[OC] Why Chauncey Billups is the main reason behind the Blazers' terrible defense: a statistical and film analysis.

Now I know what you're thinking: "but the Blazers always have a terrible defense! You just can't build a good defense around Dame!" Bear with me here.

TL:DR: Under Terry Stotts, the Blazers' defenses were mostly solid when key players were healthy, but now our defenses are markedly worse even with better personnel, and the main reason for this is because of Chauncey Billups.

IF YOU'RE NOT A STATS GUY, SKIP TO THE END TO SEE VIDEO EXAMPLES OF THIS.

As you guys probably know, the Blazers' defense is bad. Really bad. There is a lot of finger-pointing here, but to me the number one reason starts with Chauncey.

I understand that Stotts is not perfect and this is not meant to be a "Terry Stotts is the best coach that ever lived" hype post. However, one thing he always did was construct solid defenses given the personnel.

I've compiled a list of the Blazers' two most played 5-man lineups each season, and how they stack up against other teams' most played lineups: for each season, I compared the Blazers' lineups to all lineups playing more than 150 minutes together, which roughly correlates to around 60-70 total lineups per season (two or so per team).

For this season, I reduced that to 115 total minutes together, which roughly corresponds to 150 minutes over the course of an entire season, and for 21-22, I reduced the cutoff to 100 minutes, since the Blazers second most played lineup only had 131 minutes played together.

Here are the stats.

Season	Lineup	Minutes	Drtg	Percentile
22-23	Dame/Simons/Hart/Grant/Nurk	541	115.5	27.9
22-23	Dame/Simons/Hart/Grant/Eubanks	263	115.7	26.3
21-22	Dame/CJ/Powell/RoCo/Nurk	274	111.2	31.4
21-22	Simons/CJ/Powell/RoCo/Nurk	131	116.5	13.9
Offseason	Chauncey hired now
20-21	Dame/CJ/Powell/RoCo/Nurk	370	104.8	73.33
20-21	Dame/Trent/Jones/RoCo/Kanter	289	107.4	60
20-21	Dame/Simons/RoCo/Melo/Kanter	64	106.8	small sample
19-20	Dame/CJ/Bazemore/Melo/Whiteside	316	106.1	54.7
19-20	Dame/CJ/Ariza/Melo/Whiteside	230	116.5	6.3
18-19	Dame/CJ/Turner/Aminu/Nurk	260	100	94.75
18-19	Curry/Stauskas/Turner/Collins/Leonard	196	104.3	69.75
18-19	Dame/CJ/Harkless/Aminu/Nurk	744	108	43
17-18	Dame/CJ/Turner/Aminu/Nurk	108	99.6	79.6
17-18	Dame/CJ/Harkless/Aminu/Nurk	442	103.1	62.7
16-17	Dame/CJ/Harkless/Aminu/Plumlee	255	104.1	58.2
16-17	Dame/CJ/Harkless/Aminu/Nurk	229	105.8	52.7

As you might have seen, there are some very interesting trends in the table. The one that might be immediately obvious is that in Stotts' last season in 2020-2021, the Dame/CJ/Powell/RoCo/Nurk lineup was great defensively, in the 73rd percentile of all qualifying lineups. When Chauncey got hired, the same exact lineup immediately tanked defensively, sinking to the 31st percentile. Again, this is the EXACT SAME LINEUP with the difference of just one offfseason.

Another trend is that the team's top two minutes lineups have all been above average under Stotts (with the exception of the 19-20 Ariza/Melo/Whiteside lineup and the 18-19 starting lineup), especially with Nurkic healthy. And, I included the Dame/Ant/RoCo/Melo/Kanter lineup from 2020-2021 despite the small sample size because it was our most played Melo/Kanter lineup - and even this lineup which should be DISASTROUS defensively is defending much better than our Dame/Ant/Hart/Grant/Nurk lineup from today.

Obviously, we have had bad defensive seasons under Stotts before, but this is largely due to Enes Kanter playing big minutes - some of the Kanter lineups from 20-21 were pretty disastrous, as we have seen with our own eyes.

But our new starting lineups with Chauncey have no right to be this bad considering we had a genuinely good defense with Powell, RoCo, and post-leg injury Nurk as recently as the 2020-2021 season.

