About a week or so ago, Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego stopped just asking for defense and demanded it.
If you don’t guard, you won’t play.
“He said, ‘Hey, I’m going to find five guys — whether you’re a starter or the 15th man — who want to play defense. Everybody has gotten that message,” Hornets forward Marvin Williams told the Observer after a 114-107 loss to the Utah Jazz.
Hey, the defense is still far from fixed: The Jazz shot 52% from the field Saturday. But there are traits forming of late that are so different from how the Hornets guarded a month ago. They had 13 steals Saturday (led by Miles Bridges’ four) which reflected a team that was jumping into passing lanes and sprinting for 50-50 balls.
Remember when Borrego made vague threats of rotation changes? They came to fruition when he made second-round rookie Cody Martin his first player off the bench. Also when he cut back Bridges’ minutes the prior two games and messaged publicly he had to see better defense from Bridges.
The metrics show progress: In the last three games, they were 15th among 30 teams in defensive efficiency (points per possession), compared to 25th for the entire season. Borrego talked before training camp about simplifying the defensive scheme (more focus on rim-protection, rather than equal attention to getting out to the 3-point line), but also holding this team more accountable at that end.
Williams, one of the most defensively savvy NBA players I’ve covered, sees progress.
“It’s our aggression — from top to bottom,” Williams described. “Coach challenged us a week or two ago about our aggression; he said we had to pick up our physicality and our pressure collectively. And our communication. I feel like ever since that day, we’ve gotten better at the defensive end.”
Statements
I asked Borrego about this, and he agreed his rotation tweaks were meant in part to set a higher bar defensively.
“If you have three defenders on the court at a time, it (pushes) those other two guys to raise their games” defensively, Borrego said.
Bismack Biyombo becoming the starting center and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist getting into the rotation (though not Saturday) are among leans to defense. But the clearest statement is how much Borrego is playing rookie Martin of late.. It helps that Martin is playing better offensively (5-of-7 from the field Saturday for 11 points), but there’s no question the trust Borrego has in Martin is based in defense.
“He’s got a motor defensively, and an IQ defensively, that I haven’t seen often,” Williams said of Martin. “He can guard multiple positions, and he does things that help you win.”
A template
The Hornets still have a ways before they’d even be above-average this season defensively. But think of the last half-dozen games as a template: There are enough periods of doing it right and doing it tough that they see how this is supposed to function.
“Physical on defense. Communicate on defense. Read coverages. Rebound. A ton of deflections. And helping each other,” Williams rattled off.
“We got better today. No question.”
This story was originally published December 21, 2019 9:43 PM.
