Dispelling the notion that Jokic isn't a good defender

[Cubbies2120]

A little statistical analysis courtesy of myself and a couple other folks...

1st among Centers in stl
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense/?sort=STL&dir=-1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

2nd in Deflections
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle/?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

3rd in Box Outs
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/box-outs/?sort=BOX_OUTS&dir=1

4th in Contested shots
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS&dir=1

1st in Contested Rebounds in entire NBA

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/rebounding/?sort=REB_CONTEST&dir=1

Nikola Jokic Advanced Stats categories:

Defensive Win Shares / 48 minutes: #1 in the entire league
Defensive Box +-: Tied for #1 in the entire league with Draymond Green
Defensive Rating: #5, behind perennial DPOY candidates like Gobert/Green

When will the casual fans interpretation of his game catch up to the statistically verifiable evidence?

[Harry Garris]

I appreciate the effort but the Jokic is a terrible defender narrative doesn't come from an innocent lack of knowledge to the contrary. People genuinely don't like Jokic.

He is a truly great player and the amount of haters he's amassing this season is just further evidence of that.

[kobe_vs_jordan]

Don't think defense has ever been captured well by stats they always noisey. Usually a 3 year average of defensive stts remove that noise. Jokic has always been solid in man defense. In the playoffs, it's a different type of game. Teams will run pick and roll from the 1st play to the last play at you if they can.

Similar to Gobert. He an amazing defender. Just teams figure out how to minimize his impact in playoffs from amazing.

[Rich Michmond]

Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Nikola Jokić doesn't know what he's doing on defense. He knows exactly what he's doing.

[Lockdown504090]

there are stats that show hes not as good as those will lead you to believe. I think watching a basketball game will tell you that hes improved from 2019 by a lot. is he good, yes. is good good enough at the center spot? thats another question entirely that we will see as his career goes on.

Can you win with a center playing just good defense, and you cant take them off the floor? thats interesting.

[Peregrine01]

He's become a solid defender, which is quite impressive given the offensive load he has to carry on this moribund Nuggets team.

I wonder if his defensive impact stats get a boost because the Nuggets are plain awful defensively when he's off the floor.

[Harry Garris]

there are stats that show hes not as good as those will lead you to believe. I think watching a basketball game will tell you that hes improved from 2019 by a lot. is he good, yes. is good good enough at the center spot? thats another question entirely that we will see as his career goes on.

Can you win with a center playing just good defense, and you cant take them off the floor? thats interesting.

Do you want an actual answer to that question or are you just being rhetorical? Because obviously yes, you can win a title without an elite defensive center. Here are just a few examples:

2021 Milwaukee Bucks - started Brook Lopez at center. Solid defender specifically at drop coverage but can't really do a whole lot else.

2019 Toronto Raptors - started Marc Gasol at center who although still had good defensive BBIQ couldn't move very well at his advanced age and most metrics had him as the worst defender in the Raptor's starting lineup that season.

2018 Golden State Warriors - started Kevon Looney at center. Yes they often closed games with Draymond at the 5 but they started them and played long stretches with Kevon Looney and yet having a "non elite defensive center" somehow didn't torpedo them.

2017 Golden State Warriors - see above.

2016 Cleveland Cavaliers - started Tristan Thompson at center in the finals. Overall a pretty good defender. Calling him elite would be a stretch though.

2015 Golden State Warriors - started Andrew Bogut at center for some of the finals but he didn't play a whole lot. They had a hodgepodge of guys including Festus Ezili, David Lee, and Marreesse Speights play the 5 in this series. Lots of not great players defensively, they still did pretty okay all things considered.

2012 & 2013 Miami Heat - started Chris Bosh at center. Whether you consider Chris Bosh a great defender is really up to your interpretation I guess. He was certainly more of a Jokic defensively than an Embiid. Great at being in the right positions and closing off drives to the hoop, not as much of a traditional rim protector though. Either way they started him for offense not for defense and survived on that end of the floor due to their aggressive attacking of the ball handler on screens style and not because they had a center who could lock down the paint.

If you go further back in history you actually do see a lot of championship winning teams that did start elite or at least very good defensive centers. It was more important to have one in the past when the pace of basketball was slower and there was more of an emphasis on post up play than there is now. But in the modern NBA? Jokic is good enough on defense to win a title with if you surround him with enough talent.

The Nuggets problem is not going to be defense in the playoffs it's that they have one elite playmaker on the roster and their offense is going to completely fall apart every time Jokic goes to the bench.

