Great Defense in the NBA is Alive

According to Maurice Brooks of ESPN.com; Gerald Wallace, Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Rajon Rondo and Lebron James are his favorites to take the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.

What these guys all have in common is their teams play. All of their squads are currently playing great basketball and you can’t ignore these guys efforts of defense as a reason why.

Just look at their teams points per game against.

Gerald Wallace, Charlotte: 93.0 PA. Larry Brown is once again getting more out of his players than any other coach in the league. This team could be scary in the playoffs because they are so hard to score against.

Dwight Howard, Orlando. 95.9 PA. Offensively, the Magic are inconsistent. One game they score 110+, the next they score low 90’s. Good thing for them they are, lead by Howard,  a great defensive team. Eventually they will start scoring more every game and when that happens they will go on a great stretch.

Josh Smith, Atlanta. 98.0 PA. It’s been a tough week for the Hawks, but they’ve only gave up over 100 points in a regulation game once in the last ten games. That shows you, despite their slump, they are still buying in to team defense. Because of their ability on that end of the floor, I see them rebounding big time very soon.

Rajon Rondo, Boston. 92.8 PPA. The Celtics have only won one of their last four games, not surprisingly in two of those losses, they gave up over 100 points per game. Assuming that the Celtics injured players come back healthy, Boston just needs to make it through the current streak by playing stellar defense.

Lebron James, Cleveland. 93.5 PPA. The Cavaliers had held opponents to under 92 points in six of the last eight games. I do not hide the fact that I wish Cleveland would find a coach that will give Lebron some offensive freedom, but I can’t deny how well Mike Brown gets them to play defense. Cav’s fans just have to hope they can score enough points in the playoffs to win an NBA championship.

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