The name of the game tonight was, again, the deficiency in rebounding. No need to jump immediate conclusions because Varejao and Shaq were both out with injuries, but the Cavs got blasted on the boards for the second straight night in a row 49-35. Washington had a 16-6 advantage on offensive rebounds.
The Cavs now rank 16th in the league in rebound differential at -.10. Interestingly, Boston is 15th at -.09, Orlando is 17th at -.30, and the Lakers are 18th at -.55.
Rebounding, obviously, is a key part of defense as possessions don’t end until a defensive rebound is obtained. So, given that all four of these teams are expected to contend and all four are also in the middle of the pack when it comes to outrebounding their opponent, I checked to see if their was any obvious correlation between rebounding and defensive rating (as determined by points per possession).
Here’s how it breaks down:
Team Defensive Rating Rebounding Differential
Boston 1st 15th
Cleveland 9th 16th
Lakers 11th 18th
Orlando 13th 17th
Based on these four teams, there doesn’t seem to be a huge correlation between defense and rebounding, mainly because Boston blows the whole thing out of the water since they have the best defense in the league.
What could be happening in the case of Boston is that although they’re being outrebounded, they’re making up for it in other areas like opponent’s field goal percentage, blocks, steals, and maybe they don’t foul so much on second shot opportunities.
Team SPG Rank OPP FG% Rank PF Rank BPG Rank
Boston 2 10 20 15
Cleveland 8 12 13 8
Lakers 3 4 9 13
Orlando 22 17 17 19
Boston does get a lot of steals, and they’re in the top third of the league in opponent’s field goal percentage, the bottom third in total number of personal fouls, and right in the middle on blocks.
If we were just looking at Boston then and no other team, we’d almost have to say that steals were the best indicator of good defense. The problem of course is that the Lakers are 3rd in steals and 11th in overall defense - so this connection pretty much goes out the window.
It is interesting to note how little, it seems, OPP FG% has to do with defensive rating. I always assumed this was a huge indicator of team defense since it means opponents are missing shots. Yet, if Boston can rank 10th in OPP FG% but still 1st in overall defense, then OPP FG% can’t be as integral as I thought.
It’s also at this point that I realize this post as ran down the rabbit hole and is never coming back.
Really, I should be looking at some more precise numbers that I just discovered, but I’ll save that for a later date. The larger point, I would say, is that bad rebounding alone doesn’t create bad defense - it’s a combination of several different factors. So, although the Cavs rebounding is certainly something to watch, it’s worth remembering that it’s not the be all end all to great defense.
