Is defense really half the game?

[superduper]

Im as big of a defense advocate as anyone you'll meet. It's my bread and butter IRL but it's no secret that insanely good offense ends up edging out insanely good defense more often than not. When people say defense is half the game it is presumed that people are weighing it out 50/50 but that's not really the case, is it?

Would people say its 40% of the game? 60/40? Something like that? How would you truly measure great defensive impact compared to great offensive impact?

[NBAGOAT]

individual defense isnt as impactful as individual offense because it's more evenly spread among role players but overall it should be roughly 50/50. It's a true in a 1v1, good offense can beat good defense but that's when really good defenses start doubling a lot.

[3ball]

A poster was praising Paul George by telling me the virtues of his "activity on defense"

But the reality is that Steve Kerr was "active" on defense and Kyrie was on the #1 defense in the league in Boston

Everyone is "active" in a good team defense .... Good team defense is more about teamwork and culture than any 1 player being "active"...

That's why scoring has the highest correlation with salary.. plenty of good defenders are paid pennies compared to good offensive players... Teams know they can mold a defense and players

[superduper]

individual defense isnt as impactful as individual offense because it's more evenly spread among role players but overall it should be roughly 50/50. It's a true in a 1v1, good offense can beat good defense but that's when really good defenses start doubling a lot.

Interesting. Okay then let's say we're comparing team defense to a great-GOAT level offensive player, does that change your answer?

[Manny98]

You literally spend half of the game playing defense so yh

Although Big men impact the game defensively a lot more than guards can

[NBAGOAT]

Interesting. Okay then let's say we're comparing team defense to a great-GOAT level offensive player, does that change your answer?

well i mean defense overall is 50% of the game, not talking about individual team defense which includes like versatility, playing passing lanes, help defense etc. It's still really important however

Not definitive but scaled apm(impact metric) has top offensive players in the +6 range, defense is more in +4 to +5. so if you're 2nd tier offensive great and great defender, you can be more impactful than the best offensive player if he's average defensively. This is kobe's problem really compared to the peaks of other all time greats, his offensive impact from 06-08 is elite.

[NBAGOAT]

A poster was praising Paul George by telling me the virtues of his "activity on defense"

But the reality is that Steve Kerr was "active" on defense and Kyrie was on the #1 defense in the league in Boston

Everyone is "active" in a good team defense .... Good team defense is more about teamwork and culture than any 1 player being "active"...

That's why scoring has the highest correlation with salary.. plenty of good defenders are paid pennies compared to good offensive players... Teams know they can mold a defense and players

that was me. Paying for scoring is trending down however. Tj warren just got traded by the suns like he was a negative asset. Demar derozan could make like half of what gobert does his next contract. Draymond was underpaid and still makes more than plenty of good scorers

[SouBeachTalents]

Yes

[ArbitraryWater]

OP evidently still confused about how basketball works

[72-10]

it's supposed to be

[brooks_thompson]

Creating a good shot in basketball gives you a 50% chance to score on average.

Defending shots gives you a chance to knock the FG percentage down 5%, maybe 10% tops on average.

These are obviously very ballpark figures, but the payoff for getting a defensive stop is nowhere near as great as the payoff for scoring, simply because the offense gets a +2 on the scoreboard while the defense gets no change. Offense is the only side that moves the scoreboard.

But then again, what works in theory is a lot different than what's important in the last 3 minutes of a close game.

[LAmbruh]

op has never played basketball :oldlol:

[superduper]

op has never played basketball :oldlol:

I'll destroy you

[tpols]

Defense is more team dependant. if youre surrounded by shit defenders you wont have a good defense.

Where as offense can be concentrated in an individual. like a sun shedding light and life.

You could have an 06 Kobe who leads a top offense with no help... ben wallace wouldnt be shit if he had sieves surrounding him.

there are rare outliers like kevin garnett who are so good man, help, and motivationally but they are outliers.

offense > defense.

[72-10]

Ben Wallace was so good at finding the ball man

[BarberSchool]

64/36 in current era.
In 70's, it got AS HIGH as 86/14, no joke.

[Bronbron23]

Im as big of a defense advocate as anyone you'll meet. It's my bread and butter IRL but it's no secret that insanely good offense ends up edging out insanely good defense more often than not. When people say defense is half the game it is presumed that people are weighing it out 50/50 but that's not really the case, is it?

Would people say its 40% of the game? 60/40? Something like that? How would you truly measure great defensive impact compared to great offensive impact?
It may not be exactly 50/50 but it's almost as important as offence.

I also think that good offence beating good defence is one of those overrated sayings. I've seen good defence Trump good offence many times.

[StrongLurk]

I made like a 1,000 response thread earlier this year stating that defense is in fact NOT half of the game.

It's more like 25%...but it's always been like this.

