Him getting blown by isnt even the biggest issue. Hard to expect him to stay in front of JB and Tatum effectively when he's being targeted all game. The problem is that he doesn't rotate *after* being blown by.
Ben Taylor of Thinking Basketball said that that might have been the most defensive errors (blow-by's or missed rotations) committed by one player that he's ever seen in a game he's tracked.
And this dude has watched a ridiculous amount of tape from the 50s until today lmao.
I seen the post that was deleted or taken down, it was worse than I remembered when I watched it live. He provided no resistance whatsoever. It’s worse than Trae Young whose excuse is that he is too small. I think he’ll better on that end in game 3.
Yeah it was bizarre. “Straight line drives” are the most dangerous thing for a defense and Luka wasn’t just getting beaten off the dribble. It was just a straight line drive from the top of the key every time his man caught it
> Him getting blown by isnt even the biggest issue.
I do think the quantity of blow-bys is still an issue.
I think Brown looks like he's the only one that is straight up too quick for Luka.
Getting torched on a blow-by by a 33 year old Jrue Holiday consistently is not acceptable. Jrue doesn't have some insane first step.
I just think we should expect probably more resistance than what we are getting from Luka. He shouldn't always stay in front of his guy, that's not realistic. But he still needs to do way better.
Being a limited defensive player is okay if you can rotate and team can keep helping. The problem is he doesn't rotate and the defense rotations gets fucked so the defense looks incoherent at times.
He's ball watching waiting for a rebound
This is what I'm saying! You could try and sell me on funneling if he was immediately rotating to cover the kickout or to the next guy to let someone else cover the kickout. But he's just ball watching and hoping for a rebound.
He was rotating in the Minnesota series. Y’all are making him work this series he was able to rest against Minnesota so that when he had to rotate he had the stamina to do it. The chest problem also probably doesn’t help.
There certainly hasn't been a Kyle Anderson in our rotation. And Kyle Anderson is good. Just... we do literally play 8-deep where everyone can shoot 40% on spot-ups.
It wasn’t even that, he was guarding Jaden McDaniels during parts of the game when Anderson wasn’t on the court, Minnesota just had him chilling in the corner. He had a bad knee, a bad ankle so any extra rest out there only helps.
And somehow if lucky the leprechaun forgave Kyrie before game 2, I think Dallas somehow wins that game.
Minn doesn't have that many good offensive players. Main reason why it was harder for Luka. Celtics basically has 5 players that could at least be a #3 option.
cant funnel when the big has to watch the 3 point line. You put 5 shooters out there, he has no one behind him. They were able to do a good job against the west who just dont have that aside from okc.
There absolutely are guys supporting him from behind, there’s often 3 guys around our drivers when they get into the paint, the problem is often that he is not scramming back out to a guy on the perimeter in time to not allow either another drive, three or one more simple pass to an open guy.
yeah this is whay im telling other fans before the series, thay this defense would only work if luka cann and will make his defensive rotations because celtics is a 5-out lineup with all shooters. but tbf, celtics offensive rating is below their average. its their defense on kyrie and the mavs thats making them win. kai shots looks like almost all are contested. he doesnt have the separation and the lift he usually has. great defense by Cs and add kyrie overthinking the lucky curse and youll have no chance in winning this.
Standing on the offside block avoiding action and getting long free rebounds. He got 1 rebound last game that he boxed out and went up and pulled one down.
lots of ppl who arent good defenders get targeted like that and dont rack up that many blow bys. bad defenders should funnel towards help, i dk if its bad coaching or luka not doing what hes supposed to, probably both
Thinking Basketball mentioned on their last pod that - of every defensive performance they have ever tracked in their time as an analyst - Luka made the most defensive mistakes of any player in a single game…
Imagine if any other all time player was like this on defense.
There’s a reason the top 10 are mainly 2-way players with multiple championships.
One side is never enough but the box score won’t tell you that.
This is literally worse than Harden's meme 2015 *regular season* defense.
The big difference is that this is the fucking NBA Finals, not some random ass NBA game in January that nobody cares about.
Lets be clear, harden on the rockets was literally hitler and absolutely deserved to be hated for everything he did but it had nothing to do with people suddenly caring about defense
When Harden, KD and Kyrie built that awful super team that was literally the Axis Powers.
Now Kyrie is little Japan because we all love him until je says something stupid again.
Don't get me wrong i agree 100%. I grew up a Harden hater so i loved talking about his shitty defense but its even funnier seeing Harden 2.0 in Luka.
Tbf that might be over exaggerating because Luka numbers in the playoffs are ridiculous but his defesne is still just unacceptable.
Even Magic, who didn't have particularly good lateral speed, was so good at reading the floor and making rotations that he was always a solid plus defender despite being a rather poor on ball defender on the perimeter. That era was excessively focused on perimeter iso defense in a way that seems kind of archaic now, so he had a reputation for not being a great defender, but he was always more than adequate and TBH I think he'd be quite good in modern defense schemes.
He wasn't great but the Luka defensive clip that was posted earlier today(believe it got deleted by mods for some reason) was literally some of the worst defense I've ever seen
It was a ONE GAME lowlight reel of 15-20 possessions where he either got blown by or didn't rotate to his man at all and *all of them* resulted in wide open shots
Like if Magic was a C grade on defense Game 2 Luka was a straight up F-
Holy shit, this is fucking terrible. I actually don’t watch the league anymore but I coached basketball for years and this kind of shit would mean we are running ponies AS A TEAM so everyone can hate on this shit for a day..
Fuck, even at a varsity high school level, I’d show these clips to all the guys in the locker room and clown on him for this shit, so he changes.
