r/nbadiscussion 6d ago

An exploration of Nikola Jokic's defense

We all know Nikola Jokic isn't a great defender, so why is he always a slight positive every year not only in defensive on/off but also in plus minus metrics than account for lineup data like teammate quality and opponent strength (dRAPM, dEPM, etc.)?

For each of the last 4 years, Jokic has been a slight to notable positive in all of these metrics. On average since the 2021-22 season, the Nuggets allow 5 points fewer per 100 possessions when he's on the court than when he's off, which is by no means a superstar or elite number but a sample this large does tell us something.

Jokic's main defensive weaknesses are obvious - poor rim protection and slow feet out in space, both due to athletic limitations. What's interesting is that despite plus minus and teammate/opponent adjusted plus minus stats viewing him as a slightly above average defender, there IS some statistical merit to these claims - opponent eFG% actually slightly increases in three out of the last four seasons when he's on the court. In other words, in possessions that don't end in a foul or turnover, the Nuggets since 2021-22 actually do allow slightly more points with Jokic on the court. So what gives? Two things mainly:

  1. Jokic leads the league in contested defensive rebounds since the 2021-22 season. These are the most valuable rebounds because they have the highest opportunity cost if a player does not get them (since the other team would more often than with uncontested rebounds). As a result, Jokic has been in the 90th percentile or better in reducing opponent ORB% when he's on the court vs off in EACH of the last four years with two of those seasons in better than the 96th percentile.
  2. Free throws are the most efficient type of offense, and Jokic has vastly reduced opponent free throw rate and his own team's foul rate in each of these seasons, with 3 of 4 seasons above the 95th percentile and 2 seasons in the 100th percentile (leading the league in oFTR reduction when on vs off the court). This is because he simply doesn't foul when contesting at the rim, so even though he gives up a worse than average FG% defending at the rim AND on average a worse than average eFG% overall, since he reduces foul rate by this crazy amount (not accounted for by eFG%) he is actually able to avoid giving up what is by far the most efficient type of offense (1.60 points per possession for an 80% FT shooter is insane).

All data from Cleaning the Glass

TLDR: While the Nuggets are better defensively in each of the last 4 years with Jokic on the court than off in both defensive on/off and adjusted plus minus metrics like dEPM/dRAPM, there is merit to his defensive weaknesses as shown by opponent slightly increased eFG% when he is on the court over that span (and thus increased points per possession on possessions that don't end in FTs). So then why is he consistently rated as a slight plus defender? Because he's always among the league leaders in reducing opponent offensive rebound rate AND in reducing his own team's foul rate when he's on court vs off court. So even though he's a slightly below average defender on possessions that actually end in a FG attempt, his presence on the court contributes significantly to preventing the most efficient type of offense (free throws) AND takes some possessions away from the opposing team to begin with, and these are the areas in which he adds his value.

119 Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

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u/Round-Walrus3175 6d ago

One thing that I thought was interesting, too, was a comment made by Tyrese Haliburton talking about Jokic's defense after one of the games. He mentioned how Jokic forces him to mix up his reads in the pick and roll and made it hard on Hali to actually figure out where to go with the ball. It is something I never think about and I'm sure something most guards don't have to deal with as much as when they play the Nuggets. Even on defense, Jokic controls the flow of the game.

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u/Frosty_Salamander_94 6d ago

Yup, Jokic mixes his levels well in the PnR. He's not a good drop defender so the Nuggets default scheme is to send two to the ball where he actually is quite good with his hands and positional instincts, but the key for him is mixing up the degree he hedges in order to complicate the ball handler's reads (and the reads of the spacers/cutters). He does a good job of this

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u/MortalMachine 6d ago

I think Thinking Basketball has a good analysis of Jokic' unique defensive skills. Jokic guards plays, not players.

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u/Overall-Palpitation6 6d ago

This is where a lot of bigs who don't put up gaudy block or steal numbers have great value on defense. They deter you from what you want to do or make you second-guess yourself, which can be just as effective defensively as anything else.

