Anyway, as I'm impatiently waiting for the Melo decision, I came upon something interesting when looking at Chicago's roster. Which is that despite their defensive reputation, their playoff defense has been lacking the past couple of years. I don't know if this was part of Morey's presentation to Melo, but I think there's some merit to it. Anyway, the stats. I use Defensive Rating(which is points-per-100-possessions) from Basketball Reference. 2014 Regular Season Defense: 102.5 Against Wizards (ORtg of 106 in RS): 108.9 Result: Chicago defense dropped by 6.4 in the playoffs. Wizards bested their regular season performance by 2.9 2013 Regular Season Defense: 103.2 Against Nets(ORtg of 108.2 in RS): 108.6 Against Heat(ORtg of 112.3 in RS): 114.1 Result: Chicago defense dropped by 5.4 against Nets and 10.9 against the Heat. Both opponents scored more than their regular season performance. 2012 Regular Season Defense: 98.3 Against Sixers(ORtg of 103.9 in RS): 98.4 Result: Chicago defense was basically the same in the playoffs against the 20th ranked offense in the NBA. Sixers offense dropped below their norm. But you know something? Omer Asik's DRtg in the series: 93. Noah's DRtg in the series? 105. The following year, Morey signed the TRUE DPOY on the Bulls and look at Chicago's playoff defense since. The media makes it out like Chicago's defense is god-like. But this is incorrect. They WERE good. Back when Rose was healthy and their bench had Gibson, Korver, Asik, and CJ Watson. Then then the replaced them with crap, and since then, they've been living on reputation and hard work. When the playoffs come around and all teams start to play hard, their defense has failed.
Nice data but to play devil's advocate: 1. By the time that team gets to the playoffs they're probably worn out from the 82-game season. The past two years they've had to play above their expected level since Rose has been out, using more energy to get the wins needed to put themselves into the playoffs. 2. The teams they faced against in the playoffs aren't too shabby on defense either. Wizards: 104.6 defensive rating (8th in the league) Nets: 106.2 (17th in the league) Heat: 103.7 (9th in the league) When your team can't score and you go up against an average to top tier defense like Chicago had the past two seasons, I would think your defense also suffers to a certain extent. 3. They traded Luol Deng away last year and he's a very good defender. You can't subtract a player like Deng and put in a Dunleavy and expect similar results on the defensive end. Is it a mirage? I don't think so. Is it elite? I don't think they've been elite for the past 2-3 years. They play a grit and grind defense that can slow down teams but, in the end, that puts a lot of wear and tear on its players.
Thibodeau's teams have a quality that JVG teams had: they play at the highest gear during the regular season, and most teams/players don't do that. This means that when the playoffs roll around, they don't have another gear to go to, while other teams do. Purely observation on my part, but that's what it looks like to me.
Please, you think Melo hasn't watched the Rockets flaming out in the playoffs? It's only featured everywhere on youtube and in gif form. And the Rockets were blasted left and right by everyone in the media. But no one ever talks about how Chicago sucked in the playoffs. People only talk about how they scrapped their way through the season without Rose and look at how much they've accomplished. When they've failed much harder than the Rockets.
I agree. But that's also kind of my point. They used to have much better defensive players. Deng, Butler, Asik, Bogans, and now they don't have that defensive depth anymore.
Oh, okay, so Morey should have said, "Look, look Melo, look, we're not the only team that sucked in the playoffs, see. They sucked too, Mr. Melo. Wah, wah, wah."?
I see what you're saying but the difference between what Chicago did in the regular season and the playoffs (a minus 6.4) according to your calculations is pretty miniscule compared to what the Rockets did: Regular season def rating: 106.3 Portland's off rating vs Rockets: 115.3 That's a -9.0 or basically almost surrendering 10 more points in the playoffs. In comparison: Spurs regular season def rating: 102.4 Dallas off rating: 110.9 difference: -8.5
But the title of the thread doesn't ask for specific times (e.g. regular season or playoffs). I know it's nitpicking but the answer lies somewhere in between: yes their defense is crazy good in the regular season but can be said to be average in the playoffs. If you're talking strictly playoffs, then sure I'll agree with you that the defense Chicago deploys is a myth.
The difference with playoffs is that you have to match up with different teams and teams will gameplan you. So depth is important because it gives you versatility. As for the response to your above post on the Rockets. Well, everyone already believes we are horrendous on D. Not a single person would say Chicago's mediocre at it though.
Well, thank you for the umm... insightful analysis. But okay. If you feel it's in the Rockets best interest for Melo to buy into the "Rockets suck and Chicago is awesome storyline" that every casual observer has pointed out in the past few months, so be it.
And I realize that. I just think that you can't say Chicago's defense is any type of "mirage" just because they do worse in the playoffs because, like you said, match ups factors in (e.g. my example of the Dallas/SA series). For the most part, Chicago is a very good defensive team for what they had which was a plus defender in Noah, Gibson, and Butler but negatives everywhere else.
