Why The LA Clippers Defense Was ELITE This Season

Why The LA Clippers Defense Was ELITE This Season

on today’s show what made the LA Clippers defense a totally different animal this year going to be talking about it all on today’s Locked On Clippers you are Locked on Clippers your daily Los Angeles Clippers podcast part of the Locked On podcast network your team every day yes sir you were locking in with the Clips thank you for making Locked on Clippers the first listen of your day your team every day i’m your host Darian Vizer born and raised in LA just finished my 20th season as a Clipper fan been covering the team for 5 years on my own LA Sports and LA and NBA ccentric YouTube channel Dimeropper and three years right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network your team every day make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell on the road to 8,000 subscribers and you can listen wherever you get your podcast this episode is brought to you by Game Time game Time is the best place to get great deals last minute on tickets download the Game Time app create an account and use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase in today’s episode we’re going to be talking about why the Clippers defense was in my opinion the best defense we’ve had in my 20 years of fandom i point it down to point of attack big zoo and the defensive focus so let’s begin with the most important thing in my opinion for a great modern defense point of attack defenders aka perimeter defenders guys that can navigate screens well and get over them guys that can slide their feet preferably guys with a little bit of length and size because we have a lot of bigger point guards today but you need someone that is going to not allow your big man to feel like they’re are guarding two people at once that’s the main thing you want guys that can keep a man in front but a lot of today’s NBA is not just isolation it’s pick and roll into isolation so you need guys that are good navigating screens and they’re not relying on their big man that they’re guarding pick and roll with to guard two at once now the likes of Anthony Davis Rudy Gobear you know those guys Evan Mobley even who went defensive player of the year this year those guys can kind of guard two at once in 2023 and in 2024 the LA Clippers showed that they did not that if it’s a Zubat could not guard two at once yes sometimes he’d have moments of contesting a shot and then getting a rebound against his own guy but a lot of times guys would come off of screens and if it’s a Zubots had to guard two guys at once he’d have to step up to the ball handler and they just lobb it over his head and there would be an alleyoop and everybody would say “Zoo can’t guard in space zoo can’t guard this guy torches him he gets outplayed by every good center.” Well did every one of those good centers have a guard that could get in the paint because in 2023 the Clippers were 17th in defensive rating so below the you know bottom half of the league 17th in 2024 we were 16th so still bottom half of the league what changed in 2025 kawi Leonard who’s a very good defender missed 45 games the difference is and I kept saying this if you go back in the receipts this is something I said that actually aged well i said if it Zubots is not a bad defender he just needs guys that can get over screens with him and our best point of attack defender for the last two seasons was Terrence Man and I love Terrence Man i was called a Terrence Man stand i was you know called all sorts of names about how quote unquote delusional I was about his abilities but he was just the best option that we had at the time and Terrence man I always said and again I think this also aged well he can be one of your point of attack defenders on a very good team or a championship team but if you’re asking him to guard the best player on the opposing team I just did not think he was big enough nor good enough laterally to make up for his lack of size to be the best defender on a championship level team this season the Clippers had the third highest defensive rating in the league or lowest however you want to call it behind the Magic and the Thunder and we knew the second we got this roster and if you go back to my pods before the season you can see that I said my prediction was we’ll be a top 10 defense without Kawhai with Kawawaii will be top five we were essentially a top five defense without Kawhai and what does that come down to well yeah Zoo did get better at defense but the difference is you put guys around him particularly two guys in in Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr that are going to guard the best players and get over screens to to the point where if it’s a Zubots doesn’t have to guard two at once where he can kind of stay closer attached to his guy so then he can just you know show for a second and then get back to his guy and be in rebounding position and shot blocking position where it feels like the guy that is going to go up has two guys around him not just one where he could just dump it off to whoever Zoo’s guarding in the dunker spot now we had pick and rolls being blown up and shots being heavier or more contested as