thread of mine) and the fact the Heat had a +18.7 rORtg in that same series, it's a nothingburger.

And OP's proposed explanations don't even make sense:
a) If LeBron is so bad that he is only a "pseudo" and not the real defensive anchor of his teams, why is he the one blamed for the team's defensive shortcomings rather than the actual anchor whoever that is?
b), c) A team build being biased towards offense does not reflect poorly on LeBron's individual defense at all. That's a question of roster construction and considering his teams' overall success, it's not necessarily a bad trade off. But it's kind of obvious OP only brought this point up to downplay how good the rORtg of LeBron-led teams are.

With all due respect, I don't have an agenda and I'm kind of disappointed you're accusing me of such. Nor am I cherrypicking. I've posted the rDRtg for 10/17 combined Finals and ECF series during Lebron's prime that his team had a positive rDRtg. And yes any positive rDRtg is quite bad because it means that the defensive performance was worse than that of an average team. It doesn't have to be 5+ or 10+ to be bad although the latter is obviously REALLY bad. The data i posted fits the theme of the thread. Why would I post other series that are irrelevant to the thread at hand. Obviously Lebron's teams weren't bad defensively in every single series.

a) By pseudo, I simply meant that he isn't a traditional defensive anchor meaning a big man paint protector.

b) c) This thread isn't about offense or rORtg. Nor did I say that the defensive underperformances necessarily reflect poorly on Lebron. I simply started a thread so we can all discuss it.

[lessthanjake]

Just to drill down on this a bit: LeBron’s teams consistently collapsed defensively in the business end of the playoffs from 2009-2014, but those are pretty generally considered the years of LeBron’s defensive peak (it’s his best span from a DPOY voting standpoint, but also just athletically and by consensus in general). So then that raises an interesting question: How good can someone’s defense be if during their defensive peak they virtually always have a bad defense in the business end of the playoffs? This is simply not something that happens for the really high impact defensive guys. It would be unfathomable. Of course, for most people thinking about this issue this wouldn’t be a surprise. We know that at his defensive best LeBron was a really good defensive player, but not some all-timer in defensive impact. Part of that is just because guys who aren’t big men don’t tend to have super high defensive impact, and part of it is just that LeBron had some significant limits defensively (couldn’t always stay in front of people, had some mental/effort lapses, etc.). But there are people here who really push a narrative about LeBron’s defense well beyond where it reasonably should be. According to them, LeBron is some “defensive anchor” who even provided elite rim protection. The problem is that if that were true, then it is just unfathomable that in his peak years as a defender, his teams would consistently be bad defensively in the business end of the playoffs. This is just not something that actually happens for truly elite defensive anchors. It may happen for great wing defenders (though we’d expect it wouldn’t), but it simply wouldn’t happen for elite defensive anchors. LeBron was not an elite defensive anchor, and that’s ultimately why he was simply not defensively impactful enough to prevent these consistent defensive collapses throughout his entire defensive peak. It’s all just very strong evidence against some of the hyperbolic arguments that are often made here about LeBron’s defense.