MMyhre wrote:Young gun 6 wrote:Bottom of what list?
Not the original poster but your link actually paints him as above average.
Just below Gobert and KP, right next to Embiid and better than Capela, Jarrett Allen, Al Horford, Bam, Poeltl, Myles Turner, Alex Sarr and Nic Claxton in FG% allowed.
Also challenging more shots than nearly everyone in the league while maintaining an above average Fg% allowed.
Literally painting him as a good defender which I honestly
thought would be more eye test based than the raw stats would even back up given the teammates around him.
Thank you for that.
I dont know what you get up, but he is near bottom in diff % for centers for me. Way off the best in Wemby, Holmgren, Jaren Jackson etc, slightly better than DeAndre Ayton.. not a perfect way to measure, but he was way off these guys last year as well when I checked it, and it usually has the best defenders at the top.
my dude, Jokic plays defense in a very unconventional manner and there's also a team strategy behind it. i'll examine just one example (te DFGM you cited) so you'll understand where i'm going with this but honestly it's a very broad and complex subject
you chose to look at contested shots, the frequency and the efficacy of the contests. that's certainly an aspect of defense but you shouldn't examine it without context:
the Nuggets lost their best POA defender in KCP and they were a weak POA defense even when he was around. Braun is now their best POA defender and he's not bad but still young and prone to many lapses. they've also missed their most versatile defender (AG) for about half of the season. AG isn't a great defender btw but he's their most switchable defender and that's important in today's game.
MPJ and Murray are both pretty bad defenders and are very susceptible to bad defensive positioning and losing sight of their man. MPJ might be the easiest opponent in the league to cut backdoor against, he never knows where to stand and he just brain-farts defensively very often on cuts and assignments. they aren't exactly the Ben Wallace Pistons, ya know? (regardless of Jokic)
for most of the season they were starting Jokic\Murray\Braun\MPJ and a 36 year old WB, the latter can def be a dog on the ball, is physical, athletic and a heck of a defensive rebounder but he's also 36 and notorious for over-gambling on steals and losing his man all together (similarly to MPJ and Murray), now why is this relevant? i'll tell u
say you have Jokic defending the PNR and stepping high,the Nuggets are extremely exposed behind him, be it to a cut, a lob or what have you.The Nuggets and Jokic make a concious decision to give the offense an open\semi open mid-range shot (generally speaking), that's just how their defense is designed - they'd rather give the driver some space to shoot, then have Jokic step up to him and be exposed to every MPJ momentary lapse of reason behind him and they'd rather not give up a lay-up (since it's a higher % shot that also racks ups fouls and gives the opponent easy points at the line) and the same goes for lobs, pocket passes etc so they basically concede the open mid-range shot. that's how defensive strategies work, you have to give up something, try to funnel your opponent to X and not to Y
Jokic challenges these shots very meekly, usually he just tries to swipe at the ball as the shooter is gathering, that's also a choice
the Nuggets can't afford Jokic racking up silly fouls because they get killed when he's off the floor. moreover, that enables him to instead focus on rebounding the missed shots (he'd be out of position and unable to recover in time anyway if he tried to contest aggresively) - these are defensive schemes, it's by design. the result might be that Jokic DFGM suffers, because opponents get pretty decent and semi open mid-range shots, so maybe he's not at 42% or at 45% but instead at 48% but he doesn't pick up fouls (his foul rate is very low and that's essential to them winning basketball games
) and is also in position to do what he does best, which is to grab the defensive board (he's one of the best D rebounders in the game) and turn it into immediate offense, either as a passer or as a ball handler
they are first in the league in transition points and that's part of how they turn defense into offense - they make sure Jokic is in position, at the cost of conceding shots that are more open
so yeah, just a little example of why DFGM (for example) - doesn't tell the whole story
btw, this doesn't just apply to the PNR, you can often see Jokic electing to leave an outside shooter wide open and not close out at all, instead playing the numbers game and electing to get position inside, box-out and make sure the Nuggets get the rebound (in the event of a miss). does that mean those shots get made at a higher clip? ofc...but Jokic has a super processor for a brain and his super processor indicates to him in a split second decision, that it would be the more +EV outcome (then him rushing, slowly, to close out on say a corner shooter and be completely out of position for the rebound and everything else).
Jokic plays very uncoventionally on both ends and conventional metrics don't nessescarily capture that very well
if he really was the poor defender some posters here are making him out to be, why doesn't Denver defense improve when they have somone like DAJ on the floor, instead of the huge defensive liability, the "fat joker"
with that said, i'd agree his defense and defensive effort in particular haven't been as good as they have been in the last couple of seasons. we can speculate as to why but it's certainly not because of a lack of ability as Jokic has shown he can step it up when it matters. even in that championship season the Nuggets defense was below average for most of the season but they had the #1 clutch defense in the league and it was a strong indicator they have another gear they can get to when they need it and it carried over to the playoffs too. Nuggets are leading the league in double digit comebacks (I think they're up to 11 or 12 now, that's 12 wins after being down double digits), that's an indicator of the same imo meaning - that extra defensive gear
no1 is suggesting he's a DPOY candidate that's for sure but he has been a well above average defender for years. yes, he has some glaring holes in his defensive game but he makes up for it, in more ways than one and some more subtle than others
at the end of the day, he's big, super strong, one of the best defensive rebounders in the game, has the best hands in the game and his I.Q is at an ATG level. he understand angles so well and contributes to defense is many ways. he's very effective and all his good qualities more than offset his glaring defensive holes (which are mostly being slow footed and very vertically challenged
)
p.s, Nuggets had the 8th best defense last season with defensive juggernauts like MPJ and Murray in the lineup. how was that possible if Jokic is so bad? my guess is they'll be around 10th this season as well when all is said and done and Jokic plays a big part in that. schemes are what they are, imagine if Jokic had a guy like Mobley at the 4 instead of MPJ..he'd have more options and i'b betting his DFGM% would reflect that well. as it stands, they have to concede something. it works reasonably well imo, at least until they meet a team that a guy like Edwards or SGA that you can't sag off of in the middle of the floor. that's a big part of the reason ANT carved them up last year.
