Defense Wins Championships…Or Does It?

Defense Wins Championships…Or Does It?

Rick Fox ending the game hunched over his former teammate Lindseay Hunter and congratulating him as the clock ticks down. The Detroit Pistons have just shocked the Los Angeles Lakers 187 to win the NBA title. Since the turn of the century, there’s only been one team that won the championship with a top three defense, but a below average offense. The 2004 Detroit Pistons ranked with the 18th best offense in the league along with the second best defense. That team was unique in more ways than one. When people talk about the most unbreakable records in NBA history, I think this is a team record that’s unbreakable. I don’t foresee any team in the future who can win the championship with a lowly 18th best offense in the league. In fact, since 2016 until now, there’s only been two teams that won the title with a better defense than offense. The 2020 Lakers and the 2022 Warriors. That’s it. Every other team has won the championship with a better offense. Some of them with a way better offense than defense. The 2016 Cavs, the 2018 Warriors, the 2021 Bucks, and the 2023 Nuggets all won the title with a defense that ranked outside the top 10. Before this, this has only happened five times in the history of the NBA. And yet, it happened four times since 2016. What does this mean exactly? Well, it could mean that offenses around the league are getting so good, so much more efficient, that even the most suffocating of defenses is not enough. At a certain point, you need to be able to score. You need a consistent way to put points on the board, or else, you know, you can’t win. In this video, we’re going to take a look at two teams with a staunch defensive identity and the reason they won’t be truly ready to compete in the playoffs until something changes. Bo Vagner, the steel. He’s off and running. Bonder to the basket, puts it in. So, I recently launched my membership club for my channel. I’m in the process of working with editors to help me increase my video output. So, instead of one video per week, I’m trying to aim for two videos per week, and they’re going to be longer and more detailed. I’ve always edited my own videos for like the last 8 years. So, this is new for me. However, that comes at a cost. I’ve added this option to support me. For $2.99 a month, I’ll be able to double my content, maybe even triple. And there’s some perks on top of it, too. If you do become a member, you’ll get early access to my videos. Loyalty badges, priority replies, and some cool face emojis of NBA players, which I’ll be adding more of as more members join. Thank you again for all the support over the years, and thank you for those who are willing to support me on this new journey. The Orlando Magic. This is actually the second year in a row the Orlando Magic boasted the league’s second ranked defense. In both years, unfortunately, their offense has been near the bottom of the league. And from the looks of it, from the looks of their roster, this is an issue that’s going to persist unless a major change happens. In recent times, they’re the most extreme example of a team that relies solely on defense to win. goes inside defected by Matz. Their offense is literally on the level of like the Washington Wizards. But defensively, they have the perfect squad. Long, lengthy, athletic defenders, an established game plan with great communication to the point where it looks like their entire defense moves on a string. But the question in the modern NBA isn’t how you can stop an opponent from scoring anymore. It’s how you can slow down your opponent enough so you can outscore them. For the Orlando Magic, unfortunately, this is a question they cannot answer. They literally do not have the capability to outscore their opponent. And their offense, despite being the main point to address over the previous off season, actually regressed even further. As with most struggling offenses, the main culprit is three-point shooting. The Magic as a team finished a dead last in three-point percentage at a putrid 31.8%. I mean, that was bad for like 2010, let alone 2025. And as their players saw their shooting regress, the rest of the league took notice. The scouting report for the Magic went from, “Oh, let’s contest their shooters.” to, “Nah, just let them shoot.” Beno against Barnes. like that. Good hit that time. Usually, if a team has one or two bad shooters on the floor, opponents in the playoffs will leave him open to focus on defending other big threats on the floor. For the Magic, they have so many bad shooters that even their good shooters became bad once they arrived to Orlando. For example, Contavius Caldwell Pope, their acquisition from the 2024 off season with the purpose of helping them space the floor with his shooting. Historically, KCP has been a very good shooter, ranging from a 39 to 42% three-point shooter in the last 5 years. And as a result, with zero spacing on the court, it makes it such a struggle for Paulo Beno and France Vagner to score, to create plays, or basically everything they do is much harder than it needs to be. They attract so much defensive attention because there’s nobody else worth guarding. And so for every bucket, for every point, they run through a damn gauntlet. On paper, the duo of Bancero and Vagner seemed like something out of a video game. Two guys who are both legit 6’10 who can put the ball on the floor, pass, dribble, finish at the basket. It’s like the whole NBA caught a glimpse of the future. And this duo landed in Orlando of all places. You can’t ask much more offensively out of what these top two players for Orlando bring. Vagner. so good in the air at the rim in orchestrating whatever shot he needs to in the moment, but they’re at the mercy of their own franchise. You put three competent shooters around them, and