Today there's a lot of news around the NBA, mostly involving Kevin Love's tour of Boston and the upcoming Finals rematch. But there's something closer to home that's interesting.
Erik Gundersen at The Colombian reports that Nic Batum and Wesley Matthews both got a significant amount of votes for the NBA All-Defensive Team. Batum got 3, Matthews got 4. Two of the votes for Matthews were from Hubie Brown and Bill Simmons. Gundersen had a wonderful article on the defense the two provided against the Rockets early in May, showing how the two not only excel individually but also together. In this article, Gundersen says that
their most notable performance–which was after the ballots were already cast–was when both of them squared off and slowed down Houston’s James Harden in their first round series win.
Harden's troubles were often attributed to his own individual performance, but the secret for his slump lay in the tenacity of the opposing team's defense.
Batum has received much respect league-wide for his abilities throughout his career--and of course in France is lauded as one of their best players ever. The general esteem for him was most visible recently when Chandler Parsons of the Rockets infamously claimed he was the best three-guard on the court in the Portland-Houston series. "No, you're not," as Jalen Rose succinctly put it in one of his podcasts for Grantland with David Jacoby.
Matthews, however, has not gotten such visible praise, though there rumbles behind the scenes a continual murmur that he is one of the toughest, most tenacious, and most feared defensive-offensive combinations the league has to offer. The offense is key: Matthews made 201 three pointers in the regular season and came away with a 39.3% average from beyond the arc. That puts him in an elite category for all-around production.
Batum is also being recognized back at home: yesterday he gave his name to a gym in Malaunay, a little town about nine miles north of Rouen. Batum was born in Normandy, though his family has African roots and he often looks back to his African heritage. Batum has been spending the summer back at home, where his parents still live.
And writers are generally recognizing the Blazers' season as a huge success, the more the retrospective and reflective gaze is cast upon the 2013-14 NBA year. Jason Hortsch at Rip City Project has a lengthy article in praise of the Portland offense, detailing why they might have been the best offense in the NBA this decade. "Out of these 300 team seasons since 2004, the Blazers ranked 22nd in offensive rating," he says.
This ranking places them in the top eight percent of offenses during the last ten seasons of the NBA. That is a lot of teams that the Trail Blazers surpassed, and offers a far wider frame of reference with which to understand how successful the Blazers were on the offensive side of the ball this year.
He gives much of the credit to Terry Stotts, but the team in general can and should enjoy the distinction.
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