opposed to guys coming off screens and that’s one thing I thought Terrence wasn’t great at i thought he was pretty good at guarding some bigger guys that try to bully him like the likes of Kevin Durant and Luca Donuch but against quicker guards he even said he didn’t love it he was a lot of times just completely erased on screens whereas Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr do a great job of picking their angles out and fighting through those screens and you know my co-ach Will Johnson always says great players don’t get screened and of course there’s so many BS illegal screens that guys get away with now and you know as big men that come out you’re not allowed to really hedge with contact anymore and teams also don’t do that because they don’t want to give up four-on-ree situations that usually lead to open threes but that is a real thing and fighting over screens you can’t do Paul George even said it it’s not as much contact allowed as even 10 years ago so it really gives the offensive player advantages and Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr I thought they were incredible all season long fighting over screens chris Dunn should have been an alldefensive level player but or all defensive team guy but of course you know the game limit the minutes limit that nonsense he didn’t play enough games with 20 plus minutes but he let’s just start with Chris Dunn for example like he and Dererick Jones Jr kind of switched off you know starting lineup wise but then we had games where we started both of them and they were both so good i mean Chris Dunn moving his feet fantastic in one-on-one fighting over screens amazing doing a great job off ball you know having his hands in the cookie jar reading where a player was going to go i mean how many times did we see Chris Dunn read where a dribble handoff was going to go or read the where the pass was going to go back door and just get his hands in there and come up with a steal i mean I thought he was incredible at that and it allowed us to get out in transition offensively and then Derek Jones Jr I talked about his the ability he has to cover ground you know in rotations you know going from one guy to the next or going from the weak side corner all the way to the basket to stop a lob or something like that he’s fantastic at that he’s got those long arms moves his feet well fights over screens well so now you didn’t have just one point of attack stopper you have a guy that was just the best perimeter defender on a finals team in the Mavericks so you have two guys that could do that and it paid dividends they did such a good job not to mention we had Nicholas Batum off the bench and Kevin Porter Jr wasn’t even that half bad defensively when he was a part of the team so point of attack defense is the difference and sadly none of those guys made the alldefensive team but that’s why we had the third best defense in the league and as a conclusion I thought we were the best defense I’ve seen in my time as a Clipper fan but I’ll tell you and it’s because you know our roster our roster was set up for us to be a good defense which gave us that ability to never fully be out of games you know our offense at times was a struggle it was a lot of times James Harden pick and roll we didn’t have many other shot creators but our defense always gave our offense a chance to catch up and that was a breath of fresh air from this team so having those guys that have the skills defensively is big but in the playoffs I will say it was a little bit of a letown we actually had a one we had a 109.4 defensive rating in the regular season in the playoffs it was 115.3 which would be good enough for about 20th in the regular season so it would be tied for 22nd so that’s no good and again part of that is who you’re playing right in the playoffs everybody gets the same opponents well not really actually based on if you’re East or West but you get your regular season opponents so it’s a different sample size much bigger sample size but it’s against all the teams whereas the playoffs are against one and if you’re lucky multiple teams so in the Clippers case that defensive rating is just cuz they were guarding one of the best offensive teams however six points less on average per 100 possessions is no good so when you go and analyze it do we think the Clippers defense was bad in the playoffs it could have been better but I think a lot of our flaws were were shown we didn’t have a backup center to replace if it’s a Zubots james Horn and Norman Powell aren’t great defenders and especially off ball so when they’re getting lazy off ball and in transition that’s where Denver exploits you you know they’re not like one of these teams that just plays pick and roll with all eyes on you they really move without the ball they cut well so you have to be on your P’s and Q’s defensively and uh when you’re off the ball and we got exposed for being a little bit of a ball watching team off the ball because on ball we’re very good defensively when the defense is you know the pick and roll or isolation i mean we can load up on that or stagnant we can lock that up pretty easily but the Nuggets are not that so it forces you to play at an even