Peers stumping for Avery Bradley in #FirstTeamAllDefense campaign

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4722655/peers-stumping-for-avery-bradley-in-firstteamalldefense-campaign



Peers stumping for Avery Bradley in #FirstTeamAllDefense campaign


7:48 PM ET


Chris Forsberg
ESPN Staff Writer




OAKLAND, Calif. -- Over the thumping bass of the music blaring inside the visitor's locker room at Oracle Arena following the Boston Celtics' streak-busting win over the Golden State Warriors on Friday night, Isaiah Thomas kept repeating his sales pitch.

"First-team All-Defense!"

A couple of stalls down, Avery Bradley smiled and continued to dress, pretending not to hear his All-Star backcourt partner stumping for his inclusion in the NBA's end-of-season defensive honors. Celtics big man Jared Sullinger heard Thomas as he walked by and joined the rally.

"First-team All-Defense!"


Avery Bradley showed on Thursday night why he's arguably the NBA's top perimeter defender, limiting Damian Lillard, who averages over 25 points per game, to 14 points on 3-of-16 shooting. AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer
Five hundred miles to the north, Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum, who had gotten a taste of Bradley's on-ball defense just 24 hours earlier during Boston's visit to Oregon, echoed the sentiment while watching the Celtics and Warriors on national TV.

"Avery Bradley [is] the best perimeter defender in the league, and I don't think it's close," tweeted McCollum, ending his message with the hashtag #FirstTeamAllDefense. McCollum was repeating teammate Damian Lillard, who sought out Bradley after Thursday's game to tell him he thought he was the NBA's top perimeter defender.

Not that this sort of chatter is particularly new for Bradley. Back in late February, after he produced a game-saving block on Gordon Hayward during a win over the Utah Jazz, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge tweeted, "I just expect Avery to get stops. He's the best perimeter defender in the league."

It's been three seasons since Bradley made his lone appearance on the NBA All-Defensive Teams list, earning a second-team nod in the final year of Boston's most recent Big Three era. Maybe masked while Boston climbed back into the league spotlight was that Bradley has never stopped being a defensive menace while typically tasked with checking the opposition's top scoring guard.

With a star cast around him during his early days in the league, Bradley was able to distinguish himself on the defensive end and had the freedom to be more aggressive at times with someone like Kevin Garnett behind him. At the end of the 2012-13 season, we created the "Rip List" that chronicled all the star players in the league that Bradley had picked clean that year.

Bradley's role has changed a bit in the past three seasons. He is now Boston's most tenured player and has to shoulder more of an offensive load since the team moved Garnett, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo during this on-the-fly rebuild. The arrival of Marcus Smart in the 2014 draft and Jae Crowder in the Rondo swap has given Bradley some defensive-minded playmates on the perimeter. Now, when opposing players and coaches rave about Boston's defense, Bradley shares that credit.

But Boston's back-to-back this week matched Bradley up against two of the league's top scorers in Lillard and Curry (and, in his downtime, Bradley got to chase McCollum and Klay Thompson, as well). Bradley helped limit Lillard to 14 points on 3-of-16 shooting, while Curry was alarmingly quiet beyond a monster third-quarter outburst on Friday while finishing with a modest -- by his MVP standards, at least -- 29 points on 9-of-19 shooting.

Bradley and his cohorts forced Curry and Lillard to combine for 12 turnovers in those two games. Curry hit a barrage of third-quarter 3-pointers on Friday, but to avoid Bradley that sometimes meant pulling up from one step inside the midcourt logo.

Even before Friday's game, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said he agreed with Lillard's assessment that Bradley is the league's best perimeter defender.

"He just puts a lot of pressure on the ball. He’s got long arms, very quick feet and good anticipation. He knows what people are doing and he oftentimes jumps plays as they’re happening or before they happen," Kerr said. "So, I agree with Damian. I think Avery Bradley’s as good of an on-ball defender as there is in the league. I think that’s a fair assessment.

"And Marcus Smart is right there with him. I think it’s one of the strengths of Boston’s team is their perimeter ball pressure and their ability to disrupt plays and force turnovers."

For the season, the NBA's player-tracking data shows that Bradley is holding his opponents to 41.9 percent shooting, or 2.1 percent below those players' season averages. That's not a number that leaps off the page, but when you consider the quality of scorer that Bradley is tasked with guarding on a nightly basis, it only makes that number seem much more impressive.

And much of what Bradley does defensively is impossible to truly quantify. The in-your-jersey defense that forces his player to throw the ball away or Bradley's ability to race over a screen to prevent a 3-point attempt is hard to reflect in even the most advanced of available metrics.

But Bradley's teammates want to make sure he's rewarded at season's end when the league's coaches vote for the All-Defensive honors. They know how important Bradley is to a team with the fifth-best defensive rating in the league.