you should already go from a horrendous offense to a decent one, but it’s more difficult than just that. There’s the common criticism that until Beno and Vagner develop a better shot themselves, they will never be consistent at carrying the offense. But have the critics realized that it’s so hard to develop a better shot when you have such little space to see the rim and when the spacing is non-existent, that’s why other previously great shooters like Contavius Codwell Pope struggle the second they land in Orlando. It’s a domino effect as everything wrong with their offense is connected to their inability to shoot the damn ball. Of course, there’s plenty of other problems that’s unrelated to their shooting. For instance, due to their over reliance on these 6’10 behemoths, they don’t have a true point guard. By that, I mean a point guard who can slow down the pace, control the offense, put their best scorers in their best spots to score, and most importantly, not turn the ball over. You know what’s funny? They drafted three different point guards since 2020. Cole Anthony, Jaylen Suggs, and Anthony Black. all of whom were project players and none of whom can shoot nor reliably run the offense. In fact, they all kind of play like a smaller version of Ban Carol and Vagner, which is not what they need. They need a true point guard. There is a bright side, however. While most young teams struggle with their discipline defensively, the Magic have already established themselves in that department. There’s little need to instill that kind of discipline when everyone they’ve drafted has slid into this welloiled defensive juggernaut very well. It’s the offense that needs a complete overhaul. And in this case, with their core already having spent several years together, a change is needed. Heck, just look at what the Pistons did. In a single season, they went from one of the worst teams in history to a solid offensive team by just grabbing some veteran shooters and a coaching change. Perhaps the Magic could use something similar. At least they have a solid foundation to build on. The Houston Rockets, among the most physical teams in basketball, the Rockets have held onto a top two seed in the West for much of the season. Built on the backs of Eme Udoka’s rugged defensive coalition, they rank fourth in the league in defense, 13th in offense. Een drives, kicks, Jaylen Green got another one. Big shot. While not as bad as the Magic and equipped with more explosive scorers, the inconsistency of their primary scores is what separates average offenses like the Rockets with elite offenses like the Thunder or Celtics. In the series against Golden State, a team that finished the season with a worse record, a worse offense and defense, they struggled throughout the series, desperately trying to lift their stagnant offense off the ground. Unlike the Warriors, who boasts a plethora of experienced veterans who have the willpower and extensive offensive bag to give them a steady consistent stream of points, the Rockets sadly do not have that. Contrary to the Magic, who simply don’t have the personnel to operate a great offense. The Rockets on the other hand could potentially be bottlenecked by their own coach, Eme Udoka. Udoka, as we all know, comes from a long line of coaches who prioritize defense and veteran experience, preferring his players to fall into one of those categories. Quote, “We’re only as good as our one-on-one defense. We’re only as good as all our five on the court, and any weak link is exploited.” He’s not particularly happy when someone scores on Amen. In Eay’s world, that should be an impossibility. And if it occurs, it’s because Amen did something wrong. That’s just the bottom line with him. He lets you play free, but he’s going to expect you to play hard. He’s going to expect you to defend. And if you’re not doing that, you’re probably not going to be in the game. Uka not only prioritizes defense, but perhaps he’s so engulfed by it that he doesn’t care enough on offense. This is a popular talking point among the Rockets fan base. When a player is performing badly on defense, he would pull them out right away. But if he’s performing badly on offense, he would let them stay in the game. If he’s, you know, if he’s hustling on defense, which I mean, it’s a coaching style that works for some teams, but not for others. Thompson not much of a threat from outside. [Applause] Shenon for three. Also not much of a threat from outside. For Houston, their weakness on offense boil down to two main components. One, the lack of a pick and roll abuser. Jaylen Green runs the pick and roll on 43% of his possessions, among the highest in the league, but only scores 0.92 points per possession. Fred Van Vleet runs it 36% of the time, also very high among the league, but scores only 0.87 points per possession. For comparison, here are the numbers for some other guards. The lack of a player who can abuse their defender in a pick and roll has created a situation where the Rockets can go long stretches without scoring a single point. In the modern day of NBA basketball, every elite offense requires a guy who can dominate in the pick and roll. Whether it’s as a ball handler or as the receiver, the Rockets don’t have either. And it’s actually alarming at how bad their back court is at generating points in the pick and roll. Like Van Vleet has an excuse due to his size and lack of explosiveness. But Jaylen Green, his struggle stems from his decision-m or lack of decision-m and poor shot taking. Now, as somebody who’s followed Jaylen Green for basically his entire career, I thought by now he’d for sure be developing into, you know, an Anthony Edwards kind of player. Instead, his highly inconsistent shooting is on full display for the entire world to see. I mean, just look at the series against the Warriors. Seven points on three