Best individual defensive performance against a elite offense

[falcolombardi]

What are the players who have took on the best offensive teams and players in the league and limited them to a huge degree as if they were any other team/player? What series are the best examples of this?

[Homer38]

LeBron vs 2016 warriors and Mutombo vs sonics in 1994 are the top of my head

[Colbinii]

2004 KG vs Kings
Held a 110+ Ortg Kings to 100.8 Ortg

[LukaTheGOAT]

Patrick Ewing vs Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1994 Finals (IA per 75):

•) 19.6 points
•) 12.9 rebounds
•) 1.7 assists
•) 1.3 steals
•) 4.5 blocks
•) -10.7 opponent-adjusted rTS%
•) Rockets were a -4.9 defense (really good)

Ewing’s scoring in the 1994 playoffs before facing Hakeem:

▪️Averaged 23.1 PPG on 54% TS

How Ewing scored in the ‘94 Finals vs Hakeem: Averaged 18.9 PPG on 39%(!) TS

Hakeem shut down an elite center; you usually don't see 1 on 1 defense lead to stars getting locked down, but I think this is one of those special cases where Hakeem's defense was that special.

[OhayoKD]

ewing vs the bulls has to be up there

[BenoUdrihFTL]

I'm gonna take a different approach and cite Gary Payton's individual performance of individual defense against Jordan in games 4-6 of the 1996 Finals and apply this to the entire Bulls offense under a "cutting off the head of the snake" concept of team defense

'96 Bulls posted a historically robust 115.2 ORTG (+7.6 relative). At the time it was the 4th highest ORTG in NBA history, behind only the '87 Lakers, '92 Bulls and '88 Celtics. It would remain top 5 until the KD Warriors formed in 2017 (today the entire top 10 consists of teams from 2020-2022 lol)

George Karl notoriously opted against having Payton take the Jordan assignment in games 1-3. Didn't work out so well for Seattle, so with his back against the wall, Karl then made the move to Payton on Jordan full-time for the remainder of the series

Games 1-3: Jordan 31.0 PPG on 58.7% TS, Bulls 120.7 ORTG
Games 4-6: Jordan 23.7 PPG on 48.5% TS, Bulls 101.7 ORTG

[120.7 would be the highest ORTG in NBA history by a substantial margin (gap between that and actual #1 alltime '21 Nets would be greater than '21 Nets and actual #10 alltime '22 Hawks). 101.7 would've been a -5.9 rORTG in 1996 and 2nd worst in the league behind the historically brutal -10.0 expansion Vancouver Grizzlies]

Of course this could all be an instance of mere correlation rather than real causation, but I wouldn't bet on it

[Chronz]

2004 KG vs Kings
Held a 110+ Ortg Kings to 100.8 Ortg

Cwebb ruined that team with his return tho