Is the path toward playoff success elite offense or defense?

With the Lakers set to begin their playoff run, now is a perfect time as any to unpack a question that’s nearly as old as basketball itself…

What matters more: offense or defense?

There are clichés such as “offense wins games and defense wins championships” that have been used for ages, but what’s the actual answer?

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Modern offenses push the pace of play and shoot more threes each year, making it feel like offense is king. This decade, Nikola Jokić has won three MVP Awards because of his offense. There is no defense, no matter how elite, that has figured out a way to stop Steph Curry.

At the highest levels, it’s starting to feel like the best defenses can’t measure up to the best offenses. However, coaches still view them as equally important.

“I think you need both,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said. “And there’s been three outliers in the last 25 years. I know the Lakers, I think it was ‘01, were a bottom-third defense, but they were number one in the playoffs. Really, Denver in ‘23 was the only team that had an average defense, and then they were average in the playoffs.”

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In the regular season, the 2001 Lakers had the seventh-worst defense in the NBA, but improved to first in the playoffs. With a dramatically improved defense and the most dominant offensive force in Shaquille O’Neal, that LA team won it all, losing just one game in the postseason.

During the 2020s, 18 of the 24 teams that have reached the conference finals ranked in the top ten offensively. And three of the champions finished in the top five. The only two exceptions were the 2020 Lakers, who were 11th in offensive rating, and the 2022 Warriors, who were 16th.

However, in the postseason, both teams morphed into elite scoring machines. With an offensive rating of 115.6, no one was better on that end of the floor than LA in the bubble. Golden State was fourth in 2022 at 114.5.

The defensive numbers for title contenders in this era have been high as well. During the 2020s, 14 of the 24 teams that have reached the conference finals were top-10 in defensive rating. But four of the five NBA…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/path-toward-playoff-success-elite-192148034.html

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Publish date : 2026-04-16 19:21:00

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