"[Bradley] deserves [the honor]," Sullinger said. "[His defensive efforts] might not show up in the stat sheet, but the way he defends, the way he does so many things on the ball, how he affects the ball, he deserves first-team All-Defense."



bob



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Bradley is one of the keepers on this team.

This is his 6th year in the league and he is still only 25.

His energy level defending is maniacal.

He deserves to be named to the all defensive 1st team.

dboss

His defense and abilities both ends is as valuable as IT's game/contributions for this teams success. Love watching his defense, he always comes through with big epic defensive plays at some point, its just when. In a league with so many high scoring points and shooting guards, its great we have 2 pitbulls in AB and Smart to put the clamps on the perimeter and Rozier looks like another potential defensive demon/force to add to the mix. Now if only we could get Mr Intimadator in the paint to make this a historic defense for the ages, the other parts are there.

Looks like Rozier is going to be another solid on the ball defender although he is not attacking the offense yet the way Bradley and Smart do but you can see his quickness out there and ability to mirror the offensive player.

Now we just got to get Mickey some experience out there. When Amir is not in the game our interior defense is porous. But unless a big gets injured Mickey will not be seen unless there is a blowout or during the Summer League.

If we can only get us a thug in the middle the Celtics will be the best defensive team in the NBA. I want Whiteside bad.

dboss

I can see Bradley making the first team all defensive squad.  If he is not the best point guard defender in the league he has to be a very close second to I'm not sure who.

He can be a keeper for the Cs as well, but they still need a center and a shooting wing and someone is likely to be traded to fill either or both of those needs.  Bradley has a great contract to go along with his quality defense so he may be the one who gets traded this summer as well.

I love the idea of having great defensive players as long as they can still score some points.  In the NBA you have to be able to score as well as play defense because even in a great defensive situation on any particular night the other team is still likely to score 85+.  The old adage that 'defense wins championships' is always true but remember that if you cannot score you can't get to the playoffs.

cowens/oldschool wrote:His defense and abilities both ends is as valuable as IT's game/contributions for this teams success. Love watching his defense, he always comes through with big epic defensive plays at some point, its just when. In a league with so many high scoring points and shooting guards, its great we have 2 pitbulls in AB and Smart to put the clamps on the perimeter and Rozier looks like another potential defensive demon/force to add to the mix. Now if only we could get Mr Intimadator in the paint to make this a historic defense for the ages, the other parts are there.

If we replace some of our offensive players with non-offensive players like Smart (giving him more minutes) and Whiteside or Dieng then you damn well better have a defense for  the ages because you are going to struggle to get to 100 ppg in a league that is changing the rules to facilitate scoring more (especially at the perimeter) and instructing the refereeing crews to allow more offense (by calling every tickytack foul, allowing eurosteps).  The 15th offense in the league is the Pelicans.  They are averaging 102.6ppg.  If we struggle to get to 100ppg because we replaced a scorer with a defender then we will have problems.  There's an old saying on Wall Street "Never try and catch a falling knife".  If the league wants more points scored and is willing to sacrifice physically rugged defensive playing to get it, then surrendering offensive players for physically punishing defensive, but weak offensive, players is trying trying to catch a falling knife.  The knife is falling on physically punishing defense.  The players are making too much money for the league to risk an injury because defenders are pounding on them nightly.  Nobody, not the league nor the owners nor the players nor the fans, want a key player to miss games because his body is getting punished by another big man throwing hips and elbows for position.

One of the reasons why GSW is so damn good is because no lead is safe from them.  None.  That's not because of their defense for the ages, it's because of their offense for the ages.  The reason why San Antonio is so good is because they have a system burned in.  Tim Duncan is averaging 1.9 blocks/36mpg.  That's not a big number.  He's 27th in the league in blocked shots.  LaMarcus Aldridge has fewer blocks/game than Cole Aldrich.  That's Pop's starting front court, AND YET the Spurs are #3 in the league in blocked shots.  Apparently, those blocks are not coming from their starting front court.  The Miami Heat are leading the league in blocks.  They're behind us in the standings.  It's not as simple as "protect the rim and we're good".

Mickey is a mobile rim protector.  He's also proficient scorer.  I would rather see him show what he has than get someone who is taller and longer, and maybe a better rim protector, but a far inferior offensive player.  Think you're frustrated when we go through extended scoring droughts now?  Put Marcus Smart and a non-offensive center like Noel in and see how bad it gets.

