I wanna preface by saying this isn’t a fire JB post. I like the changes our offense has made and playing more loose and with pace is gonna be huge in the postseason. I’m also not suggesting we burn the org down because we lost to a solid thunder team while out our second and fourth best player. Imagine if Chet and JDub were out for the Thunder. So I’m not claiming this loss means that much.

But I was listening to the Fear the Fro pod on my commute to work this morning (shout-out Bob he’s great if you’ve never listened, give it a try), and he brought up two key possessions at the end of the game on defense that led to the back to back to back triples from the Thunder. On the first one, Caris leaves a wide open Shai on the line to help. The next one was just good ball movement by the Thunder so oh well. But then the third one was similar where Mobley leaves Chet to help Okoro with a driving Isaiah Joe. Now, Joe is a decent player but Okoro is our best 1-1 defender for guards we have. There’s zero reason Evan needs to help in that situation. Not to mention the fact that we are up NINE (!) points before that run started with like two minutes to go. We do not need to worry too much about some layups or mid range jumpers.

My main point with this is JB needs to understand that while help defense is a key part of this defense, the amount of times we do it hurts more than helps. We need to be defending the 3pt line in this situation, not leaving guys open. This was a big problem against the Knicks too, where we could never get our bigs in a good position to rebound, because they were always helping another teammate on defense. JB has to adjust to this and not stress help D every single moment, because these guys are not stupid players. I believe they are being coached to always do this.

Granted, there’s a lot of reasons we lost this game. The refs (for both sides mind you) were atrocious, JB and Strus needed to not get Ts. JB in general has to be hated by refs because 90% of the game he’s bitching to them. Donovan had an incredible game but airmailed the last shot, and what was that playcall anyway? You play with movement and space all game and then sit four guys on the wings for a Don iso? That’s lame basketball unless you have LeBron or KD or Steph on your team imo. But the help defense mindset needs an on and off switch, and that’s on the coaches.

Go Cavs.