When JB Bickerstaff took over the Cleveland Cavaliers, they were coming off a 19-win season and in the painful part of their rebuild.
But he turned them around quickly, adding three modest wins to that total in his first season and then making the leap to 44, 51 and 48 wins in the three seasons following.
That success came through big improvement on the defensive end, as they went from 25th in defensive rating to 7th, 1st and 6th over the next three seasons.
His team topped out with a second-round defeat to the eventual NBA champions and the Cavs decided to go in another direction, but he certainly wasn’t run out of Cleveland and fans there give JB a lot of credit for getting them back to respectability.
Now the Cavs are the best team in the Eastern Conference under coach Kenny Atkinson, using a leap in offense on top of the defensive foundation that Bickerstaff laid down.
His success transforming a young team was the primary reason the Detroit Pistons wanted Bickerstaff, and this was one of those coaching carousel situations that worked out for everyone involved.
The Pistons got a coach that can rebuild the foundation of their team success and the Cavs got a guy who could help their offense get to the next level.
JB Bickerstaff and the Detroit Pistons defense
The Pistons didn’t add any defensive ringers in the offseason so their improvement has mostly come through individual development and coaching.
The Pistons have made a surprising leap from the worst defense in the league just last season to 11th overall in defensive efficiency. They’ve been great over the last month, landing in the top-5 in defensive rating since January when Ausar Thompson joined the starting five.
We’ve seen individual improvement from just about everyone, including Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren, two guys who had to get better for this to work.
The players themselves have to be given a lot of credit for this, but a big chunk of it goes to JB, who has gotten these guys to buy-in in ways that other coaches couldn’t.
It’s not just the young guys. I have watched Malik Beasley for years and have never seen him give this kind of effort on defense. Is he an elite defender? No, but he hustles and works hard on that end in ways I hadn’t seen before.
Same with Tim Hardaway Jr, who is 2nd in the NBA In charges drawn this year. When young guys see these vets going all out on defense, they know they have to do the same.
Part of it is also scheme, as the Pistons want to keep teams out of the lane and force them to take tough shots on the perimeter, which has led to them being 5th in opponent’s points in the paint this season after ranking 27th in that category just last year.
He’s a tactician as well as a motivator and his ability to coach defense has been one of the biggest factors in the Pistons’ surprising improvement this season.
Cavs fans are nodding right now. They are happy with their new coach (why wouldn’t they be?) but know that JB Bickerstaff did a lot of the hard work to get them to where they are, and we’re already seeing similar results in Detroit, where the Pistons are two wins away from besting their win total from the last two seasons combined.
It took coach Bickerstaff a full season before his Cleveland team made that kind of leap and he has fast tracked even greater improvement in Detroit.