Looking at the table and seeing how these teams are built, there are a lot of similarities. Overall defense is going to be more about making it tough on your opponent through their shooting, rather than turnover stats. While it certainly helps a defense forcing turnovers and blocking shots, but it isn’t a must for being a good defense. Now steals and blocks are not necessarily telling for a good defense as you will see some of the defenses in the top ten do not have great block or steals numbers. Now when a team plays at a higher pace they might allow more threes and field goals but can still make it tough on offenses percentages. It also will go hand in hand with defensive rating. These are going to correlate with field goals and three points allowed. Having teams shoot for a low field goal percentage is going to make their offense inefficient, especially with the three-point craze there is nowadays. This of course translates into a lot of other stats where you are not allowing a lot of points or assists because the shots of course aren’t going in. You are not giving up second-chance points and it is also going to transition into more offensive chances.Īllowing a low three-point and field goal percentage is going to be big for defenses. There might be an outlier here or there for any of these stats, but rebounding is one thing that ties into a good defense. Good defenses are strong rebounding teams on both sides of the ball. One of the key areas we notice some consistency in is rebounding.
While it may not be every night, the top ten here are going to limit production against them most nights. There are a lot of factors that go into being a strong defense, and there are still quite a few teams that pride themselves on playing defense. Defensive rating is an overall look at how good a defense is, and one of the better stats to evaluate how good or bad a defense is. One of the crucial areas is limiting shooting percentage from the field and from three, which is shown in the table above. Now, this isn’t a complete way to view defense as you can see some struggling defenses generate a lot of blocks or steals, while some defenses don’t, but limit points against. Teams will have green, yellow, and red tabs to show you if they are in the top third, middle third, or lower third of the league.ĭefenses are also going to rank by stats like steals and blocks, which are going to be on themselves. If a team is allowing 115 points per game, then they are going to rank lower on the list. You can also break down how good a team is at rebounding. Most of these stats are going to be stats that are allowed, such as points, rebounds, and assists.
What is shown is the overall ranking each team sits at in comparison to the rest of the league. We have several defensive categories here, and these are the most crucial for team defensive success in the NBA.