The Cavaliers Need Isaiah Thomas…To Help Their Defense

When informed that he needed to improve his defensive effort in order to stay in the rotation, former Cavalier Sasha Pavlovic once told coach Mike Brown that “my defense is my offense“, meaning that what he did as a scorer would more than offset any poor defensive effort. As a coach noted for his emphasis on the defensive end, Brown wasn’t thrilled with the reply, to say the least. While Pavlovic has claimed that he was joking, it was still quite the statement from a player who averaged just 4.9 points per game over ten seasons, and was out of the NBA before his thirtieth birthday.

Joking or not, Pavolic was wildly overrating his offensive capabilities with this statement, which undoubtedly frustrated his coach. It was also frustrating because he was an athletic wing with good size who simply disappeared from games far too often. Still, while Pavlovic’s comment didn’t apply to the man himself, the idea that a player’s offense could help his team’s defense may be true for other players, including current Cavalier point guard, Isaiah Thomas.

At first glance, the idea that Thomas can help in any way on defense seems far-fetched. Obviously, both his offensive abilities and defensive deficiencies are well known. Thomas is a two-time All Star who was voted Second Team All-NBA last season. He finished third in the league in scoring at 28.9 points per game, and was fifth in the voting for NBA MVP, finishing just behind his new teammate, LeBron James. Unfortunately, he’s also 5’9″ at best, and was rated as the worst defensive player in the league by ESPN’s Real-Plus Minus statistic. So, while Thomas’s offense was good enough to make him a net positive player on the floor, his defense did offset a significant amount of his value.

Despite his obvious physical challenges—and the undeniable fact the he is a poor defender—there are still several ways that Thomas may be able to help a Cavaliers defense that struggled tremendously prior to their current four-game win streak, and is still ranked as the worst in the league per 100 possessions.

Transition Defense

One of the Cavaliers’ worst defensive traits has been their poor transition defense. This is no surprise when you consider their typically poor defensive effort, as well as the fact that they are the oldest team in the league. However, it’s not as if opposing teams are simply running down court as fast as they can every time they have the ball. Transition opportunities primarily come off of turnovers and missed shots, and those are two areas where Thomas can help.

So far this season, the Cavaliers have started Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert, and LeBron James at point guard. While the expectations for Rose were relatively low after he signed a one-year contract for the veteran’s minimum, he has still disappointed. Don’t let the 14 points per game and solid shooting percentages from the floor and free throw line fool you, Rose’s negatives far outweigh his positives. His struggles include shooting just 23% from beyond arc on nearly two attempts per game, poor defense, and worst of all, his turnovers. Rose is currently averaging 2.7 turnovers against just 1.7 assists per game, an atrocious number, especially when you consider that most point guards average at least two assists for every turnover. Rose’s turnovers and missed threes allow teams to get out in transition, where the Cavaliers struggle defensively, and his lack of off ball movement and poor outside shooting lets defenders ignore him when he doesn’t have the ball. Combine that with his own poor defense, and it’s little wonder that the Cavaliers have been significantly better when Rose is off the floor.

Rose has been so bad that fans have been excited to see him replaced by Iman Shumpert, formerly the object of their derision. Shumpert had been decent coming off the bench to start the year, shooting 44.8% from the field, and 36.4% from three. He played solid defense, and was keeping his attacks off the dribble to a minimum, always a good thing for him. Unfortunately, his play has slipped since replacing Rose in the starting lineup. Since then, Shumpert is shooting just 33% from the field, and 21% from deep. While his turnovers haven’t seemed as rampant, he’s actually averaging 1.4 per game, his most since joining the Cavaliers, while playing a career-low 22 minutes per game. His 1.4 assists per game also equal his career-low from last season. In fairness to Shumpert, he isn’t a true point guard, but like Rose, his propensity for turnovers and poor outside shooting allow opposing teams to get out in transition.

Defenders of Rose and Shumpert would say that their poor play is due to injuries. While that may be true, both players have been injury prone throughout their careers, so that’s part of the deal with them. They can’t be expected to stay healthy after these injuries because they never have before. While Thomas’s detractors will point to his poor individual defense due to his lack of size, Rose isn’t much better, and Shumpert’s one-on-one efforts are often diminished by his poor team defense.

This leaves us with LeBron James. Obviously, James has (yet again) been phenomenal on the offensive end this season. He’s averaging career highs from the field and free throw line, and is at or above his career average in every other statistical category except steals per game. It’s absolutely amazing that this man is in his fifteenth year in the NBA and shows no signs of slowing down. He’s played everywhere from point guard to center, and has carried the Cavaliers as they’ve begun to right the ship with a four-game win streak. Yet even LeBron has his flaws, and they have been exaggerated with the lack of another creator on the perimeter.