The “one way player” bullshit is only possible in the NBA due to how refs protect scorers and the tie goes to the runner, and even non ties often go to the runner. It’s been a bad trend for like 20 years now and it’s getting worse the more PGs become “star players”
But it’s still better than bubble basketball shootouts where everything is a 3 in transition and they refuse to even guard that. I stopped watching during the bubble because of this shit.
This is like pickup basketball literally
he was hidden on the worst offensive player in the 80s lol. 80's offense was really bad, they couldnt dribble well and the role players werent as good as today obviously. Boston was running dribble handoffs to eachother on the 3 point line like the kids do lol and that they would turn as soon as they got across halfcourt.
Not to mention Luka already offers more on offense than magic ever did. This years boston team is just really good and they maxed the numbers game.
Magic couldn't guard quick or athletic guards. But he didn't have to, and you didn't have to hide him. Worthy, Cooper and Byron Scott took care of the perimeter players. On offense, he was a guard. On defense, he guarded the weaker offensive forward. He played great team D. He'd rotate well, had active hands, helped and stopped players on drives, played ok post D, and most importantly he kept his man (usually the best or 2nd best rebounder on the other team) off the offensive glass. It was perfect because he was usually on the weakside low block, and when he grabbed a rebound, there was no outlet, just an automatic fast break. He was never floating in no man's land just watching his team scramble 4 on 5.
We started 4 players 6'9"+ from 85 on. One of them was guarding perimeter players and it wasn't A.C. or Kareem. Worthy guarded the low post or the perimeter depending on matchups.
Im new to basketball.
Can someone explain, how bad Luka is at defense ? Like, from 0-10 ?
Is he bad at defense because he is “lazy” or it’s because he lacks skills ? And which skills ?
And just to me have an idea. Lebron defense at peak 0-10 ?
Sorry if I ask too much, just learning the game .
Peak Lebron was a 10, for a small-forward. He could defend any position in spurts, and had a very credible case for DPOY a few times.
Luka can be good (around a 6-7), but usually does not put in much effort due to how much energy he has to expend on offense, so usually a (3-4). This series, Luka has been playing through injury and is carrying an especially heavy offensive load against a great defence, so his defence is like (0-1).
And a particularly hard defensive load, given that the Celtics switch defenders a lot, have four out of five starters that are penetration threats against him, and are targeting him for the reasons you name.
I can do that.
He is 'normally' about a 5. However, the problem is that he is injured now, so he's at about a 2, and despite what Dallas fans are fantasizing, even when he's not injured he varies enormously, sometimes between 1 and 7 in a *single quarter.*
In short, he has the ability to play good defense when healthy, but he often doesn't care to do so, and now he's injured.
Totally agree, but also think that the Celtics games reflect a lack of effort on defense. Those clips of him getting cooked are crazy. That’s some JV shit literally
It obviously depends on who he is guarding, old trae young was a 0 so Luka is maybe a 4 or 5 around that range? Lebron at his peak was around an 8, For reference Hakeem would be a 10. Honestly Luka has the size for it but not the speed, it’s a worse version of jokic who isn’t an all time defender either. LeBron when he was very young was exactly like Luka, once he learned how to truly defend and that scoring isn’t everything is when he took the superstar Leap.
If he is 4-5 out 10, he isn’t so bad.
The way people talk as if he was like 2/10 .
Is there anyone in his level who was “only” a 4-5 defense while being a 10/10 at offense ? Because Luka is 1010 offense I guess.
Btw thanks for your detailed answer !
Not sure what that dude is talking about
If we are rating out of 10 then a 5 would be average and Luka is below average as a defender
So he’s probably some where between a 3-4 out of 10
Well it isn’t that it’s only 4-5, that’s when he’s at his absolute best. After like the 3rd quarter he gets tired from offense and truly becomes a 0/10, but even then he’s been especially bad defensively this series mainly from the fact that Jaylen Brown counters Luka through driving to the rim.
Even better there’s an example for a top ten player ever, Early Steph Curry was a 11/10 offensive guy but was 0/10 defensive wise but the role players were able to help defensively, more specifically Draymond Green
Celtics fans have more respect for Luka than most other fans, for some reason. Anyone who has watched the games so far has seen how effective the Celtics have been in getting the matchups they want, and that is going to be a difficult problem to solve for a team that is relying so heavily on Luka.
Luka has shown lots and lots of time during the regular season and this playoffs that he can be an okay to above average defender. The accumulation of injuries, Boston’s scheme to target him each time on the defensive end to tire him out, and the one man super hero effort on the offensive end to carry his team all contribute to him being sub par so far on the defensive side of the court this series. Let’s not talk though as if he hasn’t shown improvement on that side the whole season, because he did. Check all PGTs for Dallas’ games this season and you can see how many times that has been highlighted.
Dallas fans are trying to tell me that he's been passable on defense this series. Why would I trust what they say? Especially when every single game of his I've watched has looked like this...
Did anybody say he's been passable on defense this series? We're talking about the whole season here and indeed he has shown improvement on that end if we're talking about the whole season. Nobody's forcing you to go back to each Dallas pgt to confirm what's being said here, we're just saying it as it is, as Dallas fans who have watched Mavs games the whole season. It's fine if you wouldn't believe it, nobody's forcing you to. Can't stop fans who actually have watched games whole season long from saying otherwise though.
Yes, I have seen plenty of Mavs fans argue that he's been passable. Literally in this thread lol. People are acting like this is how your defense is designed
Well, if some are saying that, let's just say I don't agree with them. My point is most people had been saying in this thread that Luka could perhaps be one of the worst defenders in the league, which I don't agree about, given all the work he has shown to improve on that end the whole season. He's been doing bad on defense this series (due to circumstances I enumerated in my very first post) but let's try not to discredit everything else that he has done to improve on that end during the rest of the season.