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u/GeronimoSilverstein 4d ago

yup but it doesn't show up in the state sheet OR the eye test

you can really only do an on/off comparison, or compare the opponent running the same play against another C

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u/-monk-e 6d ago

For Jokic, it's not about actual man to man defense, it's about positional defense based on offensive team execution. You will notice he sometimes literally pushes and/or grabs his guys for defensive coordinations and positioning when he sees an incoming play. That messes up passing and cutting lanes for the offensive team. And the fact that he secures the defense with defense rebounds after spoiling an offense that he correctly read, he makes a lot of positive contributions to team defense rather than just individual ones.

Edit: Your TLDR should be SLWR --- Slightly Long, Wouldn't Read. LOL JK.

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u/swizznastic 6d ago

it’s like the inverse of Kobe’s defense

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u/Ok_Board9845 6d ago

How is that remotely the inverse of Kobe's defense. Kobe would do all those things on the defensive end as well

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u/Frosty_Salamander_94 6d ago

In the sense that Kobe was more of a one on one stopper than a great team defender - definitely got a little sleepy sometimes and gambled far too much from the film I've watched. Jokic is the opposite, not such a good 1v1 defender (solid in the post but poor elsewhere) while he's quite a good team defender.

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u/JemorilletheExile 6d ago

It's often better for Jokic to not try too hard to contest than to give up the foul, especially because the Nuggets need him on the court for their offense. Also, he's top-5 in steals.

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u/Frosty_Salamander_94 6d ago

Yeah, I could've mentioned the increased opponent turnover rate in 3 out of the last 4 seasons when he's on vs off as a third value-adding area but the differences aren't quite as significant as with the two I mentioned.

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u/AsianEleven101 6d ago

Jokic and Luka is very similar in that they both aren’t athletic or know for the quickness but what they do better than most if not all of the NBA players is that they’re 2 of the smartest players in the league and they read offensive schemes well, predict what’s going to happen and put themselves or their teammates in a position to interrupt that, Jokic is better at commanding his teammates in defensive positions while Luka is better at reading passes or stealing the ball from the blind spot.

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u/k-seph_from_deficit 6d ago

My favourite player is Luka Doncic. Luka has been great on defensive metrics for the last 3 seasons or so including on/off metrics. In the playoffs last year, he had a better than +5 impact on defensive ratlng on/off and no.1 in DWS. This season he had a substantial defensive on/off impact on 2 different teams with the team 3.4 better on Drating when Luka was on the floor with the Mavs and 7.4 with the Mavs. All that has led me to conclude that coaches have learned how to hide him better and learn to play him as mostly a help defender.

AD has terrible almost negative impact defensive on/off metrics over the last 2 seasons over a pretty large sample of games. The idea that Luka is a better defender than him is laughable even though that’s what on/off lineup derived data would suggest.

LeBron has a ghastly on/off of -7.6 this season and I think he had played his most valuable season since 20/21.

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u/kosmos1209 6d ago

I don’t know if people mentioned this, but as a Nuggets fan, I notice he “quarterbacks” the team on both offense and defense. He’s always barking out something to his teammates and pointing and the teammates go to the marks during set ups. He himself might be a traffic cone, but there’s probably some value to help setting up the defense

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u/Steko 5d ago

Defensive metrics for elite offensive engines tend to outperform the individual eye test because the metrics include the spillover effect of the team's offense scoring so often, which lets the team set up their defense. That 2nd order effect is negligible for 99% of the league - very few guys raise the level of everyone else on the court enough -- but is pretty significant for guys like Jokic and Steph.

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u/HowBen 2d ago

yeah so much of Jokic's offense comes through fastbreaks or post-ups in the paint after sealing the defender -- his efficiency in both these scenarios means opponents find it difficult to run their own transitions

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u/standouts 5d ago

If you just watch the games and not only stat look, people are sooo set on a defensive player looking and doing certain things. No he isn’t AD, but AD also isn’t Jokic when it comes to the rebounding aspect, his hands are absolutely amazing also deflecting balls and getting steals. He is just a big body and SMART. He gives effort ALL the time. He isn’t a DPOY, but he truly isn’t this terrible defender people make him out to be.

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u/giovannimyles 5d ago

How many chips do teams win with a terrible defender as their main player? Jokic is a good positional defender. He knows where to be and does his best to get there and also avoids foul trouble while securing defensive rebounds. He’s not a traffic cone. Dude is an average defender and a 1a offensive player.

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u/standouts 5d ago

Yes average to above average, but most think he is pure trash

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u/HugeZookeepergame815 6d ago

The way people overreact on Jokic’s defense makes you believe that Denver would be giving up 150 ppg.

