Zatzman: This era of the Raptors depends massively on Brandon Ingram

[tsherkin]

RJ doesn't fit this roster and he will need to be moved. But it seems like he has little value

I think the hope is that the new environment of this upcoming roster will help him perform, and then we can see what offers are out there, what teams are receptive to, or we can keep him.

Moving him for the sake of moving him just isn't the thing. But yeah, he's an inefficient volume scorer. Yes, we've seen him improve on D and as a playmaker, but his impact signals are only so good, right, and that player archetype has been exposed for a long time now. He needs to get better, or he needs to accept a lesser role.

[ConSarnit]

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

It definitely makes sense to do what you are saying (move Ochai into the starting lineup) but I don't see it happening with RJ on the roster because sending him to the bench would further kill his value and make him completely untradable if he isn't already. They just can't afford to do that, they are all in on moving him by the trade deadline to get out of the tax and that means doing whatever it takes to increase his value. Throw in the fact that they will want to depress Ochai's value in a contract year and I don't see a change like that happening.

The defence this year will probably be fairly bad. Only two good defenders in the starting lineup and neither is an All-Defence team level defender, there are some good defenders off the bench in Ochai and Shead, maybe a little bit of CMB or Mogbo, but rookies are rarely good right away and we will also see Sandro in the top 8 rotation who is negative defensive Box +/- every season of his career, we can't expect a good defensive bench without sacrificing a lot on the offensive end. Maybe this team won't be bottom 10 defence, though I would guess it will be at least close, maybe the numbers will be skewed simply because the East is really weak and they will look better against soft competition.

Our defense is going to be very important, unquestionably.

The idea that our defense is guaranteed to be "fairly bad" doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. I'm sure we won't be a top-5 D, but we were really good on D for over half the season this past year. That doesn't project to us suddenly turning into a bottom-third defense, even accounting for some teams not tanking any longer and all that.

We had the easiest schedule in the history of the NBA for the last 2 months (~23 games). This is not hyperbole. It was calculated we had the easiest 2 month SOS ever. We cannot extrapolate anything from the back half of last year because of the embarrassingly bad level of our competition.

[Los_29]

Tanking for top 5 picks sounds great in theory but never works. OKC is where they are at because of SGA, Orlando is a tWo dream and what do they have to show for it? Paolo, Franz and Suggs? Washington, Charlotte, Brooklyn, Utah all stink. Houston went out and signed Fred and Brooks then traded for KD. All of their lottery picks outside of Amen have been disappointing.

The draft has changed considerably. Teams are actually worse at drafting now than before. Players are coming into the league when they are 18-19 years old. It's hard to evaluate players at that age. You can't rely on luck and can't wait for that can't miss prospect to fall into your lap because it's not going to happen.

Couldn’t we say the exact same thing about teams led by Brandon Ingram?

My argument always was: our front office has one high level skill: drafting. Why not leverage that to its fullest by drafting high with our own picks and take other shots with picks acquired through selling off OG/Siakam/FVV? I mostly agree that tanking strictly on the back of ONLY your own picks isn’t the best strategy but the smart teams have been stacking picks to get multiple bites at the apple. Utah has been a clear example of a team that did not tank to its fullest potential and our now likely dealing with the repercussions of that. They ended up drafting 10th and 9th because they didn’t fully commit.

I don’t know how you can say tanking never works. The Spurs have built their entire success around tanking. I’d wager OKC is still better than us even if you remove SGA from the picture. Both us and ORL ended up as capped out teams but ORL is still clearly better than us and has higher upside. HOU ended up stacking assets that allowed them to make the KD trade while retaining almost the entire core of their team. The pick they traded for KD wasn’t even their own. It was one they acquired while tanking.

Tanking is low odds solution. It’s still likely the best solution for us, a team that never gets free agents and got incredibly lucky to hit on the 1 year we had a star (Kawhi).

I don’t know how anyone can look at the past 3 years and say “I’m glad we didn’t tank”. We’ve effectively spun our wheels to re-create a different version of the Siakam led teams.

