Jrue Holiday’s defense is beginning to overtake his offense. This is good for him. Bad for everyone else.
Holiday is in his sixth season with the New Orleans Pelicans and his 10th season overall. He’s now six years removed from his lone All-Star appearance, which he earned during his fourth season in Philadelphia as the best player on a team that struggled to win 34 games.
At age 28 and in the prime of his career, he’s making his best case to be named an All-Star again since that forgotten season in Philly, but he’s not doing it as one might have expected over five years ago.
Holiday has always been an above-average point guard. He’s a patient ball handler who knows how to run an offense and run it effectively. Last season is when Holiday finally and truly “broke out” on the offensive end as a key piece to Alvin Gentry’s high-paced offense. It’s not often a lead guard comes around who can slowly break down a defense while also pushing the pace at all costs. Holiday mastered that last season and brought it with him again this year.
With Rajon Rondo signing with the Los Angeles Lakers, Holiday has had to contribute even more than he did last season. His offense has expanded upon his best from last season, but it’s his defense that is demanding the attention of his peers. It was no accident that Holiday earned First Team All-Defense honors last year and continues to play the part.
This season, Holiday is near the very the top of the unofficial leaderboards for Defensive Player of the Year. It’d be difficult to make an argument that he hasn’t been the most dominant game-by-game defender through the first 30 games of the NBA season. More so than Kawhi Leonard. More so than Paul George. Holiday is even doing this on a team that features one of the most brilliant shot blockers and paint protectors in Anthony Davis. Already a well-established defensive player last season, Holiday has come out of the gates with a point to prove. That he’s one of the best all-around guards in the entire NBA.
What makes Holiday so effective as a defender is his versatility. While he is the one who runs the offense the majority of the time in half-court sets, he can capably defend the one through the three.
Holiday played over half of his minutes at small forward last season (59 percent), according to Basketball-Reference. This season, that number has vanished (down to 2 percent) as he has slid to a different position; the two-guard. Holiday plays 55 percent of his minutes at shooting guard and 43 percent at point guard (he registered as a point guard for only one percent of his possessions last season).
Without Rondo, the need for Holiday to play more point guard is necessary, and it’s allowed him to evolve into the borderline elite offensive creator that he’s morphed into. But now he’s tasked with guarding the team’s best ball-handler instead of being tasked with slowing down a larger wing – although he has been seen limiting players such as Kevin Durant this season – a task he has more than accepted.
His defensive impact goes beyond the numbers, but those numbers are still damn good.
He ranks in the 89th percentile in block percentage among all combo guards, according to Cleaning the Glass, and also ranks in the 87th percentile in steal percentage with the same criteria. What’s most impressive is that he does this with minimal fouling. His foul percentage ranks in the 66th percentile among combo guards, a more-than-respectable number considering how often he defends opposing ball handlers.
The Pelicans have needed Holiday in order to be successful. Although that success has been somewhat limited as shown by a 15-16 record, things would be in a tragic state if not for Holiday’s consistency. New Orleans is 6.5 points per 100 possessions better on offense with Holiday, which ranks in the 84th percentile among all NBA players. Even more impressive, the Pellies allow a staggering 10.8 fewer points per 100 possessions when Holiday is on the floor. That ranks him in the 97th percentile among all NBA players.
He’s sixth in the league in deflections per game among all players and ranks ninth in shots contested per game among guards, according to NBA.com.
Anthony Davis needs Holiday more than you’d think, too. The Pelicans post a plus/minus of plus-8.4 when both Davis and Holiday share the floor, but a minus-2.9 when Davis is on and Holiday rests. The same goes for the rest of the Pelicans rotation, really. Not one player who has clocked a single minute while playing with both Davis and Holiday have registered a negative plus/minus, according to NBA.com.
What makes Holiday such a dangerous defender is an uncanny knack to hound ball-handlers for 48 minutes. It doesn’t matter who is on the other side, whether it be Russell Westbrook or Damian Lillard or even someone such as Jeff Teague or Ricky Rubio. Those guys are guaranteed to have little breathing room for the entire two-and-a-half hour game. It’s no coincidence that Holiday leads the league in the average number of distance traveled at 2.80 miles per game. That stat really puts on display how hard he works to be both an elite defensive player and an All-Star caliber player on offense.
Holiday gets right up into the face of the ball-handler. He’ll back them all the way up to the halfcourt line if he wants to, knowing he’s quick enough to recover if a screen were to dislodge him (it also helps to know that Anthony Davis is patrolling the paint). But that’s another thing about Holiday, he’s excellent at reading screens. He rarely gets flattened by a high ball screen and is quick enough with his feet that he can maneuver around almost any obstacle and still recover himself back into a play that he was out of moments beforehand.
Take a look at these three defensive stops against the Boston Celtics from earlier in December. All three are vastly different in their own right but are plays Holiday has routinely made all season. When his effort is near the maximum, plays like these happen more often than not.
Holiday doesn’t take plays off. That’s not how he’s programmed. If he did, the Pelicans could be in panic mode right now. His constant and high-level effort has won New Orleans games they would have otherwise lost. Anthony Davis may be the team’s best player, but Holiday is their X-Factor, glue guy and most important player all wrapped up into one perfectly placed gift under the Pelicans’ Christmas tree.
(All stats accurate as of 12/19)
