Late Closeouts, Empty Glass: Breaking Down the NBA’s Worst Defense

Last year, this defense was the whole identity of the team. We watched a roster nobody believed in become a problem every night because they chased, they swiped, they dove on the floor, and they made you earn every bucket. Four games into this season, that team is gone.

The Suns are 1-3 and have allowed 122 points or more in all four games.

Advertisement

Dillon Brooks stood at the podium and called it what it is: “We’re 30th in defense, so that’s not great. That’s terrible.” Then they spent three days drilling it in practice, came home, and let Denver rain threes in their own building.

The fanbase is past the “small sample size” stage. We are watching the same breakdowns repeat.

This stat from Cody Hunt on X/Twitter blew my mind. How much is it bad luck? How much is it real? I believe it’s a bit of both, personally. And small sample sizes can blow stats like this out of proportion. But it is clear that this is a massive issue that needs correcting, ASAP.

Tactical Breakdown

Rotations to shooters are late, every time.

Advertisement

Murray and Braun combined for 14 threes, and Brooks and others kept rotating or closing out too late on kick-outs to Braun. Ott pointed out that Braun was “a guy that’s made five all year.” Credit to Braun, but when you leave a shooter wide open, he gets hot.

View Link

The switching scheme leaves too few defenders on the back side.

About a dozen times, the aggressive switching and double-teams on Jokic left one help defender covering two Nuggets on the perimeter. That scheme only works with perfect timing, and right now nobody is in sync. And we saw it snowball.

Off-ball attention in the corners.

Advertisement

Brooks and Bridges are often stationed in the corner, where they tend to doze off, whether that means losing a backdoor cutter, reacting late, or failing to rebound. Booker’s league-worst 137.2 individual defensive rating gets the headlines, but the leaks are coming from every spot on the floor.

Again, the problem I have with all of this is that they had a full three days to talk about this and work on it. And while they looked much sharper offensively (outside of Jalen Green), the defense…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/closeouts-empty-glass-breaking-down-190000784.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-11-02 19:00:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.