jrue holiday's defense against the atlanta hawks
on-ball defense, off-ball steals and blocks, recovery speed, and post defense
i've talked about it before, but watching jrue holiday play defense is a privilege. it's like watching claude monet paint. he's an artiste.
now we get to watch jrue do his thing on the biggest stage. the milwaukee bucks are in the nba finals after defeating the atlanta hawks 4 games to 2.
people will talk about the great offensive performances he had against atlanta, and deservingly so: games 5 and 6 were masterpieces. scoring, creating, crashing the glass - he did it all.
but offense is aplenty in the nba game nowadays. jrue's work on the defensive side of the ball, at his size and position, is unrivaled.
holiday's on-ball defense and lateral quickness has always been mind-boggling to me. how he can stay in front of guys in the nba with the amount of athleticism in the league makes no sense sometimes. with no/minimal handchecking too. he's simply beating dudes to their spots and cutting them off.
these plays may look normal to the untrained eye; they're anything but. you're not supposed to be able to just take the ball away from lou williams like that:
jrue has some of the quickest hands in the league as well.
if he's the help defender in the vicinity of the ball handler, he's dangerous. andre iguodala-esque:
then there's the recovery speed.
holiday is never out of the play completely, and when he does contest shots he doesn't just harmlessly fly by like most guards - he tries to block your shit:
jrue's most valuable quality is his ability to defend much larger players in the post. when your point guard can switch 1-4 and 1-5 pick and rolls and not give up much on the block, it unlocks your entire team on defense.
the hawks tried time and time again to attack these switches, and it rarely ever worked:
the last point i'll make is about energy and fatigue.
playing defense like this is tiring - that's why almost all of the defensive specialists are just that. it's taxing enough chasing scorers around, running through screens, battling for position, and being physical even without any responsibility of having to carry a load on offense.
jrue never gets (enough) credit for how he's able to play defense the way he does while also playing offense the way he does. he's not a catch-and-shoot guy like klay thompson is either; he's the lead ball-handler on the bucks and, outside of giannis antetokounmpo and sometimes khris middleton, the only player who can repeatedly create offense for others on his entire roster. that's exhausting.
and yet, he does it. he averaged 22/5/10 in 40 minutes per game in the eastern conference finals while defending trae young and lou will, chasing kevin huerter and bogdan bogdanović around through screens, and battling john collins, danilo gallinari, and clint capela in the post.
amazing.
if you enjoyed this post, please hit the like button (the little heart)!
also consider subscribing to stay up to date! you’ll get email updates when i post. it’s 100% free!