Utah has failed miserably in the draft. Ainge has yet to draft a legitimate rotation player. And honestly, who have they missed out on that would’ve changed the trajectory of their team? Wemby is the obvious one but no one else in the last three years look like they are going to be superstars. The one year they did tank they slipped to 5th and missed out on Flagg. Dallas who didn’t tank got him.

OKC without SGA is an interesting one. Watching OKC on offense without SGA was painful. They are elite defensively but i think they’d be a play-in team without SGA.

Spurs lucked out and got Wemby after spending years on the treadmill. I just don’t see that as a great example. They also didn’t tank the traditional way. A year after getting Wemby they traded for Fox. They’ll be trying to compete next year.

I actually like Orlando now that they have Bane but if they don’t win, they’ll be breaking that team up in a few years and doing the whole tanking thing again. That’s what people don’t realize. You can do everything right but end up with a core of Green/Smith/Amen/Sengun or Banchero/Franz/Suggs or Chet/Jdubs/Giddey or Ball/Kon/Miller or Cade/Duren/Ausar/Holland.

[ConSarnit]

RJ doesn't fit this roster and he will need to be moved. But it seems like he has little value

I think the hope is that the new environment of this upcoming roster will help him perform, and then we can see what offers are out there, what teams are receptive to, or we can keep him.

Moving him for the sake of moving him just isn't the thing. But yeah, he's an inefficient volume scorer. Yes, we've seen him improve on D and as a playmaker, but his impact signals are only so good, right, and that player archetype has been exposed for a long time now. He needs to get better, or he needs to accept a lesser role.

We are much better off trying to build RJ’s value up by reducing his role. That should serve the team better and should serve us better if we need to move him. We’ve seen some flashes when he was in a more limited role to end the ‘23/24 season.

My guess is RJ doesn’t have much value around the league right now. While he’s above the Sexton’s and Simon’s of the world the “scoring SG with compromised defense” isn’t exactly in high demand right now. I’d be surprised if RJ could return positive value on the trade market right now.

[tsherkin]

We had the easiest schedule in the history of the NBA for the last 2 months (~23 games). This is not hyperbole. It was calculated we had the easiest 2 month SOS ever. We cannot extrapolate anything from the back half of last year because of the embarrassingly bad level of our competition.

This is still a lazy remark, though. Our quality defense predated that by a quarter season.

[ciueli]

I agree with you but after being accused of bringing too much negativity to the thread I’d say that Raptors success will hinge on our defence this year. If Darko can get these guys to lock in and play hard every night, we can grind out some wins against better opponents. My concern on that end is that our starting line up has 3 players with career negative DPMs. That’s why I’m in favor of stating Ochai and either moving RJ to the bench or trading him because he solves our spacing problems and is a plus defender.

It definitely makes sense to do what you are saying (move Ochai into the starting lineup) but I don't see it happening with RJ on the roster because sending him to the bench would further kill his value and make him completely untradable if he isn't already. They just can't afford to do that, they are all in on moving him by the trade deadline to get out of the tax and that means doing whatever it takes to increase his value. Throw in the fact that they will want to depress Ochai's value in a contract year and I don't see a change like that happening.

The defence this year will probably be fairly bad. Only two good defenders in the starting lineup and neither is an All-Defence team level defender, there are some good defenders off the bench in Ochai and Shead, maybe a little bit of CMB or Mogbo, but rookies are rarely good right away and we will also see Sandro in the top 8 rotation who is negative defensive Box +/- every season of his career, we can't expect a good defensive bench without sacrificing a lot on the offensive end. Maybe this team won't be bottom 10 defence, though I would guess it will be at least close, maybe the numbers will be skewed simply because the East is really weak and they will look better against soft competition.

Our defense is going to be very important, unquestionably.

The idea that our defense is guaranteed to be "fairly bad" doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. I'm sure we won't be a top-5 D, but we were really good on D for over half the season this past year. That doesn't project to us suddenly turning into a bottom-third defense, even accounting for some teams not tanking any longer and all that.

