Justise Winslow is Whatever You Need Him to Be on Defense
Photo Credit: Justin Ford/Getty Images
Justise Winslow has been everything in his career.
After being drafted to the Miami Heat as a small forward out of Duke, Winslow played small forward, power forward, shooting guard, and during a stretch of the 2018-19 season, even point guard. After a short stint in Memphis, Winslow split time with the Los Angeles Clippers and the Portland Trail Blazers, who used him exclusively as a power forward or small ball center.
Of course, these things happen for a reason. Offensive inconsistency has plagued Winslow throughout his career, and his jump shot never materialized in a meaningful way. Add in the fact he only played in 85 games from 2019-22, and it’s easy to understand why Winslow’s offense has never come together.
But playing all 5 positions means defending all 5 positions. And oh boy, can Justise Winslow defend.
Down the stretch of the Trail Blazers’ win vs. the Suns in their home opener, Winslow was asked to do a lot defensively, and he delivered. What stood out the most was his ability to lock up the Suns’ guards when switched onto them:
Watch how he guards Chris Paul step for step, combining his footspeed and control with his overwhelming size and length to completely stifle what would normally be a typical probing Paul pick-and-roll. Also note the screen navigation; he darts under the pick and remains in lockstep with Paul. That is Chris Paul he’s guarding! This stuff isn’t normal.
Winslow spent a little time on all of Phoenix’s guards throughout the game, and looked more than competent doing it.
Portland’s defensive scheme under Chauncey Billups involves a lot of player movement both in help and rotationally, as well as a good dose of switching. With athletes on the wing like Jerami Grant, Josh Hart and Nassir Little, this scheme makes sense, and it’s given Winslow an opportunity to shine. By the 4th quarter, Winslow was straight up matched up against Phoenix’s point guards:
But Justise Winslow isn’t a point guard on the Blazers. He slots in as a forward/center on Portland’s depth chart. So can he also guard like a big man? Well, yes.
Winslow, knowing he is at a height disadvantage to Jock Landale, leverages his whole body for the entire possession to front Landale, changing his position with the ball as it moves around the court. Landale never gets comfortable, and Winslow is able to handily pick off the entry pass. This is really smart defensive play.
Winslow has good hands, and knows where to be off the ball in order to make plays. Last season with Portland, Winslow posted a steal rate of 2.0%, good for the 82nd percentile among forwards, per Cleaning the Glass. He isn’t a primary rim protector, but his athleticism and IQ allow for some impressive weakside rim help:
This guy does it all!
Winslow’s incredible multi-positional defensive skills, augmented by a scheme that enables him to utilize them, could pay major dividends for the Trail Blazers, a team that has historically struggled to surround Damian Lillard with a quality defense.
Considering Portland’s defensive scheme and the number of long, athletic wings they’ve added since general manager Joe Cronin took over last year, there seems to be a tilt towards making the Blazers’ defense as positionless as possible around Lillard, Anfernee Simons, and Jusuf Nurkic. If that’s the plan, then they hit the jackpot with Justise Winslow.
Basketball Index’s defensive versatility metric, which aims to calculate how versatile a player is on defense by examining how often they guard each position (with the “most versatile” player being one who split defensive duties completely evenly across all 5 positions), ranked Winslow 4th among players with 750 or more minutes played last season, behind only Juan Toscano-Anderson, Scottie Barnes (look out, NBA) and Jalen McDaniels.
The actual splits are even more revealing: Winslow spent 17.3% of his time guarding point guards, 20.8% of his time on shooting guards, 17.7% of his time guarding small forwards, 27% of his time guarding power forwards, and 17.2% of his time guarding centers. This guy was drafted as a 3!
I don’t mean to bore you with numbers, but they demonstrate just how special Winslow is as a defender. In a very small sample last season (11 games), the Blazers were 4.6 points per possession better on defense with Winslow on the court than off per CTG, a very good number. There’s no way to project that he will have that same impact over a full season, but the signs are there and encouraging.
Of course, defense is only half the game. A lot of why Winslow has been such a positional enigma throughout his career has been his inability to find success on offense. A career 31% 3-point shooter who hasn’t shot over 30% in a season since 2018-19 per Basketball Reference, it’s hard to believe the 3-ball will become a large part of his offensive game, at least this season. (Winslow is 1/4 from 3 on the year so far).
That means it’s on Winslow to adapt his game on offense, much like he’s done on the other end of the floor. He took only 4 shots vs. Phoenix in 25 minutes, which isn’t a tenable model if he wants to play the minutes his defense warrants. He did find success as an offensive rebounder in Portland’s season opener against Sacramento, grabbing 5 and turning several into putbacks. Small plays like that go a long way.
One wrinkle I would love to see from Portland is the utilization of Winslow in the short roll. Units that feature Winslow at the 5 could capitalize on all the defensive attention that Portland’s guards bring, using Winslow’s adept court vision to kickstart ball movement sequences or simply spray out to shooters:
The vision is there, but through 2 games, the Blazers haven’t really gone to it. Winslow only has one assist on the season, coming from an inbounds play out of a timeout. Part of that must be chalked up to the fact that between Lillard, Simons and Grant, there simply isn’t a lot of ballhandling left for him, but the Blazers’ early reluctance to use Winslow as a playmaker can also be partially attributed to his finishing.
Winslow’s at-rim finishing has always brought his career numbers down, coming to a head during his 2020-21 stint with the Memphis Grizzlies when he finished in the 1st percentile among forwards in points per shot attempt, shooting an abysmal 55% at the rim while hardly getting there, per CTG. Both his rim shooting frequency and accuracy increased last season, but the concerns are still there.
In order to become truly viable as a short-rolling, small-ball 5 on offense, Winslow needs to make himself a threat as a scorer. He’s good, but he’s not Draymond Green.
Plays like this can’t happen, but they’ve happened all too often throughout his career. The good news is this is a relatively easy fix, compared to the alternatives (most notably a 3-point shot). The potential for Winslow-at-center lineups to switch everything and wreak havoc on opposing offenses while generating high quality shots for themselves is tantalizing. Winslow is the key to unlocking them.
When putting together all of his skills and abilities on both ends of the floor, my mind keeps reverting to one question: What is Justise Winslow? Offensively, his role has become somewhat defined. But this is a bench power forward who matches up with Chris Paul in the fourth quarter of games and does it well. What do you call that? Winslow has become one of the preeminently versatile defenders in all of basketball, and it feels like calling him a 4 does him a disservice to how well he guards 1s, 2s, 3s and 5s.
If we use the age-old adage, “You are who you guard”, then Justise Winslow is a little bit of everything. He’ll navigate screens and stay in front of a guard on one possession, then use his physicality and length to effectively defend a forward or even a center on the next. His defensive ability is unreal. The Portland Trail Blazers recognize that, and they’ve unleashed one of the few truly positionless defenders in the NBA.