DeMar DeRozan, shooting guard, Toronto Raptors
DeRozan’s playing style isn’t a strong fit for the postseason, when opponents are more than willing to let him isolate and work on the block. But that doesn’t excuse his performance this year. It’s not just DeRozan’s scoring that came down in the playoffs — his PER dropped from 24.0 in the regular season to 16.9 in the playoffs, barely above average.
DeRozan takes inefficient shots, but during the regular season, he’s good enough to make it work. He gets to the rim, passes out of isolations when he needs to and hits ugly fadeaways at a high enough rate to avoid hurting the Raptors. In isolation, DeRozan scored 1.02 points per possession during the regular season — good enough for the 86th percentile. Now, 1.02 PPP isn’t particularly efficient, but it’s good enough when DeRozan does other things well. DeRozan’s numbers in isolation got even better during the playoffs where he scored a jaw-dropping 1.32 PPP.
So what went wrong?
Opposing teams don’t give DeRozan the same attention in the postseason as they did during the regular season. They want him to take those shots because they are inherently inefficient. Giving him the mid-range shots takes Toronto’s offense out of rhythm. DeRozan was also worn down on defense. He rebounded and assisted less in the playoffs, and though he was incredible out of isolations, DeRozan was just 1-of-15 from behind the arc during the entire postseason.
He’s not a great shooter by any definition. The first instinct of any defensive coach in the pick and roll against Toronto is help off DeRozan. He’s not a good shooter during the regular season — even when wide open — but he took this to a different level in the postseason.
This wasn’t an overt flop or complete disappearance, it was one on the margins. His PER didn’t take such a dip because of one thing, it was a lot of little things that added up. The sum was a second-round sweep at the hands of the Cavaliers.