[GimmeThat]

same question as to the OTC what would you rather have?

but yes, the top 5 PER colluding Chris Bosh would know

[ILLsmak]

D is more than half the gm. It has way higher consistency than offense. What people get mixed up with is... Everyone can score. Scoring is a given. The only teams Ive seen just blast other teams out offensively, in a series, were just so much better overall. They probably had the advantage in other places like rebounding, too.

This might be weird n total bullshit but imagine you can lower your opponent fg% by two or three percentage points (for 82 gms or a playoff.) That would win a lot of games. It probably would have a similar impact if you raised yours, but it seems much easier to Lower theirs than suddenly start making more shots.

The nba is weird now and one could argue three point shooting is the most important but that's because people just jack threes. I suppose contesting those threes w o fouling ( e g defense) is important too. But the way the game goes people are gonna get their looks and get their 40 3pas.

Edit or check this out ill blow ur mind twice. Imagine everyone could score at an atg level. Imagine both teams normally shot 90% from the field, but one team could hold teams to 85%. Defense would still be half or more of the game haha. If u understand that, u can be my first ish friend.

-Smak

[DukeDelonte13]

in today's league it's like 20% of the game. It was more significant during the early 2000's, 90's.

Now its all about putting up fast shots before the D can even gets set and spamming as many 3's as you can.

[superduper]

D is more than half the gm. It has way higher consistency than offense. What people get mixed up with is... Everyone can score. Scoring is a given. The only teams Ive seen just blast other teams out offensively, in a series, were just so much better overall. They probably had the advantage in other places like rebounding, too.

This might be weird n total bullshit but imagine you can lower your opponent fg% by two or three percentage points (for 82 gms or a playoff.) That would win a lot of games. It probably would have a similar impact if you raised yours, but it seems much easier to Lower theirs than suddenly start making more shots.

The nba is weird now and one could argue three point shooting is the most important but that's because people just jack threes. I suppose contesting those threes w o fouling ( e g defense) is important too. But the way the game goes people are gonna get their looks and get their 40 3pas.

Edit or check this out ill blow ur mind twice. Imagine everyone could score at an atg level. Imagine both teams normally shot 90% from the field, but one team could hold teams to 85%. Defense would still be half or more of the game haha. If u understand that, u can be my first ish friend.

-Smak

That's a very interesting way to look at it Smak. Although I don't agree that it would still be half the game in that scenario, still very interesting.

Thanks bud.

[ImKobe]

Not really during the RS when teams are trying different things and not playing their key players as much but defensive adjustments win Playoff series just as much as offensive ones do, whether it's building a wall around Giannis and forcing the ball out of his hands or whether it's trapping Curry and leaving all the non-shooters wide open like the Raptors did in the Finals.

Offense is definitely more important than defense in this era but how many teams in the past 10 years have won a championship without at least a top 10 defense? I can only think of two (2016 Cavs and 2018 Warriors, who coasted in the RS but played elite defense in the Playoffs).

[guy]

Yes it

[superduper]

[QUOTE=guy]Yes it

[Manny98]

op has never played basketball :oldlol:
This :oldlol:

[guy]

That's a good point but I feel like one individual all time GOAT level defender can also affect the overall team defense and GOAT team defense is the one way to stop (or limit) a GOAT offensive level player.

The guys I mentioned plus other all-time great offensive players can literally get their team a win by taking over offensively while the rest of their teammates are playing like dogsh*t offensively. There

[dankok8]

For a team, it's by definition half of the game.

For individual players it varies by position. For C and PF I'd rank defense as more important than offense. In the last few years though with 3pt shots being so emphasized and no hand checking, perimeter defense is growing in importance. Lazy guards get taken advantage of a lot more than in past eras. Ten years ago, I'd say offense/defense it was 80:20 for PG but now I'd say 70:30.

[paksat]

Im as big of a defense advocate as anyone you'll meet. It's my bread and butter IRL but it's no secret that insanely good offense ends up edging out insanely good defense more often than not. When people say defense is half the game it is presumed that people are weighing it out 50/50 but that's not really the case, is it?

Would people say its 40% of the game? 60/40? Something like that? How would you truly measure great defensive impact compared to great offensive impact?

I had a football guy once explain it to me in the best way I've ever seen.

to summarize:

- defense travels on the road far better than offense
- great defense is far more consistent than great offense

[superduper]

This :oldlol:

Let the big boys talk kid your immature trolling isn't needed in every thread

[ILLsmak]

That's a good point but I feel like one individual all time GOAT level defender can also affect the overall team defense and GOAT team defense is the one way to stop (or limit) a GOAT offensive level player.

yea if his team isn't awful. Basically if someone is a GOAT level defender his team needs to know that. The same way you feed a guy on offense, you need to know if he thinks something is happening in a certain spot and goes there, one of the lesser defenders needs to be in there to pick up so someone doesn't get an open shot or lay up. It's a 'hard' rotation for the GOAT defender (but he can do it cuz he is) and an easy rotation for the non goat defender, but if they just stand there looking and a guy gets shots n dunks over and over, then the GOAT defender has to go back to playing his own guy and really can't do shit.