[levon]

all of those suggest that he's got great hands, and is a good grounded defender. but if you apply just any speed or athleticism and he's not squared up, you're most likely getting a layup. if he's squared up in the halfcourt, he can absorb you with his chest and sometimes even block you. you have to get him in motion like in semi-transition

[Bologna Smasher]

I think Jokic is similar to Pau Gasol. Gasol always got slandered for poor defense, but he was average at worst, especially when he was with the Lakers. I think since both guys can be exploited in certain match ups and aren't very athletic, they automatically get a bad rep. The "soft euro" nonsense also doesn't help.

[mcmurphy]

A little statistical analysis courtesy of myself and a couple other folks...

1st among Centers in stl
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense/?sort=STL&dir=-1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

2nd in Deflections
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle/?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

3rd in Box Outs
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/box-outs/?sort=BOX_OUTS&dir=1

4th in Contested shots
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS&dir=1

1st in Contested Rebounds in entire NBA

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/rebounding/?sort=REB_CONTEST&dir=1

Nikola Jokic Advanced Stats categories:

Defensive Win Shares / 48 minutes: #1 in the entire league
Defensive Box +-: Tied for #1 in the entire league with Draymond Green
Defensive Rating: #5, behind perennial DPOY candidates like Gobert/Green

When will the casual fans interpretation of his game catch up to the statistically verifiable evidence?

add this:


how is possible for a defence cone had a DefRtg better of more of 4 points to his team average... mmmhhh, weird indeed

[Lockdown504090]

there are stats that show hes not as good as those will lead you to believe. I think watching a basketball game will tell you that hes improved from 2019 by a lot. is he good, yes. is good good enough at the center spot? thats another question entirely that we will see as his career goes on.

Can you win with a center playing just good defense, and you cant take them off the floor? thats interesting.

Do you want an actual answer to that question or are you just being rhetorical? Because obviously yes, you can win a title without an elite defensive center. Here are just a few examples:

2021 Milwaukee Bucks - started Brook Lopez at center. Solid defender specifically at drop coverage but can't really do a whole lot else.

2019 Toronto Raptors - started Marc Gasol at center who although still had good defensive BBIQ couldn't move very well at his advanced age and most metrics had him as the worst defender in the Raptor's starting lineup that season.

2018 Golden State Warriors - started Kevon Looney at center. Yes they often closed games with Draymond at the 5 but they started them and played long stretches with Kevon Looney and yet having a "non elite defensive center" somehow didn't torpedo them.

2017 Golden State Warriors - see above.

2016 Cleveland Cavaliers - started Tristan Thompson at center in the finals. Overall a pretty good defender. Calling him elite would be a stretch though.

2015 Golden State Warriors - started Andrew Bogut at center for some of the finals but he didn't play a whole lot. They had a hodgepodge of guys including Festus Ezili, David Lee, and Marreesse Speights play the 5 in this series. Lots of not great players defensively, they still did pretty okay all things considered.

2012 & 2013 Miami Heat - started Chris Bosh at center. Whether you consider Chris Bosh a great defender is really up to your interpretation I guess. He was certainly more of a Jokic defensively than an Embiid. Great at being in the right positions and closing off drives to the hoop, not as much of a traditional rim protector though. Either way they started him for offense not for defense and survived on that end of the floor due to their aggressive attacking of the ball handler on screens style and not because they had a center who could lock down the paint.

If you go further back in history you actually do see a lot of championship winning teams that did start elite or at least very good defensive centers. It was more important to have one in the past when the pace of basketball was slower and there was more of an emphasis on post up play than there is now. But in the modern NBA? Jokic is good enough on defense to win a title with if you surround him with enough talent.

The Nuggets problem is not going to be defense in the playoffs it's that they have one elite playmaker on the roster and their offense is going to completely fall apart every time Jokic goes to the bench.

Marc gasol didnt even play for us for half the season, and was amazing defensively both on the outside and inside in the playoffs. he spent half the season not playing any and the other half, learning a new team and getting ready for a championship run. The other guys here are all players that can be taken off when things are going badly. Chris bosh is like 10 years ago in a totally different nba. The warriors dont have championships because of looney or bogut, its because of death lineup. draymond.

we also wont see if it matters this year unless that roster miraculously gets healthy, so its still hard to say. Im also wondering if this is true of joel embiid, karl anthony towns, Vucivec as well.

[levon]

A little statistical analysis courtesy of myself and a couple other folks...

1st among Centers in stl
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense/?sort=STL&dir=-1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

2nd in Deflections
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle/?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

3rd in Box Outs
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/box-outs/?sort=BOX_OUTS&dir=1

4th in Contested shots
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS&dir=1

1st in Contested Rebounds in entire NBA

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/rebounding/?sort=REB_CONTEST&dir=1

Nikola Jokic Advanced Stats categories:

Defensive Win Shares / 48 minutes: #1 in the entire league
Defensive Box +-: Tied for #1 in the entire league with Draymond Green
Defensive Rating: #5, behind perennial DPOY candidates like Gobert/Green

When will the casual fans interpretation of his game catch up to the statistically verifiable evidence?