of 15, followed by 38 points on 13 of 25, followed by nine points on three of eight. And it just it just bounces back and forth. I mean, sometimes he looks like the second coming of Anthony Edwards. Other times he looks completely invisible. It’s the same problem he’s had as a rookie. And I’m not sure he’ll ever be the reliable, dependable scorer the Rockets need him to be. Two, a half-assed heliocentric game plan. The biggest issue with the offense is the lack of identity. The Rockets upon the hiring of Emeoka made it very clear he wanted to run the offense more through Apparon Shenun. On paper, it seems to have worked. They’ve become a playoff team for the first time since the James Harden era. And Shenun himself experienced a spark of success, making his first ever All-Star team and putting up averages that folks compare to a young Nicola Joic. In fact, look at the stat lines comparing a 21 22year-old Shangun to a 21 22-year-old Jokic. I’d say it looks pretty similar, don’t you think? However, much like how we used to compare Dantis Sabonis to Jokic, there are parts of Shangun’s game that make this comparison not as accurate as you think. While Denver fully committed to building around Jokic fairly early in its career, the Rockets have still not fully committed to Shenun being their focal point. They don’t know if they want the whole offense to revolve around Shangon scoring and passing ability. Hence the term heliocentric game plan where the entire team is built to rely on a single player’s abilities. Think of Joic or Luca on the Mavs or Westbrook on the Thunder or Harden on the Rockets. While this team will always be a great defensive team under Emeoka, they lack an identity on offense. And from the looks of it, he doesn’t seem to care about it that much. Of course, it’s not like Shenun is the second coming of Joic either. He doesn’t have the same feel for the ball offensively. His touch outside of 5 ft is so poor. Even a younger Joic was a much better shooter than Shangun is right now. While Shenun is a great passer, it’s not even close to the same court vision as Joic, an all-time legendary passer. Shenun’s career path is more likely to follow the likes of Sabonis, a guy who never developed his range and still sports a limited offensive game that isn’t good enough to carry an entire team. Obviously, I’ll be ecstatic to be proven wrong, but it’s not like the next Jokic grows on trees. And Shenun is simply a very, very good player. But it’s hard to say he’ll develop the same way. In recent years, there have been other teams near the top of the charts in defense. But due to a mediocre or straightup putrid offense, they’ve yet to find success in the playoffs. One example is the Utah Jazz during the Rudy Gobear years. With a three-time defensive player of the year, the Jazz ranked in the top four in defense four times in five seasons. Except in those five years, they never even got past the second round of the playoffs, not even once. In 2021, they even had the best record in the league and lost to a crippled Clippers team. The disappointment was unbearable for a fan base that believed this was truly the team that could take them to the promised land. What they were really missing was any sort of competent offense in the playoffs. The amount of times they had to rely on Donovan Mitchell to create something out of thin air, it was it was just too many times. And with no other consistent shot creation, it was an obstacle they could not overcome. in disgust. Donovan Mitchell kicking a chair during that last break. In the blink of an eye, the Jazz realized the way they built their roster was never going to win anything. And thus, Mitchell and Goar were gone in a single summer. In the modern day and age, the idea that defense wins championships, it’s still relevant, but it is antiquated. You can’t win with a horrendous defense, of course, but you need an offense that’s well-built. In an era where three-point shooting and offensive efficiency has exploded across the league, there’s only so much a defense can do to stop it. It’s more likely a team goes on a three-point shooting rampage and catapults themselves into a victory as opposed to a team locking down and slowing down some of the league’s most dynamic offenses. Though, one thing that still remains relevant, defense can always be consistent and stable. Whereas offense, sometimes you can’t rely on your shots falling. That’s why even though critics say defense has been non-existent in the past several years, it’s still as relevant as it’s ever been. It’s just offense is more important now. Thank you all so much for watching. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section. What’s your opinion on the Magic or the Rockets? two heavy-handed defensive squads with offenses that need some work if they truly want to contend for the title. Thank you all so much for watching. I hope you all enjoyed the video and of course, as always, I’ll see you next time. Peace. [Music]

The phrase “defense wins championships” has been regurgitated through much of NBA history, but in the modern NBA landscape…is that actually true? Let’s take a look at two defensive powerhouses – the Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets, and how their offensive limitations are the last things to overcome in order to become true NBA contenders. Hope you enjoy!
contact@tablerock.com

I make all kinds of NBA videos which include analysis, player stories, countdowns, and mysteries. Make sure to leave a like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video!

► X: https://www.x.com/@andyhoopsyt
► TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andyhoopsyt
► Music:
Licensed from Epidemic Sound
https://www.epidemicsound.com/

► Sources:
Stats and box-scores from Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com, Statmuse.com, PBPstats.com
#nba