Though their playoff appearance was fleeting, and dampened by Al Jefferson’s debilitating foot injury, the final incarnation of the Bobcats minted their credibility by posting a top-five defence after the All-Star break.

That foundation was capped by an active summer for the Hornets’ front office, cementing a string of forecasts that had pitched Charlotte as the team likeliest to inch its way to the upper-to-middle rungs of the Eastern Conference ladder.

As February draws to a close, however, Charlotte sits on a five-game skid, left reeling in the melancholy reality of mediocrity.

The team’s record (22-32) speaks directly to the kind of irrelevance that plagued the “Bobcats” moniker—not nearly flashy enough to draw mainstream applause, and still a ways away from being a competitive threat.

But a closer look reveals the incremental changes that have transpired under Clifford’s watchful eye since the turn of the New Year.

A dumpster fire November in which the team went 3-14, deploying Lance Stephenson and Marvin Williams as two fulcrums of the favoured five-man unit, seems a distant memory.

Personnel tweaks—in part due to the curse of injuries—spurred a return to normalcy, and defensive rigidity, which has ultimately righted the team’s incredibly rocky ship.

It begins with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. After missing a window of 12 consecutive games flush in the nadir of Charlotte’s season, the peculiar third-year man has anchored a stretch that carefully resuscitated playoff aspirations that long seemed to be on life support.

Only Gerald Henderson has seen more floor time than MKG since January 1, the point at which the Hornets kicked into gear with their robust defensive play.

With Kidd-Gilchrist in tow (in 2015), Charlotte has strangled opponents to a measly 88.3 points per 100 possessions. As a defensive weapon, he is as malleable as they come, blessed with the lateral quickness and agility to drape ball-dominant guards like John Wall, Russell Westbrook, and Monta Ellis, and the size and gumption to body up on heavier wings.

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Being greeted by MKG on the perimeter can be near-terrifying.

He has held opponents to just 32.7 percent shooting on jump shots this season, according to Synergy Sports data, on top of refining his knack for sliding beneath picks and recovering out to shooters.

Roughly a quarter of Kidd-Gilchrist’s defensive possessions have come with him checking the initiator in a pick-and-roll situation, per Synergy Sports, with teams chalking up points on only 32.5 percent of those plays.

A high pick-and-roll presents the riskiest scenario for the defence, leaving the on-ball defender on a lonely island above the arc, and plenty of real estate for the attacker to go to work.

Take this play, where a Tyson Chandler-sized screen clears the way for Ellis to attack. MKG hastily slips under Chandler’s pick, rushing to make up ground and glove the twenty-foot jumper.

Here, Kidd-Gilchrist negotiates his way around Gortat, tracking across from the elbow-extended area to cover Pierce’s patented mid-range pull-up.

There’s a subtlety at play that delivers Kidd-Gilchrist a security blanket, allowing him to occasionally sneak below screens and trust his own mobility. In both instances, Al Jefferson’s feet are well and truly planted in the paint, lurking closer to the goal to avoid being burned on a dive to the rim by either opposing big.

Neither Gortat nor Chandler presents a legitimate mid-range threat—or at least not one that Clifford’s Hornets are not willing to concede—cushioning the motives for adopting the conservative approach.

But the Hornets’ defensive wunderkind isn’t just adept at going into, over, or under oncoming screens. That ability to seamlessly cover ground and appear as if a magnetic force field has drawn him to the attacker flaunts his true versatility.

Watch his response to Dwyane Wade’s push (driving away from the pick) to beat the shot clock:

The same applies in a simple isolation case, where the former No. 2 overall pick is seldom burned by an off-the-dribble assault.

Kidd-Gilchrist’s impact on the cohesion and resistance of Charlotte’s D is perhaps best illustrated by his ability to mask the flaws of his teammates. Via StatMuse, consider the transformation that occurs when each Hornet has the opportunity to share the floor with MKG:

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The figure that leaps off the page is Jefferson’s. The man attributed with ushering the Charlotte franchise back to respectability is prone to bouts of suspect defence, as exposed by the fact that the Hornets’ defensive rating plummets by nearly 11 points per 100 possessions when Big Al plays without Kidd-Gilchrist.

The bottom half of the East can only be described as a crapshoot, with a mere 2.5 games separating seeds seven through 12, and if there were any doubts about the Hornets’ desire to squeeze into the final eight, they’ve since been quelled by the insurance policy taken out in the form of Mo Williams.

Charlotte confronts a run of four-of-five games on the road, but only one tilt against a plus-.500 team.

Having rebuilt the pillars of sound defence that shored up 2014’s postseason berth, Steve Clifford would be wise to milk every available ounce of excellence out of MKG.

Quietly, but ever so steadily, the wiry forward has begun to round out his résumé of stellar defensive performances.

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