Specifically regarding DWS and DBox+-, those are heavily influenced by rebounding. Jokic averages nearly 14 a game, second only to Gobert, so that's really going to bolster him. Further, defensive metrics in general skew way too heavily towards bigs (and again bigs who rebound).

I actually believe the best defensive metrics would take versatility into account, and the fact that they don't currently is what makes them so noisy. Consider an offensive player who has real weaknesses on that end, but is so overpowering with his strengths that he can just score uber efficiently anyway. This isn't uncommon in the NBA. You can gameplan to take his strengths away, but you can't take away all of them enough to completely stymie him as a player and he still scores his average.

Defense is different. You can run lineups and actions to specifically exploit defenders' weaknesses, and unless the opposing coach adjusts, well, sometimes they can't even adjust. This is especially crucial at the 5 spot.

All this to say, defense is highly contextual. A generally dominant defender can be exploited in playoff competition if you target his weaknesses. Does that delegitimize the rest of his strengths? Of course not. But it places greater importance on his weaknesses. You don't observe this phenomenon as much on offense.

All this to say, I think the truly elite defenders are Draymond, Giannis, Anthony Davis in 2020 (if he ever returns) because they're incredibly versatile and crucial to your scheme. And not that they are all more mobile than a regular 5. The second tier of defenders are the ones that are elite at what they do, but have a few weaknesses. Basically I'm proposing you sort players by the number of glaring weaknesses, descending.

[TheHartBreakKid]

I thought this narrative was put to bed last year.

Jokic is a solid defender....above average certainly. He isn't Embiid, Giannis, or a healthy AD on that end, but he's certainly not Towns either.

[Statlanta]

The numbers are slightly noisy due to the team being forced to put bad defenders in their lineup this year like FaCu, or guys out of position like JaMychal Green.

He's definitely solid though no doubt.

[JujitsuFlip]

He's been a plus defender his entire career. People probably see a couple highlight reels of him not playing great defense and run with the narrative.

[maxpower8888]

I brought this up in the Jokic 49-point triple-double thread but I'm glad someone made a thread with more information. I believe that because he's a center and not a great shot blocker that he automatically gets labelled as a bad defender, but he does everything else really well. I don't believe he's an elite defender like those stats suggest, but he's still a very good defender.

[og15]

I think Jokic is similar to Pau Gasol. Gasol always got slandered for poor defense, but he was average at worst, especially when he was with the Lakers. I think since both guys can be exploited in certain match ups and aren't very athletic, they automatically get a bad rep. The "soft euro" nonsense also doesn't help.

You know I don't really recall many serious people calling prime Gasol poor on defense. I remember people calling Bulls and Spurs Gasol poor on defense, at least in regards to his ability to guard in space, but outside of the odd people, Gasol was generally considered a good defender in his best seasons by most.

[Duke4life831]

He's been a plus defender his entire career. People probably see a couple highlight reels of him not playing great defense and run with the narrative.

I think this is the real answer here. Jokic playing good defense doesn’t make highlights, he’s not flying high and getting blocks and stuff like that. His good defense is being in good position and making good rotations.

While on the flip side, when he does have a bad moment on defense, it can look really bad because he is unathletic. So his low moments look really low.

But in reality those low moments don’t happen too often and for the vast majority of the game, he’s playing very smart defense and putting himself in good positioning and rotating very well.

[ty 4191]

https://ca.nba.com/news/nikola-jokic-denver-nuggets-superstars-defensive-improvement-contributed-to-his-mvp-level-season/e4o1x1iytkr61rgnyyaaxz8j5

Excerpt:

"The numbers back that up as well.

This season, Jokic finished with a defensive real plus-minus of 1.96, according to ESPN. That number put him ahead of known quality defenders like Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green and Anthony Davis. Does that mean that Jokic is as good of a defender as those All-Defensive Team types? Of course not, but it does show that his impact defensively was a positive this season for the Nuggets.

According to Cleaning the Glass, opposing teams shot just under a third (31.0 percent) of their field goals within four feet of the rim when Jokic was on the floor, ranking him in the 80th percentile for his position. For comparison, Myles Turner, who led the league in blocks this season, saw opponents take 37.1 percent of their field goal attempts within four feet of the rim while he was on the floor, ranking him in the 11th percentile."

The Nuggets average 11 more points allowed when he is off the court, versus on the court.

He's clearly become a very good defensive player.

[ty 4191]

Here is Jokic's defensive evolution using a non box score based metric:

https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/