higher level defensively and even the league’s best defense was taken to seven games by that Nuggets team so it’s not easy but it exposed that Norman Powell and James Harden aren’t great off ball defensively and having them together causes some problems especially when Norman Powell wasn’t performing well enough offensively but coming up going to be talking about the one player that made the defensive team how big of an impact did he have defensively going to be talking about him coming up i got to tell you a little something about game time there’s nothing like the NBA Finals and I can tell you from experience I’ve been to so many incredible playoff games well like not the finals but 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change was having point of attack defenders as I mentioned earlier but I mean Zoo is a great rim protector you know he has really good timing on his block shots he does a good job of playing two at once at times you know I said he can’t really but I think he he he’s not like the Anthony Davises or the Rudy Go Bears or the Evan Mobleys who can do it consistently and can completely bail out a bad perimeter defense kind of like Goar did in Utah for all those years but he does have the ability to contest and get the rebound when he’s got better defenders around him at a higher level because he doesn’t have to help as much you know you don’t have to sell out as much when you have a guy that’s still trailing the guy behind his back as opposed to when he’s coming off a screen he’s untouched and now Zubots has to guard two guys at once so when you look at you know his abilities he can rebound i mean there’s so many times where the guy’s contesting a shot and then grabbing the rebound off the shot he he contests which is huge so it just having an anchor down there to erase shots to change shots i mean the amount of games he’s just affecting everyone’s shot you know where it’s like you cannot put that into the stat sheet because it doesn’t go in there i mean of course there’s like field goal percentage around the rim against this guy but you know you want to see all those possessions and it’s like you don’t know where the is there any guy is there anybody guarding the guy shooting besides Zoo or is it just him like it’s just an interesting stat you kind of want you kind of need a little more specifics when it comes to that but if it’s a Zubots just continues to grow defensively and I think you know in previous eras having a rim protector that it it was the most important thing i mean especially if you go back to the pre-3 line era when you had to go to the basket all the time having a rim protector is the most important thing but now I think it’s changed the point of attack defense i think you need guys that keeps because this is a guard heavy league it’s not like you’re guarding in the post a ton almost nobody’s posting up like that although and that’s another argument for Zubots is Joic i mean he’s a great postup player and Zoo with his frame with his strength he did as good of a job as you could on Zuba i mean sorry on Nicolic so like it’s not like Jokic completely dominated us but he was damn good but Zoo did a pretty great job you know and he did in the bubble as well so I think even if the the NBA had more postup guys I think that would actually favor Zoo a little bit more now if you look at the lineups that played over 50 minutes this season for the Clippers and you look at their defensive ratings Ivich Zubots is on the top wow he’s in all of them he’s in all 12 of them lineups that played over 50 minutes i guess maybe no lineups played uh no lineups without Zubots played over 50 minutes so that tells you though right then and there you know we didn’t have any lineup combination without if it’s Zubots that played over 50 minutes i mean the guy was integral for what we did this past season integral and every single lineup that has the best defensive rating on our team is invol has Zubots involved in it i mean he was our anchor he absolutely deserved it and again it’s just you can’t understate what having a rim protector can do for your defense for the aggression of your perimeter players but again he’s not like some crazy shot blocker but he’s there he’s there and he’s also a smart defender I’d say too just a smart player in general doesn’t make too many dumb mistakes doesn’t commit too many stupid fouls he’s pretty disciplined defensively and that’s what makes him great but coming up besides personnel what else or besides just sheer ability what else goes into making your defense what else goes into making or having a great defensive team going to be talking about that coming up i got to tell you a little something about Lollipop lollipop is a new kind of soda made for people who love the classic taste of soda but want something that supports their health with just 2 to 5 gram of sugar and 9 g of prebiotic fiber in every can Lollipop is reimagining soda in a way that’s better for your gut traditional sodas are loaded with sugar like 39 g in a regular Coke or 44 g in an orange Fanta ollipop flips that script with just a fraction of the sugar no artificial sweeteners and gut- friendly ingredients like Olly Smart a blend