Those numbers are so skewed though, the strength of schedule for that stretch is absolute rock bottom, we had a brutal early schedule and a cupcake back half schedule, we can't take anything away from that. Even more so when you consider many of our bad defenders didn't play later in the season (Gradey Dick the most obvious one, but also RJ) while some of the better bench defenders got serious minutes (Shead, Mogbo) that they won't come close to getting next season (Mogbo in particular playing 37MPG at times towards the end of the season).

The take home here is that the rotation will be very different from last season, there a lot more average to below average defenders that will get minutes (IQ, Ingram, RJ, Sandro) at the expense of better defensive but worse offensive players.

[tsherkin]

Those numbers are so skewed though, the strength of schedule for that stretch is absolute rock bottom,

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.

Even more so when you consider many of our bad defenders didn't play later in the season (Gradey Dick the most obvious one, but also RJ) while some of the better bench defenders got serious minutes (Shead, Mogbo) that they won't come close to getting next season (Mogbo in particular playing 37MPG at times towards the end of the season).

It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

[ConSarnit]

Tanking for top 5 picks sounds great in theory but never works. OKC is where they are at because of SGA, Orlando is a tWo dream and what do they have to show for it? Paolo, Franz and Suggs? Washington, Charlotte, Brooklyn, Utah all stink. Houston went out and signed Fred and Brooks then traded for KD. All of their lottery picks outside of Amen have been disappointing.

The draft has changed considerably. Teams are actually worse at drafting now than before. Players are coming into the league when they are 18-19 years old. It's hard to evaluate players at that age. You can't rely on luck and can't wait for that can't miss prospect to fall into your lap because it's not going to happen.

Couldn’t we say the exact same thing about teams led by Brandon Ingram?

My argument always was: our front office has one high level skill: drafting. Why not leverage that to its fullest by drafting high with our own picks and take other shots with picks acquired through selling off OG/Siakam/FVV? I mostly agree that tanking strictly on the back of ONLY your own picks isn’t the best strategy but the smart teams have been stacking picks to get multiple bites at the apple. Utah has been a clear example of a team that did not tank to its fullest potential and our now likely dealing with the repercussions of that. They ended up drafting 10th and 9th because they didn’t fully commit.

I don’t know how you can say tanking never works. The Spurs have built their entire success around tanking. I’d wager OKC is still better than us even if you remove SGA from the picture. Both us and ORL ended up as capped out teams but ORL is still clearly better than us and has higher upside. HOU ended up stacking assets that allowed them to make the KD trade while retaining almost the entire core of their team. The pick they traded for KD wasn’t even their own. It was one they acquired while tanking.

Tanking is low odds solution. It’s still likely the best solution for us, a team that never gets free agents and got incredibly lucky to hit on the 1 year we had a star (Kawhi).

I don’t know how anyone can look at the past 3 years and say “I’m glad we didn’t tank”. We’ve effectively spun our wheels to re-create a different version of the Siakam led teams.

Utah has failed miserably in the draft. Ainge has yet to draft a legitimate rotation player. And honestly, who have they missed out on that would’ve changed the trajectory of their team? Wemby is the obvious one but no one else in the last three years look like they are going to be superstars. The one year they did tank they slipped to 5th and missed out on Flagg. Dallas who didn’t tank got him.

OKC without SGA is an interesting one. Watching OKC on offense without SGA was painful. They are elite defensively but i think they’d be a play-in team without SGA.

Spurs lucked out and got Wemby after spending years on the treadmill. I just don’t see that as a great example. They also didn’t tank the traditional way. A year after getting Wemby they traded for Fox. They’ll be trying to compete next year.

I actually like Orlando now that they have Bane but if they don’t win, they’ll be breaking that team up in a few years and doing the whole tanking thing again. That’s what people don’t realize. You can do everything right but end up with a core of Green/Smith/Amen/Sengun or Banchero/Franz/Suggs or Chet/Jdubs/Giddey or Ball/Kon/Miller or Cade/Duren/Ausar/Holland.

Utah: Miller of Amen would have been a much better outcome than Hendricks. Almost everyone taken before him has shown more. Multiple players taken before Cody Williams have looked better. I think they’ve also put themselves in a spot where they’ve held on to Lauri too long and his value has declined.

