The biggest issue the Cleveland Cavaliers have had this season has been their ability to lock teams down defensively. The team’s offense has been fantastic thus far, but defensively, Cleveland’s inability to stop anyone has made headlines — at one point earlier this year, they were on pace to have the worst defense in league history.
But the team has made some strides over the last few games. Cleveland’s defense has been better, which has led to a five-game winning streak. As Justin Rowan of Fear the Sword pointed out, the team has been among the best in the league at keeping opponents from scoring during that stretch.
There is some bad news, though: The Cavs’ defense has been so bad this year that their recent form on defense hasn’t brought them out of the league’s cellar with regards to defensive efficiency.
Over the last 5 games the Cavs have had a 100.8 DRTG, which would be 5th in the league.
That's STILL not enough to get them out of last place in DRTG for the year.
— Justin Rowan (@Cavsanada) November 22, 2017
This really does illustrate how rough Cleveland’s start was to the season on that end of the floor — the Cavs have the second-longest winning streak in the league right now, and even though its defense has been fantastic over the streak, it got into such a massive hole that it hasn’t been able to keep them out of the NBA’s cellar.
As for why the team has taken a step forward on defense, LeBron James thinks he knows what’s up. He spoke to the media prior to Cleveland’s game against Brooklyn and credited the fact that the team isn’t veering from its gameplan.
“We haven’t done much changing, we’ve stuck to our game plan and tried to execute that as close to 48 minutes as possible,” James said Wednesday, hours before the Cavs take their five-game winning streak into a home game against Brooklyn. “No matter if it’s been going well at times or whatever the case may be, we just stuck with it. Understand that we have to do that, get that down until we’re ready to kind of switch off to something else. I give that a lot of credit.”
Taking a “let’s simplify things” approach is always a good one when a group is struggling, and it’s obviously paying off in Cleveland right now.