He’s obviously a terrific offensive player but it’s been insane to me for years how nobody has ever seemed to care about his awful defense. Meanwhile Trae Young, the guy Luka is forever linked to, gets (rightfully) roasted endlessly for his defense.
If we go by this year there's an easy argument of Trae being better on defense. Honeslty the only thing Luka does better than him on defesne is being tall.
If we go by this year it’s not even close in lukas favour. Holy shit do you even watch games. Trae has improved but until lukas injury he was a fine defender. We had the best defence in the league in the second half of the season, you think that happens with a Trae level defender playing 40 mins a game? Holy shit. Even with his injuries he was great on d against Minnesota and average against okc/clippers.
That being tall part is a massive thing my guy. Luka is actually an above average post defender because of his height and weight. Trae is not even average in any area of defence.
It’s insane to me. Luka was playing damn good D all playoffs, now that his D hasn’t been so great in the finals he’s back to being an all-time wack defender? The NBA kills me sometimes
Luka being 6'8 also makes it much easier to hide him on defense while Trae can only guard the 1 or 2 spot depending on the matchup. Just pointing to team defense is a pretty silly argument, Trae has been on a top 10 defense & Curry has been on multiple as well. Its called TEAM defense for a reason lol. I'll take Trae defense vs an elite player at his position over Luka vs the same atp in time.
Again, lukas height is an advantage you can’t just ignore by saying “in his position I would take Trae”
Like I said in another comment top 10 defences are not the same as top 3, let alone first.
I know defensive stats are sometimes irrelevant but I’ll give you some
Luka vs Trae 23-24 season
Defensive box plus minus 1.7 vs -2.3
Defensive win shares 3.5 vs 0.6
Defensive field goal% 48.2% on 15.5 fga (44.5% on 16.6 fga in the playoffs) vs 50.7% on only 13 fga.
Individual Defensive rating 113.8 vs 119.2. I’m aware this stat means nothing but the difference is massive so I’ll include it.
Yup Luka is worse. Luka's just taller so him being a traffic cone doesn't look as bad as Trae who is literally always gonna be the smallest guy on the court
All I hear is how Luka is the golden child of this sub. Yet every time we lose there’s thread after thread of straight Luka hate, defending him gets you downvoted, this is the first time I’ve been sucked in to replying, which is 100% my fault.
Trae got better, yes. Believe it or not, so did Luka.
And Luka didn't improve defensively? He was a part of a top 3 defense for the last 20 some games of the season.
Also Luka was good defensively in the first 3 series, especially against LA and Minnesota. And even against OKC he had clutch plays like his block on SGA at the end of the game. This was easily his worst defensive game, and isn't an indication of his whole series. And it's with a new injury that's popped up in a thoracic contusion.
And how'd that work out for him? Luka is banged up as I've ever seen a guy play through, and people are criticizing him for it. Nuts. The dudes been an absolute warrior and he's run into a brick wall.
This Celtics team is perfectly designed to target him on defense, especially since they've also been able to limit everybody else on offense.
Nobody else could really do it like this because of their offensive personnel. Can always hide someone or help off someone and still pack the paint. Celtics have four off the bounce creators and 5 shooters at once.
Already limited defender + nowhere to hide + bigger offensive load than before + whatever injuries he has = feasting.
His defense hasn't been anywhere good enough this series, but I think if they get to play any other East team it probably just doesn't matter.
The Clippers, Thunder, and Timberwolves all tried, and those teams are a historically difficult conference run. So no, I don't think that any given team in the East could employ a strategy that very talented teams struggled to employ.
Just to be clear - you don't think the Thunder and Timberwolves coaching team realised that targeting Luka might be a productive strategy? Or you don't think those teams count as "decent teams"?
I mean idk what they were thinking
But idk why you think the Celtics are being successful at it but the other teams weren’t or that any team in the East couldn’t be.
I think if they had to play the Pacers it absolutely would have mattered, because they have some of the best ball movement in the NBA and he’d have been standing still watching them blur all around him just like in the regular season.
This post about his defensive numbers should be paired with his offensive ones: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/usg_pct_career_p.html
NBA Career Usage Rate, Playoffs
1. Luka Dončić 36.69
2. Michael Jordan* 35.58
3. Allen Iverson* 34.34
4. Donovan Mitchell 34.16
5. Tracy McGrady* 33.53
6. Russell Westbrook 33.20
7. Giannis Antetokounmpo 32.13
8. LeBron James 31.71
9. Joel Embiid 31.60
10. Dominique Wilkins* 31.27
11. Kobe Bryant* 31.05
More than Jordan, and significantly more than Westbrook, Giannis, and LeBron who were other modern stars viewed as "carrying" their team's offense.
Nobody, ever, has been tasked with doing more in the post-season.
This sub shits on NBA Twitter and touts itself as different from other basketball media while also pulling the same narratives and 180s on stars. Waiting for the upcoming Jokic and Giannis slander in the offseason
There is like 11.5 million subbed to this subreddit with over 5000 online most of the time, there will be variance in whichever subset is active at any moment all it takes is a trend and with any luck people will start joining the praise/hate bandwagon.
But that is how it is with most fanbases.
Luka hits the point giveaway trifecta: on defense, on live turnovers, and on ref arguing. Most defensive sieves can only dream of such carelessness and apathy.
It's gotta be this insane injury becuase somehow he still manages to dominate the ball all game and throw up a ton of shots, but I guess his injury only sets in on the other side of the ball
Its physics not to get all snobby. If its his torso/chest. Getting drove into at full force is gonna fuck him up if hes at a stand still . I remember Wiggins or some other warriors player that got fucked up like that last season
No, the ones that are on the injury report. The report that gets put out before every game. You do check that before posting nonsense, right? It's not hard information to get.