shown to support digestive and overall health it’s soda that tastes like the real thing but actually does something good for your body what flavor are you trying first cherry Cola classic grape or maybe Dr goodwin there dr pepper dupe i like lollipop i’ve only had the classic grape I believe and maybe some strawberry if that flavor even exists i think it does and it was good and I’m excited to get some get a free can of Lollipop just buy any two cans in store and they’ll reimburse you for one head to drink.com/lockdonba to claim your free can and find lollipop near you that’s drink lollipop.comna all right so before we get into the one person or the aspect that I haven’t mentioned that everyone’s like “Dude how have you not mentioned this yet?” I’ll get there you know I’m going to but I think one real thing that goes into being a great defensive team is something that’s not quantifiable in stats or metrics and that is how badly does your team want to defend on a nightly basis on a possession by possession basis because today’s NBA defenses are asked to do more than ever with how much spacing there is on the court and how many rules favor the offense you have to work and dig that much deeper within yourself to defend at a high level however I also think that there’s a real and this is coming from as someone who’s in youth basketball and all about all in it there is a real lack of fundamentals in high school basketball all the way down in America i will have our club team will will lose to teams just because of you know they’re just more athletic right now they’re more established programs because my team is only a year old but there’s teams out there with talent not showing their players how to see man and ball at the same time not showing their players how to be in the gaps defensively and there’s a lack and because we live in the peak of highlight culture how many times do you see defensive plays go viral that aren’t steals and blocks it has never been less cool to play defense it has never been less valued to play defense we are in a very offense first culture we are in a very offense first NBA and you know I I struggle not struggle I get my players to play defense but it’s something you really have to emphasize or else people won’t take pride in it and this started when I was a kid you know what I’m saying we were moving towards that later in the 2000s so you know and you don’t even have to but so you know this is not a locked on Clippers topic but this is like a basketball topic you know does anybody play defense in the NBA anymore that’s a whole thing and I think that’s a mixture of things i think that the side that says there’s no defense being played is completely wrong because if you watch the Clippers play this season that completely counteracts what we do we actually play defense and that’s part of why we’re good by the way all the good defensive teams made the playoffs just so you know um but the thing is this there is validity in my opinion to defenses not playing very hard some nights especially the bad teams like there are some teams that people just could don’t understand how hard it is to guard but there are also there also is in terms of in my opinion on a per game basis a lack of pride defensively from guys in the league now because their skill sets are more offense tailored because that’s what’s valued more dribbling and shooting is what’s valued more now in this in today’s society and then athleticism uh that’s what we look at mostly for scouting size athleticism dribbling shooting um as opposed to the you know when back in the day you had more specialist guys you had guys that were maybe not as great all around but they were super good at this particular aspect of defense or rebounding and that has changed that has made the league teams harder to guard but I also think it’s given us less players that are just like you know what I’m like less Chris Duns you know guys that are just like I want to play defense i want to take pride in that every possession you know that stuff matters and I think having guys like Kristen and Dererick Jones that are there for defense first reasons it gives your team a defensive focus a defensive intensity where it’s like we do this and Willis Reed and Marcus Smart I always reference this but they’ve always said defense is like 80% effort i forget the exact number they use but it is because yes you need that skill that Chris Dunn and Derk How which is the lateral ability the anticipation the reading of players understanding angles that is a skill but there’s that want to james Hart is not as bad of a defender as people think he doesn’t want to play defense all the time and it’s yes it’s partially because the offensive load he carries but you know want to matters one thing I’ll give Kawhi Leonard he wants to play defense he doesn’t always guard the best players because he’s offensive you know offensive you know machine now he’s the number one option but his assignment I rarely say that he’s low effort sometimes he can be lack of focus but it’s never low effort with Kawhi Leonard defensively so of course Jeff Van Gundy that was the thing I was talking about jeff Van Gundy gave us a defensive focus in terms