OKC: tough to parse out where they’d be with SGA but their core without him is extremely solid and his absence would open up $40m in space. I’d wager the majority of fans would take OKC (and their assets) - SGA over the current Raptors

Spurs: I don’t know how you can say they weren’t tanking when they traded away Murray, White and Poeltl, 3 of their starters in ‘21/22. All 3 were traded for draft assets and NO starting level players in return. If that’s not tanking then what is? Even after they acquired Wemby they tanked again and got Castle at #4. If the Spurs weren’t tanking I don’t know what your definition of “traditional tanking” is? They literally gutted their roster to bottom out for 2 years.

[canada_dry]

I don't think guys are expecting the second coming...

Ingram, while not a superstar, has consistently the past number of years been above 1 point per play in both isolation and out of pick n roll. Its exactly the type of player we've been missing. That's where the excitement comes from i think.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

[ciueli]

Those numbers are so skewed though, the strength of schedule for that stretch is absolute rock bottom,

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.

Even more so when you consider many of our bad defenders didn't play later in the season (Gradey Dick the most obvious one, but also RJ) while some of the better bench defenders got serious minutes (Shead, Mogbo) that they won't come close to getting next season (Mogbo in particular playing 37MPG at times towards the end of the season).

It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

The other factor is that the experience this team has playing together isn't there, the starting lineup has zero games played together as so many of our guys have missed huge chunks of the past two seasons. It takes a while to put together a strong defence, or even a competent defence, and it's going to have to be done with players who aren't used to taking a backseat on the offensive side of the ball to focus on defence. Additionally it comes down to Darko getting the team to buy into the defensive scheme he develops, we don't know how that will play out, I feel Darko has always focused more on the offensive side of the ball over the defensive side.

[tsherkin]

The other factor is that the experience this team has playing together isn't there, the starting lineup has zero games played together as so many of our guys have missed huge chunks of the past two seasons. It takes a while to put together a strong defence, or even a competent defence, and it's going to have to be done with players who aren't used to taking a backseat on the offensive side of the ball to focus on defence. Additionally it comes down to Darko getting the team to buy into the defensive scheme he develops, we don't know how that will play out, I feel Darko has always focused more on the offensive side of the ball over the defensive side.

I suspect that will matter more on offense than it does on defense, honestly.

The SL team is showing enough signs of coordination and effort to demonstrate how quickly you can organize your defense. You don't really need much as far as being accustomed to the other guys to play defense if your roles are spelled out clearly by the coaches. I very much doubt the lack of familiarity with staff will be an issue. Especially because a LOT of this team HAS played together, and we're really just talking about Ingram and CMB... who has integrated rather smoothly and easily into the defense already.

I think a lot of what you said is more hopeful that we'll be bad than stuff that actually looks to impact us, honestly. Again, we're not going to be elite... but we were very good for longer than just our crap schedule. We're adding CMB. There's a good chance Poeltl plays more than 58 games because we aren't tanking. Beyond CMB, have other defensive pieces.

Like, of everything this team has to worry about, I do not think defense is going to be the issue.

Our offense 100% depends on Ingram's ability to be healthy, and so circling back to the article in the OP, his health is critical to us until we evolve the roster such that it is not the case. But that won't be the deciding factor of our defense at all.

[ConSarnit]

Those numbers are so skewed though, the strength of schedule for that stretch is absolute rock bottom,

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.

Even more so when you consider many of our bad defenders didn't play later in the season (Gradey Dick the most obvious one, but also RJ) while some of the better bench defenders got serious minutes (Shead, Mogbo) that they won't come close to getting next season (Mogbo in particular playing 37MPG at times towards the end of the season).

It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

[tsherkin]

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

Yes, and average is still not "bottom third." And we've got some interesting things happening to help us improve upon that this season.

Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

That's important, on doubt. And Scottie should look better this year with lowered shooting volume. And hopefully we'll be able to play Shead and Mogbo more consistent minutes. And CMB is inbound. And Poeltl should be healthier. He missed like 12 of our first 60 games.