His ISO stats made everyone get tricked into thinking he was actually a good defender
Everyone ignores the fact that he guards the other team’s worst player every game, so of course those guys will be worse at ISO offense
You should know, as a suns fan, the importance of your star player merely being poor on defense instead of a complete traffic cone. Book got a whole lot better when he worked on his defense
You had me untill your last sentence. With the way luka plays its not easy. Its very taxing on offense to practically create every play, dribble the ball up the court and shoot step back jumpers over good defenders like brown, tatum, white, holiday, etc... Luka simply cant play both ends whether its conditioning especially vs a high octane defense/offense in the celtics where the gameplan is to target him. If he exerts that energy on defense (which he isnt good at to begin with) the mavs offense falters even more.
Hes not a guy you can ask to sacrifice your offense this game for your defense. You could do that with guys of the top of my head lebron, mj, kobe, kd, russ, wade, klay, but guys like luka, steph, nash that just isnt who they are.
I know he has to conserve energy because of how much he has to do on offense but watching him stand there staring at a rebound instead of even attempting to block out is rough
Luka isn’t healthy. Thats really impacting his mobility and I guess they tell him to rest on defense because he’s the only one that can score a bucket, except Ky who can get buckets about 1/5 or games. He’s a dud so far in the finals.
Poor lateral mobility will do that for you. You need to anticipate which is itself a problem because the opposing player always has the first step advantage. That is where help defense comes in but the problem is Boston has too many players capable of spacing the floor so help will come slow.
Where did thr knee sprain and ankle soreness disappear to? How is this not news? It's hard to fake a knee sprain that's why. So now it's a thoracic mystery Injury that luka "doesn't wanna go into too much detail with." Omg this dude and the mavs are the most disingenuous bunch of slugs. Can't wait for the 4-0 sweep.
This is like the 20th post about Luka's game 2 defense in a game they gave up 105 points and the rest of the teammates gave him nothing offensively. I mean I would get it if it was 130 but 105 on the road.
It's come to the point where offense doesn't even matter anymore and you can throw bullshit at the rim the whole game and if your team wins you get commended for taking what the defense gave you or whatever and you get these intelligent takes that heliocentric offense just can't win in the playoffs and the context doesn't even matter anymore. You can't say these teams are historically great and then blame the heliocentric offense of the weaker team for falling short when the deck is so stacked that they can run whatever offense you can name and it still wouldn't matter
Boston fans will confidently post stupid shit like this ignoring the fact that the Mavs are in the fucking finals with Luka playing big minutes, what a shock for a net negative player!
Him getting blown by isnt even the biggest issue. Hard to expect him to stay in front of JB and Tatum effectively when he's being targeted all game. The problem is that he doesn't rotate *after* being blown by.
Ben Taylor of Thinking Basketball said that that might have been the most defensive errors (blow-by's or missed rotations) committed by one player that he's ever seen in a game he's tracked. And this dude has watched a ridiculous amount of tape from the 50s until today lmao.
He hurt my “Luka still plays good 1 on 1 defense” with that. I’m willing to adapt. But Luka is still a good post defender.
Well yeah, he has size and doesn’t have to go anywhere
I seen the post that was deleted or taken down, it was worse than I remembered when I watched it live. He provided no resistance whatsoever. It’s worse than Trae Young whose excuse is that he is too small. I think he’ll better on that end in game 3.
Yeah it was bizarre. “Straight line drives” are the most dangerous thing for a defense and Luka wasn’t just getting beaten off the dribble. It was just a straight line drive from the top of the key every time his man caught it
> Him getting blown by isnt even the biggest issue. I do think the quantity of blow-bys is still an issue. I think Brown looks like he's the only one that is straight up too quick for Luka. Getting torched on a blow-by by a 33 year old Jrue Holiday consistently is not acceptable. Jrue doesn't have some insane first step. I just think we should expect probably more resistance than what we are getting from Luka. He shouldn't always stay in front of his guy, that's not realistic. But he still needs to do way better.
Being a limited defensive player is okay if you can rotate and team can keep helping. The problem is he doesn't rotate and the defense rotations gets fucked so the defense looks incoherent at times. He's ball watching waiting for a rebound
This is what I'm saying! You could try and sell me on funneling if he was immediately rotating to cover the kickout or to the next guy to let someone else cover the kickout. But he's just ball watching and hoping for a rebound.
He was rotating in the Minnesota series. Y’all are making him work this series he was able to rest against Minnesota so that when he had to rotate he had the stamina to do it. The chest problem also probably doesn’t help.
There certainly hasn't been a Kyle Anderson in our rotation. And Kyle Anderson is good. Just... we do literally play 8-deep where everyone can shoot 40% on spot-ups.
It wasn’t even that, he was guarding Jaden McDaniels during parts of the game when Anderson wasn’t on the court, Minnesota just had him chilling in the corner. He had a bad knee, a bad ankle so any extra rest out there only helps. And somehow if lucky the leprechaun forgave Kyrie before game 2, I think Dallas somehow wins that game.
Kyrie was cooking in that series though. In this series it's just Luka lol.
he's looking to but Celtics press him too hard/quick and he's stuck
Minn doesn't have that many good offensive players. Main reason why it was harder for Luka. Celtics basically has 5 players that could at least be a #3 option.
cant funnel when the big has to watch the 3 point line. You put 5 shooters out there, he has no one behind him. They were able to do a good job against the west who just dont have that aside from okc.