of coaching staff i mean his reactions when we would give up open threes even when they wouldn’t go in were very telling he was constantly on his feet yelling instructions on D and he said that we want to go back to forcing teams middle to funnel them to zoo as opposed to forcing them baseline which is a different tactic you know I think back in the day you probably forced guys to go middle more because you had big rim protectors there and less shooting on the court but nowadays teams don’t want to let you get in the middle of the paint cuz that’s you can see the floor and make plays so I think that was a different approach just be super uber aggressive and put pressure on opposing guards and then funnel them into Zoo and I think that ended up taking place very nicely over the course of the season for us but it’s all about playing defense and wanting to play defense again it’s harder now but guys are also lazier on that end and you have less good defenders in my opinion in the league although your great defenders the Drew Holidays the Chris Duns you can think what would they be doing if they were allowed to get more handsy like in the past they’d be even better defenders they’d probably want to play then but the perimeter contact thing that’s all relevant like these are all relevant things that matter we talk about defense being played and you know the conversation around defense in the NBA today it’s just you need to push yourself a little bit harder and again I don’t think you shouldn’t be able to they don’t practice like they used to in the past that’s very public and everybody knows it uh you know the the culture around injury prevention load management is a thing now and people make excuses by saying “I mean he deserves a rest.” I understand uh uh but we didn’t have the same energy for the past and again that’s when it comes down to well they have to cover more ground well you’re not practicing and you’re playing less minutes and you have all these resources so it kind of balances out in my opinion to some degree especially depending on how far we’re going back but going back to the 2000s yeah less physical NBA now but definitely more cardio needed for sure than the 2000s there’s no doubt about it but again less full speed practices more cooks in the kitchen but I don’t think technology has advanced in the last 15 years that much to the point where you know like I can see why the resting happens now but I think it’s also because people are getting injured left and right too and that’s coming from youth basketball as well and the culture on playing so many games um I think the kids that I coach play a lot of games but I don’t know how many of them are actually going to get to the the league or D1 you know that’s where it’s like if I can’t imagine if these guys played consistently all the way through college and NBA they probably going to have injury problems too because of how much they’re playing but it’s only 1% or less that even go to the NBA so it’s a you know that’s that’s a bigger discussion about defense but in my opinion in terms of the Clippers Jeff Van Gundy put us a defensive focus out there but it doesn’t matter without the players if you gave Jeff Van Gundy the Suns I mean you saw what Frank Vogle did he had them playing better defense than what you know they probably were but he’s not making them a good defense the Minnesota Terminals waxed them in the playoffs in 2024 even with Frank Vogle a defensive mind so it’s all about the personnel at the end of the day first and foremost but having a defensive focus from your players and of course your coach that matters as well so credit Jeff Van Gundy there’s a lot of things that went into it as to why we had such a good defense and I want to keep that identity i really do want to keep that identity and we kind of need to have good defenders around James Harden especially when you have Norman Pal next to him which poses the question do we want to have a weak defensive back court can you afford to have two minus defenders on a championship starting lineup and if that’s where we’re trying to go can we afford that i don’t know you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Dimeropper Pod subscribe to my own YouTube channel Dimeropper for even more LA Clipper and LA Sports content and Lockdown Clippers is free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube make sure you subscribe to get us up to 8,000 subscribers the age-old proverb continues go Clippers

Los Angeles Clippers’ defense stuns NBA. How did they leap from 16th to 3rd in defensive rating?

Die hard Clippers fan and Host Darian Vaziri breaks down the Clippers’ impressive defensive turnaround, highlighting key additions like Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. The analysis covers Ivica Zubac’s All-NBA Defensive Second Team selection, Jeff Van Gundy’s tactical influence, and the challenges of modern NBA defense. Vaziri explores how point-of-attack defenders and rim protection reshaped LA’s defensive identity.

Don’t miss this in-depth look at the Clippers’ defensive revolution. Will their newfound defensive prowess lead to a deep playoff run?

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