Check this article out, other folks have notice the improvement with Kyrie on the defensive side. I think the summer help dude tremendously.
Kyrie Irving’s Much-Improved Defense
(The link have video clips)
http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/2014/12/cleveland-cavaliers-film-room-kyrie-irving-defense/
Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images
When we last met in the Cavalier film room many moons ago, before the holidays, before I moved (again), etc., we talked about defending Pau Gasol in the post. This time, we’re going to focus on something I’ve spent many nights ridiculing: Kyrie Irving’s defense. This time, however, we discuss it on a much more positive note. In fact, I’m not afraid to say Kyrie Irving has been playing GOOD—not just average—defense for most of this still-young NBA season.
I’m going to break down a few plays from the Washington game last week to support that point, and it’s a great place to start as John Wall was held firmly in check with Irving having a large role in that.
The first play is Irving defending Paul Pierce at the foul line. Quite obviously, Irving is giving up plenty of size to the former All-Star forward, so Pierce decides to try to back him down in the post. Irving stands his ground, and Pierce actually trips and has to lob the ball back out to Beal on the wing. Kyrie is in a nice defensive stance, staying wide and low, and because he shuffles his feet, Pierce meets resistance when he goes to spin back middle, forcing the pass out. If Pierce doesn’t trip, he might put up a shot in the lane using his length over Irving, but Kyrie would have been in good position to do all he could there: contest the shot and box out.
The play continues with an eventual corner jumper from Kris Humphries. The shot goes long, and Kyrie is guilty here for not boxing anybody out. Varejao can’t account for both Gortat and Pierce, so Pierce gets inside position and the ball. But, Kyrie redeems himself with a swipe of the ball as Pierce has his back turned. Irving then turns it into a transition opportunity for the wine and gold. Defense isn’t about being flawless on the court, but more than anything, it is about consistent effort. Irving not giving up on that play shows just that.
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Next, we look at one of those pesky plays where the opponent gets an offensive rebound and the floor balance and matchups are completely thrown off. Kyrie Irving starts this particular set covering the 7-footer Marcin Gortat while Anderson Varejao is on Bradley Beal. The ball goes to Gortat in the post, but Tristan Thompson thankfully comes over to help Kyrie double Gortat. The ball gets passed back out high to Beal.
Beal leaves Varejao in the dust with a swift cut to the basket. Irving, once he realizes that Thompson has Gortat covered, sinks down into helpside and sees an opportunity to beat Beal to his spot outside the charge circle. He does just that and takes a textbook charge.
If Beal had kept his head up, Humphries was wide open for a dump-off as James also made the decision to go for stopping Beal but was a little too late. But, those are the gambles you take on defense.
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Here again, we see Irving switching onto a much taller player, former favorite of mine Otto Porter. Watch Irving down low as Porter cuts across the paint with a full denial. He’s got his body turned toward Porter, head on a swivel, completely denying him the ball. You don’t see that level of defense in the NBA much anymore.
As Kevin Seraphin looks to pass it to Porter, there’s not enough of an opening despite Porter having several inches on Irving. The ball gets reversed to Drew Gooden who does catch Porter on a curl around Seraphin. In past years, Irving would’ve been completely shielded away by the pick and had no effect on the play. This time, however, he does manage to jut around the screen and fly out to contest. Porter misses, and the Cavs rebound. Things like fighting around picks and putting your hand up when someone shoots should be a given, but that’s not always the case with this team or in this league.
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Here’s another perfect example of Kyrie being in the right place at the right time.
Paul Pierce starts to drive on LeBron from the corner. Kyrie sees this, and as Pierce goes in left-handed, Kyrie lunges for and deflects the ball to one of his teammates.
Simple enough, but you can see leading up to it that Kyrie is in perfect helpside as the ball gets dribbled around and eventually passed to the opposite corner. Kyrie realizes his man, John Wall’s, jumpshot limitations, so he can sag without worrying too much about Wall’s outside stroke. The Cavs over-help a lot on defense, but this is not one of those cases, and the way LeBron approached the play, it appeared that he was going to be the one to fall back and recover onto Wall if the ball got kicked back out.
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Finally, we see the crux of the issue last year: Kyrie Irving being unable to fight over the top or through picks in a pick-and-roll scenario. It haunted the Cavs for years, and while it’s still very much a work in progress, we’re FINALLY seeing Kyrie’s desire and will to work on that end and combat these. Below, we see John Wall and Marcin Gortat start a pick and roll. Before we ever even see the action though, someone on the Cavs defense yells “SCREEN! SCREEN!”. That kind of talk was not happening at any point in the last few years.
Andy, as both he and Tristan do so well, hedges and stops Wall’s drive, so the Wizard point’s natural instinct is going to be to find his cutting and rolling big man. Kyrie does a really nice job of sliding up and over the top of Gortat’s pick though, so his recovery time back into the play is only a fraction of what it is if he gets pinned behind the big.
Irving then beautifully slips the roll and snatches the ball. Kevin Love gets a kudos here for sagging to help into the paint as well as he ends up with the ball off of Kyrie’s deflection.
How do the numbers look? Well, Irving’s steals are up slightly to a career-high 1.6 steals per night. His defensive rating this season is 107, slightly better than the 108-110 range from the last three years. Kyrie also is tied for second on the team with 0.6 defensive win shares right now. Where it goes noticed most, however, is when John Wall goes 2-for-6 shooting and has just 6 points with 5 turnovers. It’s on nights like Tony Parker’s 2-for-7 effort for 8 points. Those guys can and have torched the Cavs in the past (and even this season once for Wall), and it’s been directly attributable to Irving’s lackadaisical effort on the defensive end of the floor. However, now, the Cavaliers might just have a chance at being a mediocre and respectable defensive squad if the younger guys like Irving buy in to working on that end of the floor.