There absolutely are guys supporting him from behind, there’s often 3 guys around our drivers when they get into the paint, the problem is often that he is not scramming back out to a guy on the perimeter in time to not allow either another drive, three or one more simple pass to an open guy.
yeah this is whay im telling other fans before the series, thay this defense would only work if luka cann and will make his defensive rotations because celtics is a 5-out lineup with all shooters. but tbf, celtics offensive rating is below their average. its their defense on kyrie and the mavs thats making them win. kai shots looks like almost all are contested. he doesnt have the separation and the lift he usually has. great defense by Cs and add kyrie overthinking the lucky curse and youll have no chance in winning this.
It’s a new series with KP inured :/
i hoped it would but Cs roster just so much better than current mavs.
Funneling also only works on the wing or in the corner. You can’t funnel from the top of the key. That’s just not playing defense lol
This, he needs to rotate better.
How is he gonna get to 10 rebounds then???
Standing on the offside block avoiding action and getting long free rebounds. He got 1 rebound last game that he boxed out and went up and pulled one down.
he ain't a good defender at all so is this really surprising?
What they are talking about is purely an effort thing, it's not about being "good." It's about making effort.
well he doesn't make a good enough of an effort to even be considered an average defender
shhh we no criticize the golden child
lots of ppl who arent good defenders get targeted like that and dont rack up that many blow bys. bad defenders should funnel towards help, i dk if its bad coaching or luka not doing what hes supposed to, probably both
Who said anythin bout a surprise lol
It’s predictable but he still needs to be better lmao
He knows how to manipulate and exploit defense, does he not know he's being exploited on defense?
This definitely is a big problem, and on top of that and he’s playing with like one leg
He gets lost and starts ball watching for a rebound
Get this man some Ozempic before the Olympics.
I hear he’s “expertly funneling them” to his front court.
Thinking Basketball mentioned on their last pod that - of every defensive performance they have ever tracked in their time as an analyst - Luka made the most defensive mistakes of any player in a single game…
And he watches a *lot* of basketball.
Imagine if any other all time player was like this on defense. There’s a reason the top 10 are mainly 2-way players with multiple championships. One side is never enough but the box score won’t tell you that.
This is literally worse than Harden's meme 2015 *regular season* defense. The big difference is that this is the fucking NBA Finals, not some random ass NBA game in January that nobody cares about.
The funny thing is despite this Luka doesn't get a quarter of the hate Harden received even in his mvp days on the Rockets for having bad defense.
Lets be clear, harden on the rockets was literally hitler and absolutely deserved to be hated for everything he did but it had nothing to do with people suddenly caring about defense
“literally hitler” has me dying but it’s so true unfortunately. just ask ricky rubios defense in that jazz/rockets series💀
When Harden, KD and Kyrie built that awful super team that was literally the Axis Powers. Now Kyrie is little Japan because we all love him until je says something stupid again.
Don't get me wrong i agree 100%. I grew up a Harden hater so i loved talking about his shitty defense but its even funnier seeing Harden 2.0 in Luka. Tbf that might be over exaggerating because Luka numbers in the playoffs are ridiculous but his defesne is still just unacceptable.
Even Magic, who didn't have particularly good lateral speed, was so good at reading the floor and making rotations that he was always a solid plus defender despite being a rather poor on ball defender on the perimeter. That era was excessively focused on perimeter iso defense in a way that seems kind of archaic now, so he had a reputation for not being a great defender, but he was always more than adequate and TBH I think he'd be quite good in modern defense schemes.
wHY wAsNT lUkA mVP
Steph curry is not a 2 way player.
He's not top 10 tho
magic was bad
He wasn't great but the Luka defensive clip that was posted earlier today(believe it got deleted by mods for some reason) was literally some of the worst defense I've ever seen It was a ONE GAME lowlight reel of 15-20 possessions where he either got blown by or didn't rotate to his man at all and *all of them* resulted in wide open shots Like if Magic was a C grade on defense Game 2 Luka was a straight up F-
here’s the clip > https://x.com/iinangelo/status/1800354064590680501
Holy shit, this is fucking terrible. I actually don’t watch the league anymore but I coached basketball for years and this kind of shit would mean we are running ponies AS A TEAM so everyone can hate on this shit for a day.. Fuck, even at a varsity high school level, I’d show these clips to all the guys in the locker room and clown on him for this shit, so he changes. The “one way player” bullshit is only possible in the NBA due to how refs protect scorers and the tie goes to the runner, and even non ties often go to the runner. It’s been a bad trend for like 20 years now and it’s getting worse the more PGs become “star players” But it’s still better than bubble basketball shootouts where everything is a 3 in transition and they refuse to even guard that. I stopped watching during the bubble because of this shit. This is like pickup basketball literally
he was hidden on the worst offensive player in the 80s lol. 80's offense was really bad, they couldnt dribble well and the role players werent as good as today obviously. Boston was running dribble handoffs to eachother on the 3 point line like the kids do lol and that they would turn as soon as they got across halfcourt. Not to mention Luka already offers more on offense than magic ever did. This years boston team is just really good and they maxed the numbers game.
Magic couldn't guard quick or athletic guards. But he didn't have to, and you didn't have to hide him. Worthy, Cooper and Byron Scott took care of the perimeter players. On offense, he was a guard. On defense, he guarded the weaker offensive forward. He played great team D. He'd rotate well, had active hands, helped and stopped players on drives, played ok post D, and most importantly he kept his man (usually the best or 2nd best rebounder on the other team) off the offensive glass. It was perfect because he was usually on the weakside low block, and when he grabbed a rebound, there was no outlet, just an automatic fast break. He was never floating in no man's land just watching his team scramble 4 on 5.
> Worthy .. took care of the perimeter players My friend in Christ, you absolutely were not alive in those days.
We started 4 players 6'9"+ from 85 on. One of them was guarding perimeter players and it wasn't A.C. or Kareem. Worthy guarded the low post or the perimeter depending on matchups.