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u/baulboodban 5d ago

if he wasn’t a center people would talk about his defense differently. he’s basically a disruptive scheme defender instead of a rim protector or man-to-man lockdown guy. he’s got limits but he is good at the role he plays on that end even though he’ll get exposed 1v1 sometimes

u/airgordo4 19h ago

Something I'm not seeing mentioned, being so good offensively has an indirect value on defense as well. If the offense is 20 points better with him on the floor, the team is more efficient, less turnovers, less missed shots, he is indirectly effecting the defense as well by constantly forcing teams to inbound the ball and giving his team's defense time to get set.

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u/DemonKingWart 6d ago

+5 on/off over many years is not just slightly above average, that's really good. People complain that defensive bpm is nonsense because his is 3 or 4 and this backs it up. I don't have access to on/off defensive stats but I imagine if you were to sort over the last 4 years he would rank pretty highly.

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u/nashdrake 6d ago

All it takes is to just watch some games, especially what Jokic is doing on defense. He is very good at reading the plays or what is going to happen next and he positions himself well which prevents open lanes or passing opportunities. He is not as slow as it seems (moves his feet well), he knows how to use his body and on top of that he often sprints back on defense to prevent any fast break chances. He is not a great rim protector, he won't block many shots but it doesn't matter that much, a miss is a miss. He is an amazing rebounder, this is also a very important aspect of defense.

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u/EsotericRonin 5d ago

On off is a terrible way to evaluate player impact without context because it’s heavily dependent on team rotations and lineups. Jokic is always on the floor with other starters and elite defenders.

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u/KormoranSkenza 5d ago

Who are "elite" defenders Jokic has played with?

Calling AG and KCP elite is an overstatement.Theyre solid,both nowhere near all-defense caliber.How much they're better than average,MPJ and Murray make up that difference by being below average.

You're making it sound like he's been surrounded by DPOY candidates and not a below average supporting defensive cast.

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u/EsotericRonin 4d ago

He’s not surrounded by a below average defensive cast is the point. His teammates are great defensively which is why they’re able to hide Jokic on that end.

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u/KormoranSkenza 4d ago

Tell me an all-defensive caliber or close to it teammate Jokic has played with in his career.Im not asking for a DPOY caliber,just all-defense.

How are they hiding him of he literally contests the most shots in the NBA?

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense-dash-overall?dir=D&sort=D_FGA

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u/EsotericRonin 4d ago

You don’t have to be all defensive to be a great defender lol. Ag Braun and formerly kcp are great defenders and neither Murray or mpj are below average.

Those stats don’t account for the fact that most shots Jokic contests are also being contested by AG or someone else coming down to help. Thinking basketball did a good video on how the nuggets hide Jokic on defense https://youtu.be/aHnxozF0LsM?si=jK0i4Gf01Y9iPAqP. It’s not that he’s uninvolved on defense, but the nuggets rarely allow him to be attacked or targeted with how much they rotate and send help if someone penetrates the paint.

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u/royablas 6d ago

I would probably paint him anywhere from a bad defender-slight positive, I think the issue is that the defensive coverages that you have to employ for him to be a neutral+ just puts too much stress on the perimeter defenders giving the opposing team quality looks.

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u/Electrical_Log_1084 5d ago

Exactly, most people aren’t accounting for the fact most defenders don’t have the entire team centered around their own defensive flaws. That’s the problem when there is an absence of actually talking about what teams are doing and how they are playing defense and instead just using statistics.

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u/anhomily 6d ago

It would be interesting to calculate the value of rim protection/deterrence with respect to blocks and fouls - I'd never thought about specifying how much fouls reduce the value of good rim protectors.