The two areas James has struggled with are turnovers and defense. He is currently averaging a career-worst 4.7 turnovers per game. This is up from his previous worst of 4.1 turnovers per game last season. While James has typically paced himself on defense during the past few regular seasons, both problems seem to be exaggerated due to the burden he is carrying on the offensive end. Without another high-level playmaker in the starting lineup, teams are able to key in on James and his passing in ways they haven’t been able to since his first run with the Cavaliers. This is leading to more turnovers and more attempts in transition for the other team (we have a theme here). His burden as a playmaker may also be the reason he is putting less effort in on the defensive end until the closing minutes of games. Obviously, James shouldn’t be guarding the opposing team’s best player all game, every game. That kind of effort would wear him down well before the playoffs. But his unwillingness to rotate and close out on opposing shooters has allowed opponents to get open shots that they simply wouldn’t have if James had just played solid team defense. Both of these things have had a hugely detrimental effect on the Cavaliers’ defense, as shown by the fact that their net rating is actually worse with James on the floor, a statistic that likely won’t last, but is noticeable regardless.

Kaminsky drives inside to give @hornets the lead.

We've got a close one on ESPN! #BuzzCity #AllForOne pic.twitter.com/93x1BrZdf1

— NBA (@NBA) November 16, 2017

So how does Thomas help fix these defensive issues? Well for one, he has to stay healthy. There’s no doubt that Thomas’s hip issues have are serious in terms of how they can impact his basketball career. Still, for argument’s sake, let’s assume he does come back healthy. Thomas hasn’t missed major time at any point in his career prior to this season, so it’s not exactly fair to call him injury-prone. If he can come back and even put up numbers around his career averages (which is what we’ll measure him by for this piece) if not his MVP-type numbers from last season, that would be a huge improvement over what the Cavaliers have gotten from the point guard spot this season.

Let’s start by looking at the passing. While Thomas’s career average of 2.3 turnovers per game doesn’t seem that much worse than Rose’s 2.8 mark, that’s one fewer turnover every two games. Some will point out that Thomas actually averaged more turnovers per game last season than Rose has this season, but Thomas also averaged 5.9 assists per game last season.  Thomas has also had a better assist-to-turnover ratio than Rose in every season since Rose tore his ACL in the 2012 playoffs. While Shumpert has averaged fewer turnovers than the other two men due to having the ball in his hands less, he also averages fewer assists. Thomas is the only one of the three players with an assist-to-turnover ratio of over 2:1, with his own mark being 2.26:1. He’ll have far more passes that lead to points for his team than those that lead to scoring for the opposition.

There’s also the matter of putting the ball in the basket. Thomas is a good outside shooter with a career mark of 36.7% from deep. His 49% career mark on two-point attempts is also better than that of either Rose or Shumpert. He also has a career True Shooting Percentage of 58.5%, which is 6.4% higher than Rose, and a whopping 8.6% higher than Shumpert. Thomas also gets to the line considerably more often than either player, averaging 5.5 free throw attempts per game for his career, and shooting 87.6% from the line. It’s hard for teams to get out and run when their opponents are scoring, and Isaiah Thomas is very good at that. Teams won’t be able to get out and run off of his offense the way they have with Rose and Shumpert handling the ball.

Thomas’s return will also relieve James of a good amount of the playmaking burden he has dealt with. While James will still have the ball in his hands more than any other player, Thomas will be given plenty of opportunities to create as well. It’s much harder for opposing defenses to key in on two playmakers instead of one, and there’s a good chance that James’s turnovers will decrease significantly as he and Thomas learn to play together. Having a lighter burden on offense could also prompt James to give a bit more effort on the defensive end, where he is still great when motivated.

Lineups

The other defensive advantage of Thomas’s return could come in the form of the starting lineup. While Lue had reinserted Tristan Thompson as the starting center before he went down with a strained left calf, the lack of shooting from the point guard position caused the offense to struggle. Whenever Thompson shares the floor with Rose, Shumpert, or Dwyane Wade, it means that there at least two poor/non outside shooters on the floor, limiting the spacing for the offense as defenses don’t have to guard those players away from the basket. With Thomas back, the Cavaliers would once again have shooting at all of the guard and forward positions, making it much easier to start a non-shooter like Thompson at center. While Thompson was off to a rough start to the season (To be fair, there were rumors of a leg injury before the strained calf.), the same could be said for most of his teammates. Thompson is still a high-level rebounder who guards the pick-and-roll extremely well while switching onto smaller guards. He also provides the Cavaliers’ only real rim protection. Thompson will never be a star, but he is a terrific glue player who fills in a lot of holes for the Cavaliers. The additions of Thompson and Thomas to the starting lineup should give it a balance of passing, shooting, defense, and rebounding that it has been lacking.

Isaiah Thomas is running full court and shooting at both ends

— Joe Vardon (@joevardon) November 19, 2017

With today’s news, it seems as if Thomas may return well before the original target of January. For those who have followed his career, that should come as no surprise. This is a man who has gone from being the last pick in the 2011 NBA Draft to becoming one of the stars of this league. He’s beaten tremendous obstacles so many times that it would be foolish to bet against him doing so again. Whenever Isaiah Thomas does return to action, don’t be surprised to see the Cavaliers drastically improve on both ends of the floor.