Having said all that, though, I love Bradley's defense too. What I like is that he is a serious offensive threat too. Before he became that, and our back court was the still-offensively challenged Bradley and the limited offensive Courtney Lee, we were NOT a good team, we lost A LOT of games because we couldn't put the ball in the hoop.


bob


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I thought I'd just add this to the Avery Bradley thread rather than starting a new one for him.


http://uproxx.com/dimemag/cj-mccollum-avery-bradley-best-perimeter-defender-steph-curry/



Was C.J. McCollum Correct When He Called Avery Bradley ‘The Best Perimeter Defender In The League’?


BY: DIME MAGAZINE 04.02.16




GETTY IMAGE


This could be our favorite overstatement from Friday night’s surprising result in Oakland.

Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum has experienced a career year for Portland this season, but he wanted to celebrate one of his peers on Friday night. McCollum was watching with the rest of the NBA when the Warriors finally lost at home to the Celtics, and he decided to publicly show his appreciation for Celtics guard, Avery Bradley — he of the pesky, on-ball defense for 94 feet.

CJ McCollum ✔ ‎@CJMcCollum
Avery Bradley the best perimeter defender in the league and I don't think it's close. Him and chief #firstteamalldefense
8:37 PM - 1 Apr 2016
 1,428 1,428 Retweets   1,548 1,548 likes


Now, to McCollum’s credit, he answered many of the resulting guffaws at the proclamation, and responded to most of the other players — Tony Allen, Kawhi Leonard, etc — who were mentioned in his responses.
















Plus, there were more than a handful of people who agreed with McCollum, and one national basketball writer reiterated just how severely “underrated” Bradley was as a defender.

CJ McCollum ✔ ‎@CJMcCollum
Avery Bradley the best perimeter defender in the league and I don't think it's close. Him and chief #firstteamalldefense


Alex Kennedy ✔ ‎@AlexKennedyNBA
@CJMcCollum He's so underrated, it's crazy.
8:57 PM - 1 Apr 2016
 4 4 Retweets   10 10 likes


But this is where we #wellactually C.J. like that nebbish kid who was always keeping track of the box score during your high school basketball game. The data just doesn’t support McCollum’s statement.

First, Bradley is ranked 44th among all NBA point guards in ESPN’s defensive real plus-minus (DRPM). For the non NBA nerd, DRPM is basically an estimate of a player’s defensive “on-court impact” measured by how many points his team allows per possession. So it’s basically the team’s defensive rating when the player is on the court, but the “real” part of it uses a formula that also takes into account the prowess of a player’s teammates on the court, too.

So, um, that’s not so good for the whole best perimeter defender in the NBA thing. Then again, real plus-minus isn’t the perfect stat to measure a player’s defensive impact. There isn’t a PER for defense yet, so we have to look at other data before we get to the whole “eye test” scenario basketball fans have been trotting out ever since John Hollinger first cracked open a Bill James book.

But the other numbers we can look at don’t really support McCollum’s claim about Bradley, either.

Avery’s straight on/off numbers are really bad, actually — at least on the defensive side of the ball. The Celtics give up 102.8 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the court and 97.0 when he’s on the bench. That’s the difference between the 12th-best defense and No. 2 defense in the Association. (According to the on/off numbers, the C’s do score a lot more with Bradley on the court, 106.7 on vs. 98.4 off, but McCollum wasn’t talking about his offense.)

Next, there’s Synergy data, which measures how a player performs when the person they’re guarding turns the ball over, shoots, or gets fouled. Again, Bradley is ranked in the 44th percentile, which just deemed “average” by Synergy.

Last is the eye test older players love to talk about because it discounts numbers, which seem to scare older generations of NBA players because new stuff always freaks out older people — that’s part of being old. But even with the advent of PER and other advanced data, there’s no silver bullet accounting for a player’s on-court efficacy. All good basketball analysis is a combination of numbers and watching film. So lets look at the film of Friday night’s upset, which is what appears to have prompted McCollum’s tweet.

His proclamation could have something to do with reigning MVP Steph Curry coughing the ball up nine times in the big Boston upset. But not all of those turnovers were forced because of Bradley alone. Take this one for example.




The way Amir Johnson hedges the high screen so close to the mid-court line is what actually forced Steph into the over-and-back whistle.

Or, Steph simply slipped up:





Maybe McCollum was talking about Steph shooting only 1-of-5 in that final session, including two misses in the final minute, one of which could’ve tied it up with just a couple of seconds on the clock. But after reviewing the film, Isaiah Thomas was the one guarding Steph for the majority of his shot attempts in the final quarter, and Bradley only really defended him on one missed corner three-point attempt.



This is not to say that Avery Bradley isn’t an amazing defender and a deserving candidate for an All-Defensive selection when the season ends in less than two weeks. But he’s not the best perimeter defender in the NBA. Sorry C.J.



bob
MY NOTE: I might have a little more respect for this article if the author provided his name. It was attributed to "Dime Magazine". The whole magazine, no individual writer. "Come out, come out, wherever you are..."


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