Porzingis problems

The 7'3" hole at the center of Dallas' defense

Tuning in for the Dallas-Portland Valentine’s Day special, this was one of the first plays I caught:

I am no expert on post defense, but this isn’t great from Kristaps Porzingis (disclaimer: this entire post should be viewed with the context that Porzingis is coming back from surgery for a torn meniscus.) He is rigid and upright, which for someone already giving up a few pounds to Ener Kanter isn’t the best set-up for establishing a strong base. The footwork also appears all off. Puzzlingly, he seems to shade Kanter, a righty, middle at the wrong moment and then shuffles his right leg forward to give Kanter a leverage point for the up and under.

On the next play, Porzingis does a bit better angling his body into Kanter, but his footwork and Kanter’s strength still lead to Kanter easily getting middle into prime scoring position. Porzingis’ stance and the timing of his movements prevent him from selling Kanter’s left elbow jabs for a potential offensive foul call.

Now, Kanter is no mug posting up by any means, currently fifth in the league at 1.27 points per possession. Still, contrast the clips above with Joel Embiid defending Enes Kanter.

Kanter scores in the first clip, but the Sixers will concede a shot with that high degree of difficulty. In both clips, Embiid stonewalls Kanter, keeps him from going middle, and manages to stay both upright to contest while staying low enough to maintain the base necessary to match Kanter’s strength.

Joel Embiid is arguably one of the best post defenders in the NBA, so the point here is not to hold Porzingis to an unreasonable standard. But the ease with which Kanter manhandled Porzingis in the post seems to be a symptom of a bigger problem for the Mavericks. Per Cleaning the Glass, the opponents attempt 35% of their shots at the rim with Porzingis on the floor, 32nd percentile in the league. Even worse, they shoot 67% on those attempts, placing the Mavericks in the league’s bottom quintile when Porzingis is on the floor. Despite being 7’3” and blocking 1.6 shots per game (a career low), Porzingis isn’t proving much of a deterrent at the rim. Not surprisingly, the Mavericks give up 122.5 points per 100 possessions with Porzingis on the floor, over four points worse than the league-worst Sacramento Kings. That number is a league average 112.7 with Porzingis off the floor.

All of this might be fine if the Mavericks were scoring opponents off the floor on the other end, but they score 117 points per 100 with Porzingis on the floor. That’s high octane, but would still only be the seventh best offense in the league. With Porzingis off the floor, the Mavericks score a tick over 113 points per 100, which would be good for 13th best in the league. In effect, Porzingis lineups take the Mavericks from good to very good on offense, but tank from average to putrid on defense.

Worryingly, the bleeding seems to happen in every which way, in both transition and the half court (opponents are rebounding nearly 30% of their own misses with Porzingis on the floor.)

As far as Porzingis this season is concerned, we are still very much in small sample size territory. The Mavericks with Porzingis last season were a league-average defense and an all-time great offense, so this might all be more noise than signal. Still, this might all be worth monitoring given that it could be the determining factor in the Mavericks’ ceiling.

On deck

The Utah Jazz are very, very real and get to run the gauntlet with a three-game Sixers-Clippers-Clippers slate. The Clippers have the league’s best offense (with the Jazz close behind), but have had a surprisingly middling defense thus far. I am excited to see how they deal with Utah’s sunshine-Spurs-esque ball movement. On the other side of the court, Jazz sceptics have pointed out that a lack of defenders against elite wing scorers may be a chink in the Jazz armor. What better test of that hypothesis than Paul George and Kawhi Leonard? I am curious to see if Serge Ibaka gives the Clippers the ability to stretch Rudy Gobert out to the arc and open up some driving lanes. The Clippers don’t seem to have the waterbug guards that give Gobert trouble in the discourse (possibly overdone), but pulling Gobert away from the rim is a win any which way. This should be juicy.