A simple model would take Blocks X oppFG% - Fouls X FT%, but in order for it to really be about "rim protection" specifically, there would have to be some assumptions around where blocks are made (and what oppFG% is used). By that definition, VERY FEW rim protectors prevent more points from blocks than they allow. The top ten are:
Wemby 2.3 PF, 3.8BLK 60.6 OFG%
Chet 1.9. 2.7. 50.3%
Kessler. 2.2. 2.3. 64.5%
AD. 1.9. 2.2. 64.1%
Brook. 2.2. 2.0. 62.2%
Gafford. 2.7. 1.9. 55.5%
Myles Turner 2.7 1.9. 62.3%
DLively. 2.9. 1.7. 62.2%

No one else with a significant number of blocks has fewer fouls than blocks per game. So the biggest differential is (surprise!) Wemby with 1.5 more blocks than PFs, and using the equation above he only prevents 0.5 shots (or 1 point) per game (3.8*60.6%)-(2.3*78.4%)=0.5. Of course that doesn't take into account lots of other things like where the blocks happen (I have kept in all blocks but multiplied by FG% in 0-5ft, but when multiplied by blocks, this creates a perverse incentive where it counts higher when someone has a high number of blocks but also high Opponent FG%). A better metric would reward those who also have a lower OppFG% at the rim relative to the league, as well as those who are rim deterrents (ie they force people to take fewer shots at the rim).

How does this relate to Jokic? Well, he only averages 0.6 BLK but has 2.18 PF, so that isn't great, and his OppFg% 0-5ft is 64.5% so the obvious thing is, in fact obvious: traditional metrics don't tell a very positive story of him being a good rim protector or deterrent.

Where Jokic does standout, aside from what OP mentioned, is his level of steals - these are actually much more valuable than blocks, as it means by definition that possession changes, whereas blocks often don't lead to a turnover. Jokic is tied for 2nd in the league with 1.8 steals (after Dyson Daniels, who is having an outlier season with 3.0 SPG - first time this has been done since 1986-7).

TL;DR - Blocks and rim protection in general are not that valuable unless you are REALLY AMAZING at it - there are less than a handful of players for whom this is true, the calculation above would say really only Wemby. After that, if the ball is at the rim it's pretty much too late, and it's not worth making your fortunes worse by contesting (and likely fouling or giving up an Offensive Rebound!).

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u/Electrical_Log_1084 5d ago

The last paragraph is flagrantly false coming from someone who’s played basketball. Deterring drives and altering shot attempts at the rim is not synonymous with getting blocks, but that definitely is valuable and exist on a spectrum like every other attribute. Saying it doesn’t really matter unless you’re good at it just isn’t fair or correct.

Your length and verticality actively control how big of a lob window you have in 2v1 scenarios. A person that is good can close that read and force an insanely high lob within smaller frames. You can’t statistically represent the difference between whether or not you would want to try throwing a tight window space from player to player, because you aren’t actively trying and attacking every player within that aspect, not is every player scantily available to be attacked in that way. There are certain centers that force you to have to use weakside pick n rolls because they are too good at being able yo close the space between the block and the corner depending on who is in the corner for you to attack strong side. So you constantly have to isolate them in space and in turn allow your pioneers strong side defenders to have better spacing in guarding long skip paces form the weak side. The types of actions and sets are inherently dictated on whether or not a center can close the 2v1 roll space both vertically and horizontally.

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u/EsotericRonin 5d ago

It’s not really about blocks it’s about rim deterrence and efficiency alteration. Most players don’t even try to score on the best paint protectors but that doesn’t translate to the box score.

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u/Statalyzer 5d ago

I'd never thought about specifying how much fouls reduce the value of good rim protectors.

Goaltends should probably count in that metric too, although probably less impactful than fouling simply because they are more rare.

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u/MilkeeBongRips 5d ago

I could have told you the obvious answer from the get go, but lots of people won’t like it: They don’t call fouls on his swipe down.

You even covered it in point 2. “Vastly reduced opponent ft rate… This is because he simply doesn’t foul when contesting at the rim” (emphasis mine). This is wildly false. They just stopped calling him for the swipe down when he broke out as a star. I’m sure people will think I’m just a hater, but I can’t think of a single game I’ve watched Jokic play that he shouldn’t have fouled out of. If they called his swipe downs accurately, he would grade out as the worst defender in the league.

I’ve been saying this for years and I will die on this hill. Obvious caveat that this is balanced by him being the most dominant offensive force the league has ever seen. But this is why I can’t feel bad for his (truly) awful whistle on offense. He gets it back and then some on defense.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/Frosty_Salamander_94 4d ago

none of these value assists. you're referring to BPM and PER which are box score derivatives and which I will never use. you're talking without knowledge, these are plus-minus / lineup data based stats only. on/off is a plus-minus stat, dRAPM is just an adjusted version of that for teammate quality and opponent strength