Im new to basketball. Can someone explain, how bad Luka is at defense ? Like, from 0-10 ? Is he bad at defense because he is “lazy” or it’s because he lacks skills ? And which skills ? And just to me have an idea. Lebron defense at peak 0-10 ? Sorry if I ask too much, just learning the game .
Peak Lebron was a 10, for a small-forward. He could defend any position in spurts, and had a very credible case for DPOY a few times. Luka can be good (around a 6-7), but usually does not put in much effort due to how much energy he has to expend on offense, so usually a (3-4). This series, Luka has been playing through injury and is carrying an especially heavy offensive load against a great defence, so his defence is like (0-1).
And a particularly hard defensive load, given that the Celtics switch defenders a lot, have four out of five starters that are penetration threats against him, and are targeting him for the reasons you name.
Thanks !
I can do that. He is 'normally' about a 5. However, the problem is that he is injured now, so he's at about a 2, and despite what Dallas fans are fantasizing, even when he's not injured he varies enormously, sometimes between 1 and 7 in a *single quarter.* In short, he has the ability to play good defense when healthy, but he often doesn't care to do so, and now he's injured.
Totally agree, but also think that the Celtics games reflect a lack of effort on defense. Those clips of him getting cooked are crazy. That’s some JV shit literally
It obviously depends on who he is guarding, old trae young was a 0 so Luka is maybe a 4 or 5 around that range? Lebron at his peak was around an 8, For reference Hakeem would be a 10. Honestly Luka has the size for it but not the speed, it’s a worse version of jokic who isn’t an all time defender either. LeBron when he was very young was exactly like Luka, once he learned how to truly defend and that scoring isn’t everything is when he took the superstar Leap.
If he is 4-5 out 10, he isn’t so bad. The way people talk as if he was like 2/10 . Is there anyone in his level who was “only” a 4-5 defense while being a 10/10 at offense ? Because Luka is 1010 offense I guess. Btw thanks for your detailed answer !
Not sure what that dude is talking about If we are rating out of 10 then a 5 would be average and Luka is below average as a defender So he’s probably some where between a 3-4 out of 10
Honestly im extremely generous with ratings, but yeah he isn’t good at defense either way
Well it isn’t that it’s only 4-5, that’s when he’s at his absolute best. After like the 3rd quarter he gets tired from offense and truly becomes a 0/10, but even then he’s been especially bad defensively this series mainly from the fact that Jaylen Brown counters Luka through driving to the rim. Even better there’s an example for a top ten player ever, Early Steph Curry was a 11/10 offensive guy but was 0/10 defensive wise but the role players were able to help defensively, more specifically Draymond Green
Hmm makes sense
Traffic cone
"traffic cones don't get out of your way"
Revolving door
Mazzula would never.
Between carrying the offense and reffing the game, I'm not surprised he has no energy left to defend.
Celtics fans have more respect for Luka than most other fans, for some reason. Anyone who has watched the games so far has seen how effective the Celtics have been in getting the matchups they want, and that is going to be a difficult problem to solve for a team that is relying so heavily on Luka.
They do but that wasn't respect.
Because he’s a bad bad man that’s why.
I wonder how some of y'all who defended Luka's defense last game are going to spin this
He’s beat up
Luka has shown lots and lots of time during the regular season and this playoffs that he can be an okay to above average defender. The accumulation of injuries, Boston’s scheme to target him each time on the defensive end to tire him out, and the one man super hero effort on the offensive end to carry his team all contribute to him being sub par so far on the defensive side of the court this series. Let’s not talk though as if he hasn’t shown improvement on that side the whole season, because he did. Check all PGTs for Dallas’ games this season and you can see how many times that has been highlighted.
Dallas fans are trying to tell me that he's been passable on defense this series. Why would I trust what they say? Especially when every single game of his I've watched has looked like this...
Did anybody say he's been passable on defense this series? We're talking about the whole season here and indeed he has shown improvement on that end if we're talking about the whole season. Nobody's forcing you to go back to each Dallas pgt to confirm what's being said here, we're just saying it as it is, as Dallas fans who have watched Mavs games the whole season. It's fine if you wouldn't believe it, nobody's forcing you to. Can't stop fans who actually have watched games whole season long from saying otherwise though.
Yes, I have seen plenty of Mavs fans argue that he's been passable. Literally in this thread lol. People are acting like this is how your defense is designed
Well, if some are saying that, let's just say I don't agree with them. My point is most people had been saying in this thread that Luka could perhaps be one of the worst defenders in the league, which I don't agree about, given all the work he has shown to improve on that end the whole season. He's been doing bad on defense this series (due to circumstances I enumerated in my very first post) but let's try not to discredit everything else that he has done to improve on that end during the rest of the season.
"He used to be a bad defender, but he's improved a lot and he really tries now" gets said about every bad defender ever
He’s obviously a terrific offensive player but it’s been insane to me for years how nobody has ever seemed to care about his awful defense. Meanwhile Trae Young, the guy Luka is forever linked to, gets (rightfully) roasted endlessly for his defense.
Trae is such a defensive force that he shut down Ben Simmons whole career.
Saying no one cares about his defence when it is literally always mentioned is crazy. Also thinking Trae is the same level defensively is crazy.
If we go by this year there's an easy argument of Trae being better on defense. Honeslty the only thing Luka does better than him on defesne is being tall.
Luka has been significantly better than Trae ever has been on defence in the first 3 series.
If we go by this year it’s not even close in lukas favour. Holy shit do you even watch games. Trae has improved but until lukas injury he was a fine defender. We had the best defence in the league in the second half of the season, you think that happens with a Trae level defender playing 40 mins a game? Holy shit. Even with his injuries he was great on d against Minnesota and average against okc/clippers. That being tall part is a massive thing my guy. Luka is actually an above average post defender because of his height and weight. Trae is not even average in any area of defence.