And and and and and.

Like I said, I doubt we'll be elite, but I also doubt we'll be bottom third.

[ciueli]

Those numbers are so skewed though, the strength of schedule for that stretch is absolute rock bottom,

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.

Even more so when you consider many of our bad defenders didn't play later in the season (Gradey Dick the most obvious one, but also RJ) while some of the better bench defenders got serious minutes (Shead, Mogbo) that they won't come close to getting next season (Mogbo in particular playing 37MPG at times towards the end of the season).

It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

By the end of December the team was 26th in Defensive Efficiency, by the end of January it was 23rd. So yes, this team was that bad defensively last season. they were bottom third through the first 3+ months of the season. It only started to turn around once they got into the easy part of their schedule and eventually finished 16th, but as I've pointed out multiple times that was with no games from Ingram, fewer games from Barrett + Gradey, and heavy minutes for Shead + Mogbo along with Scottie still playing because he was gunning for All-NBA.

[Pointgod]

Those numbers are so skewed though, the strength of schedule for that stretch is absolute rock bottom,

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.

Even more so when you consider many of our bad defenders didn't play later in the season (Gradey Dick the most obvious one, but also RJ) while some of the better bench defenders got serious minutes (Shead, Mogbo) that they won't come close to getting next season (Mogbo in particular playing 37MPG at times towards the end of the season).

It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

Where can I go to find these stats?

[tsherkin]

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.



It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

Where can I go to find these stats?

NBA.com should have most of that.

[ciueli]

No, only about half of that stretch, actually, as I was just noting.



It remains to be seen what our rotation will look like this year, and we are ALSO introducing CMB into the mix, which should be a positive.

Again, I don't think we'll be elite, but the idea that we're more likely to be bottom third or thereabouts seems just as off to me.

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

Where can I go to find these stats?

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-efficiency?date=2025-01-01

[tsherkin]

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

Where can I go to find these stats?

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-efficiency?date=2025-01-01

All that to say, if we're going to rip on our defensive success due to weak schedule, we should take the results in the first half of the season with a similar grain of salt due to difficulty thereof. The results, as ever, tend to point more towards the middle.

[ciueli]

Where can I go to find these stats?

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-efficiency?date=2025-01-01

All that to say, if we're going to rip on our defensive success due to weak schedule, we should take the results in the first half of the season with a similar grain of salt due to difficulty thereof. The results, as ever, tend to point more towards the middle.

As I've said before, I just don't know where this optimism about the defence comes from, if anything the defence could be worse than last year for a number of reasons. Ingram is not a great defender and minutes for good defenders like Ochai, Shead, and Mogbo will likely be cut as the rotation tightens. Davion Mitchell is gone, and IQ will be playing more of the minutes at PG with Shead also likely playing a reduced backup role. Sandro is almost certainly in the rotation out of necessity and he hasn't shown he can defend the way he needs to to avoid being a liability on that end. Gradey Dick will still get minutes in the event any of the rotation wings miss games.

Maybe I'm wrong and the defence will be better than I think with an RJ trade mid-season resulting in more minutes for Ochai, maybe CMB is really that good on defence and will be great right away. Maybe Sandro doesn't make the rotation like I think he will. Those are things that can happen that could change things but right now I'm just looking at what seems most likely and what I see is only half the top 8 rotation being dependable defenders (Scottie, Jak, Ochai, Shead).

[Pointgod]

Raptors def rating from Jan 1-Feb 27:

114 (15th in the league)

Raptors def rating from Feb 28- end of season:

109 (best in league)

When our schedule wasn’t the easiest in the history of the league we were average.

As I pointed out in another thread during the season, our defense was never that bad. We turned the ball over like crazy the first 2 months of the season and we were giving up something like 8 extra points off turnovers. Once we stopped being a turnover machine our defense normalized to mid-pack. Something like 85% of our defensive improvement from Jan. 1 on was from not giving up points off of TO’s. Our defense really only improved because we cleaned up the offense.

Where can I go to find these stats?

NBA.com should have most of that.

Thank you. You are coming up clutch for me today!