Just for fun, here are our five most played lineups from the 2020-2021 season featuring our favorite turnstile/conspiracy nut/activist, Enes Kanter, and how they stacked up against the 184 total lineups in the NBA that played over 60 minutes together:

Lineup	Minutes	Drtg	Percentile
Dame/Trent/Jones/RoCo/Kanter	289	107.4	52.1
Dame/CJ/Jones/RoCo/Kanter	107	123	5.4
Dame/CJ/Norm/RoCo/Kanter	86	113.7	27.8
Dame/Ant/RoCo/Melo/Kanter	64	106.8	54.8
Dame/Trent/Hood/RoCo/Kanter	58	102.5	86

A weighted average of all these minutes is in the 43rd percentile of qualifying lineups, which means that our starting lineups today under Chauncey are literally defending worse than our lineups under Kanter. That's.....a travesty and really goes to show that the coaching is the main problem with the defense.

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Now, I'm not arguing that our roster hasn't played a part in the dysfunction as well. The lack of a backup center obviously hurts as Watford has no business trying to play center for long stretches of the game. But, this misses the bigger problem - even with Nurk, the SAME POST-INJURY NURK we've seen be effective under Stotts, this defense has fallen off a cliff. And that absolutely has to be on coaching. If you want film examples of this, well have a look.

Here I was bored so I compiled some plays so everyone else can see it with their eyes too:

For starters here's some examples of good defense so you can see how the Warriors hide Poole and avoid matchup hunting:

1. Warriors hedge hard with Curry and Wiggins fights to recover and stay on Luka, forcing a turnover.

2. Again, the Warriors hedge hard with Poole and Wiggins doesn't accept the switch. When Poole hits the screen Wiggins blitzes and the Warriors rotate out of it and force a contested logo three at the end of the clock (which Luka makes, but it's good defense).

3. Here's a play from the Celtics. Watch Derrick White in the corner fight off the ball, preswitching so he doesn't end up on the screener, he knows it's going to be a mismatch so he fights to stay away from the play, and the Celtics get a turnover.

4. The Blazers are capable of it too, here's a play from us, probably the only time I've seen it this season, where Ant hedges and Grant stays with KD initially, and then when the switch is inevitable they run a late double team causing a turnover. Unfortunately this game was lost because all the other possessions to close the game we just switched Ant onto KD and let him do his thing.

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Now that you guys know how good teams defend these actions let's look at what's been happening with the Blazers.

1. Here's a play against the Lakers where Dame gets switched onto LeBron (Troy Brown, the screener, doesn't even make contact here, THERE IS NO REASON TO SWITCH THIS) and just gets two easy free throws.
2. A very similar thing happens again here out of a zone but Grant doesn't want to leave Dame alone on an island so it gives up an open three. If you're going to run a zone defense you cannot put Dame on the same side as Eubanks because it simply allows LeBron to easily attack dame's part of the zone.
3. Again, brush screen with zero contact from the screener, switch for no reason and it's an easy layup
4. It's so easy to preswitch this so Grant will be guarding Schroder (the screener) but no, they make no effort to preswitch, dame gets switched onto LeBron again, and it results in wide open three
5. You guys get the point I'm sure

Here's some plays from the aforementioned Nets game

1. again, zero contact from the screener, defense forced to commit and breaks down, wide open three
2. no attempt to hedge or keep Grant onto KD, they just simply accept the switch and pray KD misses 1v1 against Simons

How about the Mavs game we lost earlier this season?

1. Again, accepting the switch for no reason results in a wide open three
2. And another one
3. And another one (this one was probably Dame's blown rotation but given the fact that Dinwiddie made three consecutive threes prior to this possession it's understandable he didn't want to leave Dinwiddie in the corner).

Or how about last night's Pelicans game??

1. You guys get the point, right?
2. It gets to the point where when Dame is anywhere near the play they just run a double at him (but why is Dame near the play in the first place??) and give up a wide open three

At this point it's just an ongoing theme for this season, the Blazers' guys are not being put in positions to succeed on defense. As the coach it's your job to put guys in positions to succeed, not simply say "ok just switch all the guard-guard action and live with the results!" That's stupid. Asking Dame to guard LeBron/Ingram/etc. on switches while also playing 38 minutes per game and do everything offensively is also stupid, and it falls on Billups to scheme up ways to protect him from being hunted on defense. And he's completely failed at that so far.

Even in a matchup zone defense, you can't just let guys like KD attack Anfernee Simons' part of the zone 1 on 1 with no help and live with the results. Even though it's a zone defense everyone is matched up properly and it's possible to hedge the matchups up top or fight to avoid the switch, but...nope.