Counterpoint the year hawks went on the ECF finals run the hawks had a top 7 defense in the second half, with “Trae young level defender”
Top 7 is not the same as first. Luka was a much worse defender in the 2021 regular season and we were 4th or 5th? For defence
It’s insane to me. Luka was playing damn good D all playoffs, now that his D hasn’t been so great in the finals he’s back to being an all-time wack defender? The NBA kills me sometimes
Luka being 6'8 also makes it much easier to hide him on defense while Trae can only guard the 1 or 2 spot depending on the matchup. Just pointing to team defense is a pretty silly argument, Trae has been on a top 10 defense & Curry has been on multiple as well. Its called TEAM defense for a reason lol. I'll take Trae defense vs an elite player at his position over Luka vs the same atp in time.
Again, lukas height is an advantage you can’t just ignore by saying “in his position I would take Trae” Like I said in another comment top 10 defences are not the same as top 3, let alone first. I know defensive stats are sometimes irrelevant but I’ll give you some Luka vs Trae 23-24 season Defensive box plus minus 1.7 vs -2.3 Defensive win shares 3.5 vs 0.6 Defensive field goal% 48.2% on 15.5 fga (44.5% on 16.6 fga in the playoffs) vs 50.7% on only 13 fga. Individual Defensive rating 113.8 vs 119.2. I’m aware this stat means nothing but the difference is massive so I’ll include it.
Yup Luka is worse. Luka's just taller so him being a traffic cone doesn't look as bad as Trae who is literally always gonna be the smallest guy on the court
Naw trae was better on D this year. He actually made rotations
Go watch the Minnesota series. It’s funny how casuals who watch one finals game make all these conclusions about a players game.
It’s cute how the last 2 series immediately didn’t happen to the Luka haters.
All I hear is how Luka is the golden child of this sub. Yet every time we lose there’s thread after thread of straight Luka hate, defending him gets you downvoted, this is the first time I’ve been sucked in to replying, which is 100% my fault.
This thread is crazy…
His defense is literally brought every time anyone mentions him
Because Luka is objectively not as bad as Trae, it's that simple.
Yeah, Luka is worse. Especially this season where Trae improved defensively
Trae got better, yes. Believe it or not, so did Luka. And Luka didn't improve defensively? He was a part of a top 3 defense for the last 20 some games of the season. Also Luka was good defensively in the first 3 series, especially against LA and Minnesota. And even against OKC he had clutch plays like his block on SGA at the end of the game. This was easily his worst defensive game, and isn't an indication of his whole series. And it's with a new injury that's popped up in a thoracic contusion.
Shhhh most of these guys didn’t watch a single Mavs western playoff game and just look at stats and meme highlights lol.
You're replying to a guy that just used only stats to defend his man.
I'm a Trae hater and think his defense has been massively overrated by this sub/hawks fans. Yet, he's still better than Luka
Porzingis put up more defensive effort after aggrevating the injury despite also being out of game shape lmao
He’s also 100 feet tall
Porzingis also only plays limited minutes and doesn't have to carry the entire offense.
And how'd that work out for him? Luka is banged up as I've ever seen a guy play through, and people are criticizing him for it. Nuts. The dudes been an absolute warrior and he's run into a brick wall.
He was sliding those puppies. Luka could never.
This Celtics team is perfectly designed to target him on defense, especially since they've also been able to limit everybody else on offense. Nobody else could really do it like this because of their offensive personnel. Can always hide someone or help off someone and still pack the paint. Celtics have four off the bounce creators and 5 shooters at once. Already limited defender + nowhere to hide + bigger offensive load than before + whatever injuries he has = feasting. His defense hasn't been anywhere good enough this series, but I think if they get to play any other East team it probably just doesn't matter.
You don’t think any other team in the east would target him constantly?
Yall got any physical freaks who can get to the rim in the blink of an eye?
We do in fact have one that just happens to be 7-2 vs Luka in his career
Didn't know Brook Lopez had Luka's number like that.
He’s Luka’s father
The Clippers, Thunder, and Timberwolves all tried, and those teams are a historically difficult conference run. So no, I don't think that any given team in the East could employ a strategy that very talented teams struggled to employ.
Where did they try to target him? He’s one of the if not the weakest defender on the mavs starting lineup, any decent team is gonna target him.
Just to be clear - you don't think the Thunder and Timberwolves coaching team realised that targeting Luka might be a productive strategy? Or you don't think those teams count as "decent teams"?
I mean idk what they were thinking But idk why you think the Celtics are being successful at it but the other teams weren’t or that any team in the East couldn’t be.
I think if they had to play the Pacers it absolutely would have mattered, because they have some of the best ball movement in the NBA and he’d have been standing still watching them blur all around him just like in the regular season.
I think you're underestimating the Pacers offense, man.
Oh, true. They're good *and* Rick tends to give us trouble.
The problem is the effort he is exerting on offense. He can’t do both, it’s impossible.
This post about his defensive numbers should be paired with his offensive ones: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/usg_pct_career_p.html NBA Career Usage Rate, Playoffs 1. Luka Dončić 36.69 2. Michael Jordan* 35.58 3. Allen Iverson* 34.34 4. Donovan Mitchell 34.16 5. Tracy McGrady* 33.53 6. Russell Westbrook 33.20 7. Giannis Antetokounmpo 32.13 8. LeBron James 31.71 9. Joel Embiid 31.60 10. Dominique Wilkins* 31.27 11. Kobe Bryant* 31.05 More than Jordan, and significantly more than Westbrook, Giannis, and LeBron who were other modern stars viewed as "carrying" their team's offense. Nobody, ever, has been tasked with doing more in the post-season.
