Time to give some love to the other side of the court. Enjoy.

#5. Philadelphia 76ers (21-28)

Defensive efficiency: 98.43

Opponent FG: 43%, Opponent 3pt: 36%, Opponent TOPG: 12.1, Opponent PTS: 96.0

Ben's 76ers took Rudy Gobert with their first pick of the inaugural draft, locking down arguably the best defensive center in the league, and then took Pascal Siakam with their 2nd pick, showing a clear intention to establish a defensive identity early on. Gobert averaged 1.9 steals and 1.5 blocks per game for them, and surely deterred many more shots, but was unexpectedly traded in a January deal based around Blake Griffin and a 1st round pick. Philly still have Siakam (1.7 stls and 0.8 blks), Whiteside (1.3 blks, 1.0 stls), newly acquired Draymond Green and Mike Conley, so it's not out of the realms of possibility that they could remain a defensive juggernaut. The loss of Gobert and serial pest Chris Paul does hurt, but their best defensive week so far came recently in week 12, where they had a Defensive Efficiency of 92.26, their best so far! Of all their starting lineups so far, their best defensive results have come while Gobert-less. They're here to stay as a team that wants to stop you from scoring.

#4. Chicago Bulls (37-12)

Defensive efficiency: 98.35

Opponent FG: 43%, Opponent 3pt: 35%, Opponent TOPG: 12.0, Opponent PTS: 99.0

The Bulls have arguably the front runner candidate for DPOY right now in Anthony Davis. He's averaging 2.1 blocks and 2.9 steals, which is downright spooky. There's not a lot of other defensive presences on this team other than maybe JaVale McGee, which makes The Brow's performance this season all the more impressive. If their defense has been so good with a bunch of mediocre defenders, which starting 5 has been the best? According to the numbers it's Russell-Williams-McRae-Davis-Okafor. If i'm honest, i'm pretty baffled. They shouldn't be this good. Right? Is it purely because of Davis? Or do they have some clever defensive settings going on? Might be time to purchase some scouting reports ;)

#3. Portland Tradelblazers (42-8)

Defensive efficiency: 97.95

Opponent FG: 44%, Opponent 3pt: 33%, Opponent TOPG: 13.0, Opponent PTS: 100.6

The Tradelblazers are an interesting case study because they're one of the best defensive teams in the league and yet they just acquired one of the most impactful defensive players in the league in Kawhi Leonard. That said, they've lost some crew too. Clint Capela, Robert Covington and Jimmy Butler were ALL involved in Portland's best 3 defensive starting lineups so far this season. Their best was Butler-Harden-Covington-Parker-Capela with a Defensive Efficiency of 90.5 (!), 2nd best was Harden-Butler-Covington-Capela-Howard with a DEff of 91.5, and the 3rd best was Harden-Butler-Covington-Parker-Capela with a DEff of 91.7. Their next best lineup had a DEff of 96.4, so those 3 lineups were a clear tier above all their others. This is significant. Can Kawhi himself make up for the loss of 3 good defenders? 

Well, Kawhi hasn't suited up for Portland yet (injury), yet in week 12 Portland still managed a DEff of 97.85, a hair above their season average. Wait, what? They're still killing it on defense even after the loss of Capela, Butler and Covington. Yikes. AND they're killing it without Kawhi. Kawyikes! And it's because they've been able to extract useful veterens such as Trevor Ariza, Avery Bradley and Dwight Howard off the scrap heap for cheap. Forget the future, this team is gunning for it right now, and they're about to be joined by a player that was the common thread in all of Phoenix's best defensive lineups, which i will get to in a second.

#2. Miami Tallboys (33-18)

Defensive efficiency: 97.85

Opponent FG: 43%, Opponent 3pt: 33%, Opponent TOPG: 10.9, Opponent PTS: 98.5

Miami's secret is, well, not a secret. They tall! Their starting 5 has the tallest average height in the league (6'9"). And that number probably increases when Jonathan Isaac is healthy, who's 6'11", and plays SF for them. Lets look at their best defensive lineups so far. Their best, with an insane DEff of 86.8, was Simmons-Batum-Isaac-Washington-Jordan. Their 2nd best was Simmons-Powell-Isaac-Gordon-Jordan with a DEff of 90.5. Those are the 2 standouts. Ben Simmons, Jonathan Isaac and DeAndre Jordan are the common threads of those lineups. Simmons has turned into one of the best defensive PG's in the league due to being so tall and fast. He must smother other PG's. It'd be interesting to see what stats opposing starting PG's get against Miami actually. Is that information anywhere? Surely PG's have the worst FG% or PPG in the league against Miami. 

The Tallboys are leading the league in blocks per game as a team (6.0 bpg) and it's by a pretty comfortable margin (the next team is 5.4 bpg - Bulls). They're also #2 in opponent FG%, #4 in committing least fouls per game (despite swatting everything), and equal 1st in opponent freethrows attempted. They're not forcing as many turnovers as the other top defensive teams (23rd in Opp TO), but they're getting their stops by swatting or forcing misses without fouling. And they're still getting more than enough fast break opportunities regardless - 8th in fast break points per game, surprisingly. The experiment is working. It's a shame about the Isaac injury, however Miami are still dominating on defense regardless, with a DEff of 93.69 in week 12.

#1. Phoenix Suns (33-16)

Defensive efficiency: 97.72

Opponent FG: 44%, Opponent 3pt: 34%, Opponent TOPG: 13.8, Opponent PTS: 99.3

Honestly how the hell am i supposed to analyze this team? Lol. Loading their statistics page is like reading the credits of a movie. Sooo many names. But lets give it a shot. The biggest question on my mind is whether Phoenix can remain as a defensive juggernaut in the post-Kawhi era. Well, in the week just past they had a DEff of 102.59, which was 12th in the league for the week. Not bad, not great. Granted, they didn't have Capela suited up due to injury (Jimmy Butler and Chris Paul played), so can't make any conclusions there. The week before (week 11) they had a DEff of 107.55, good for 25th in the league. That's a bit yikes, but they had Kawhi Leonard playing, along with 3 other players in the starting lineup that don't play for them anymore, so hard to know what to make of that too. Ok, so who has been responsible for Phoenix's defensive success? Lets look at their top 5 best defensive lineups and see which players were the common thread:

Morris-Green-Leonard-Anunoby-Allen (89.2 DEff)

Conley-Shumpert-Loneard-Anunoby-Aldridge (90.3 DEff)

Conley-Murray-Loneard-Aldridge-Okafor (91.5 DEff)

Conley-Murray-Leonard-Shumpert-Aldridge (91.5 DEff)

Morris-Fournier-Leonard-Kuzma-Poeltl (96.0 DEff)

Which players showed up the most? Kawhi 5/5, Aldridge 3/5, Conley 3/5, all of which have since been traded lol, and all other players showed up twice or less. Safe to say Kawhi is the obvious common thread of their best defensive lineups, and i guess we could've guessed that, but he's also been apart of bad defensive lineups (week 11), and Portland have still been great defensively with Kawhi on the sidelines. So what's the morale of the story here? I don't know, stop trading your players.