There is a fundamental consistency to defense that basically anyone can do. Guys have to protect each other and certain spots. You can teach that. In that framework, a GOAT level defender can do a lot because he knows if he goes to a higher threat area and leaves a lesser threat area, someone will pick up the slack. But y'know you throw a GOAT defender on a bad team, he's not gonna do much... he will if he's a big but that's because so much happens around the rim anyway. But a GOAT wing can have just as much impact if his guys are half way competent, imo.

-Smak

[Spurs m8]

Its 50/50 in any proper sport.

This league has gone weak and soft...hence things like James Hardens inflated stats

[brooks_thompson]

D is more than half the gm. It has way higher consistency than offense. What people get mixed up with is... Everyone can score. Scoring is a given. The only teams Ive seen just blast other teams out offensively, in a series, were just so much better overall. They probably had the advantage in other places like rebounding, too.

This might be weird n total bullshit but imagine you can lower your opponent fg% by two or three percentage points (for 82 gms or a playoff.) That would win a lot of games. It probably would have a similar impact if you raised yours, but it seems much easier to Lower theirs than suddenly start making more shots.

The nba is weird now and one could argue three point shooting is the most important but that's because people just jack threes. I suppose contesting those threes w o fouling ( e g defense) is important too. But the way the game goes people are gonna get their looks and get their 40 3pas.

Edit or check this out ill blow ur mind twice. Imagine everyone could score at an atg level. Imagine both teams normally shot 90% from the field, but one team could hold teams to 85%. Defense would still be half or more of the game haha. If u understand that, u can be my first ish friend.

-Smak

I said this all of this pretty much on the previous page with a bit of a different conclusion.

[EllEffEll]

My $0.02

Bill Russell's 11 championships rings suggest that defense is a high priority to win championships.

The 80's Denver Nuggets tried to blatantly out-offense the league and ignore defense and they never won sh!t. Super entertaining though.

Mike D'Antoni has tried the same thing several times, and hasn't won sh!t.

Pat Riley's mantra with the Showtime Lakers was "No rebounds, no rings." Their blitzkrieg fast breaking style was predicated on getting steals and rebounds to ignite a quick easy scoring opportunity.

Same thing in most sports. Good pitching generally prevents good hitting. Look at the teams that win the World Cup, they are generally stellar defensively if you care to look into it.

It does seem that the NFL and NBA have tried to make it easier to score points in recent years, and they did lower the pitcher's mound and 'adjust' the strike zone in baseball.

I think it's easier to be consistent defensively, and good defense will give you a chance to win. Consistently good offense is harder to achieve, and I think that is partially why it is rewarded more so than good defense. And scoring is more 'sexy' than preventing the opponent from scoring to many fans.

The old saying is that offense wins games, but defense wins championships.

[Ass Dan]

No, its talking head bullshit.

Defense truly only comes close in big moments in big games (needing a stop like needing a bucket).

[elementally morale]

If you are a good defensive team, it's actually more than half the game. It your team is a great offensive team, defense is less than half the game for you.

It's not that hard to figure out.

[ClipperRevival]

It's not a numbers thing but a mindset. To me, if you don't care about D, that tells me you aren't all into winning. It's that simple. It's about pride and defending your territory. If you care, you D up. That's why I could never respect players who didn't go all out on D.

Every time you step on that court, your goal should be to do whatever you can to help your team win, and obviously, D is half the game in that regard.

[Akeem34TheDream]

It's not a numbers thing but a mindset. To me, if you don't care about D, that tells me you aren't all into winning. It's that simple. It's about pride and defending your territory. If you care, you D up. That's why I could never respect players who didn't go all out on D.

Every time you step on that court, your goal should be to do whatever you can to help your team win, and obviously, D is half the game in that regard.
Yeah but in my thread(KD or KG) you said goat tier offense>goat tier defense. So you think offense matters more.

[ClipperRevival]

Yeah but in my thread(KD or KG) you said goat tier offense>goat tier defense. So you think offense matters more.

Apples and oranges sir. In this thread, I give you my overall take on D. In that other thread, it's a comparison between 2 specific players. Greatest premium in bball is the ability to take over a game offensively. Both KD and KG cared about D but only 1 guy was GOAT tier offensively too. Now granted, KG's D is a tier better than KD's but I take KD's combo O/D over KG's. Don't get me wrong, I love KG. He's in my top 17. But give me KD.

[LAmbruh]

OP has literally never hooped :lol