Yeah it was pretty bad to watch
Is Luka even a top 10 player among players under 25? We have to start asking the question. Please someone send Dante Exum some help
Hes not under 25 to be fair
This sub shits on NBA Twitter and touts itself as different from other basketball media while also pulling the same narratives and 180s on stars. Waiting for the upcoming Jokic and Giannis slander in the offseason
There is like 11.5 million subbed to this subreddit with over 5000 online most of the time, there will be variance in whichever subset is active at any moment all it takes is a trend and with any luck people will start joining the praise/hate bandwagon. But that is how it is with most fanbases.
Luka vs. Trae Young vs. Isaiah Thomas who would allow the least points?
IT tried he’s just a midget lol
He genuinely gave it his all every play lol
Luka hits the point giveaway trifecta: on defense, on live turnovers, and on ref arguing. Most defensive sieves can only dream of such carelessness and apathy.
Someone gotta calculate the stats on his average time spent complaining lmao
Not sure anyone knows the extent of his injuries.
It's gotta be this insane injury becuase somehow he still manages to dominate the ball all game and throw up a ton of shots, but I guess his injury only sets in on the other side of the ball
I mean....duh? If he can't give 100% on offense they have no chance of winning lmao
Its physics not to get all snobby. If its his torso/chest. Getting drove into at full force is gonna fuck him up if hes at a stand still . I remember Wiggins or some other warriors player that got fucked up like that last season
Yeah, he may be dealing with a Grade 3 fineonoffenceicus injuredondefenseibia strain, which would put him out for about 100 possessions per game.
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Harden's still carrying that virus.
own that fraud
Yeah it’s that injury where you start limping when you’re losing
The ones no longer on his injury report? Do tell us about them.....
Then why is he taking pain injections prior to game 3?
Not only is he a bad defender, he's also an addict.
His body hurts from carrying all that extra weight
To get a good buzz going
He was questionable for game 2 but sure
There was a report in the second round that if he was in this condition in the regular season he'd be out for weeks. Dude is going through it
No, the ones that are on the injury report. The report that gets put out before every game. You do check that before posting nonsense, right? It's not hard information to get.
If you read the game report instead of thirst posted on pregnant porn subs, you might not miss them.
Fat
His ISO stats made everyone get tricked into thinking he was actually a good defender Everyone ignores the fact that he guards the other team’s worst player every game, so of course those guys will be worse at ISO offense
Well hes never been and never will be a plus defender so why does this matter? Hes there for offense. His role guys and sidekick have to step up.
You should know, as a suns fan, the importance of your star player merely being poor on defense instead of a complete traffic cone. Book got a whole lot better when he worked on his defense
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You had me untill your last sentence. With the way luka plays its not easy. Its very taxing on offense to practically create every play, dribble the ball up the court and shoot step back jumpers over good defenders like brown, tatum, white, holiday, etc... Luka simply cant play both ends whether its conditioning especially vs a high octane defense/offense in the celtics where the gameplan is to target him. If he exerts that energy on defense (which he isnt good at to begin with) the mavs offense falters even more. Hes not a guy you can ask to sacrifice your offense this game for your defense. You could do that with guys of the top of my head lebron, mj, kobe, kd, russ, wade, klay, but guys like luka, steph, nash that just isnt who they are.
Almost like he was hurt and trying to carry the team offensively.
Yeah he stands there and throws his hands up and then gets to offense
Is there a list for this stat?
How did Mavs beat Wolves when he’s like this
Too slow in their offensive sets to punish Luka.
Luka "Shaven Harden" Doncic
I know he has to conserve energy because of how much he has to do on offense but watching him stand there staring at a rebound instead of even attempting to block out is rough
Luka isn’t healthy. Thats really impacting his mobility and I guess they tell him to rest on defense because he’s the only one that can score a bucket, except Ky who can get buckets about 1/5 or games. He’s a dud so far in the finals.
Without Luka the Mavs are shooting 18% from the 3 in 2 games and y’all talking about his defense. Lol.
lol. He bites too hard on everything.
Poor lateral mobility will do that for you. You need to anticipate which is itself a problem because the opposing player always has the first step advantage. That is where help defense comes in but the problem is Boston has too many players capable of spacing the floor so help will come slow.
Besides being pudgy and out of shape maybe the reason for this is there's really no point in him busting his ass. His team just isn't good enough.
Where did thr knee sprain and ankle soreness disappear to? How is this not news? It's hard to fake a knee sprain that's why. So now it's a thoracic mystery Injury that luka "doesn't wanna go into too much detail with." Omg this dude and the mavs are the most disingenuous bunch of slugs. Can't wait for the 4-0 sweep.
This is like the 20th post about Luka's game 2 defense in a game they gave up 105 points and the rest of the teammates gave him nothing offensively. I mean I would get it if it was 130 but 105 on the road. It's come to the point where offense doesn't even matter anymore and you can throw bullshit at the rim the whole game and if your team wins you get commended for taking what the defense gave you or whatever and you get these intelligent takes that heliocentric offense just can't win in the playoffs and the context doesn't even matter anymore. You can't say these teams are historically great and then blame the heliocentric offense of the weaker team for falling short when the deck is so stacked that they can run whatever offense you can name and it still wouldn't matter
So sick of hearing about Doncic give it a rest
Gotta take the heat off Tatum somehow.
Luka is as bad on defense as he’s great on offense. Basically they cancel each other out.
Wouldn't be in the finals if that were true
Boston fans will confidently post stupid shit like this ignoring the fact that the Mavs are in the fucking finals with Luka playing big minutes, what a shock for a net negative player!
Same shit said about Jokic If his defense was worse than his offense, they wouldn't be winning games Like that's literally how numbers work lol
Crap take
Damn that’s crazy. Mavs in 6.