Defensive rating : 98 Bulls have the best defence / half season without Pip?

[Nikola_]

Better than all of those championship teams. I know its relative to the league but shows how picking random stats can be deceiving...

[Nikola_]

Inb4 offensively challenged league

[3ball]

Pippen's mythical defense is one of the biggest myths in sports history

[Smoke117]

Pippen's mythical defense is one of the biggest myths in sports history

Yeah, he only carried the 95 bulls to the 2nd best defensive team in the league, but yeah he’s overrrated. You ****ing gorilla ****wit ape...shut your ****ing face.

[Roundball_Rock]

The Bulls finished 3rd in defensive rating in 98'. They had years better than that, including being 1st. They were even 2nd in 95' with no Grant, no Rodman, and only 17 games of MJ.

They were 4th best in points allowed without Pippen (88.2). That number actually got slightly worse with Pippen returning.

The "documentary" talked about this--Rodman stepped up his commitment to help fill the temporary void. When Pippen returned, he took the foot off the gas. It is one thing to hold down the fort for 35 games and another for 82 games, as the Rose-era Bulls would sadly learn.

Where the Bulls went off the rails was on offense. They went from #1 in scoring in 97' to #18 without Pippen in 98'. The decline was greater than what they experienced when MJ retired:

https://backpicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Bulls-efficiencies-Pippen-93-to-98.png


Yeah, he only carried the 95 bulls to the 2nd best defensive team in the league, but yeah he’s overrrated. You ****ing gorilla ****wit ape...shut your ****ing face.

In a similar vein, the Bulls' defense improved when MJ retired too.

[3ball]

The Bulls finished 3rd in defensive rating in 98'. They had years better than that, including being 1st. They were even 2nd in 95' with no Grant, no Rodman, and only 17 games of MJ.

They were 4th best in points allowed without Pippen (88.2). That number actually got slightly worse with Pippen returning.

The "documentary" talked about this--Rodman stepped up his commitment to help fill the temporary void. When Pippen returned, he took the foot off the gas. It is one thing to hold down the fort for 35 games and another for 82 games, as the Rose-era Bulls would sadly learn.

Where the Bulls went off the rails was on offense. They went from #1 in scoring in 97' to #18 without Pippen in 98'. The decline was greater than what they experienced when MJ retired:

https://backpicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Bulls-efficiencies-Pippen-93-to-98.png



In a similar vein, the Bulls' defense improved when MJ retired too.

^^^ simply listing graphs and stats means nothing without explanation..


Defensive rank

91-93' Bulls..... 7th, 4th, 7th
1994.. Bulls..... 6th


Offensive rank

91-93' Bulls........ #1 all-time
1994.. Bulls..... #14 in league


So MJ's bulls had the goat offense, but still maintained the same level defense as 1994... MJ enabled a 2-way team

And since the bulls had the same defensive rank in 1994, their drop-off from goat modern dynasty to 2nd Round team was due entirely to the loss of MJ's goat offense

(teams have a finite amount of energy to spend on both ends - increased efforts on one end generally take away from the other end.. but again, MJ was the goat 2-way player and therefore allowed a 2-way team)

[999Guy]

That’s actually pretty crazy for it be so one sided and he played half the season.

IIRC, the same thing was shown in 94 when he missed a stretch.


Still, Scottie wasn’t blessed with the quickest feet and was vulnerable to quick dribble penetration. Most top-shelf perimeter defenders do not make a lot of errors, but some will rack them up trying to contain elite penetrators.2 In my sample, Pippen had a relatively high error rate, around 2 per 100 (16th percentile), but he offset this by suffocating slower opponents.
Nice way of saying he couldn’t be depended upon to slow down high level athletes, which the NBA is usually full of. Less so on the perimeter in the 90’s but still applies.

And his rim protection is average.

Just watching him I never ever felt Pippen was this amazing defender. He doesn’t jump out the page in much except his frame. But Jerome Kersey or Robert Horry did the whole athletic 6’8 hustle defender thing better. They get none of the same acclaim as these all-time guys.

However the Drexler/Pippen offensive rebounding/slashing/cutting/strong passing archetype is obviously high level offense.