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Troubling persepctive articulated in Cuban's quotes. Was hoping he might trump or at least counter-balance Nellie's oft-failed philosophy. No longer sure.

Winners Know, a Great Defense Just Can't Be Beat
By BUSTER OLNEY

The Tampa Bay defense that routed Oakland in Super Bowl XXXVII will be copied so often in the years to come that you might start looking for a paperback edition. Other teams will place a greater emphasis on finding speed pass rushers like Simeon Rice, swift linebackers like Derrick Brooks and aggressive and versatile cornerbacks like Ronde Barber.

In crushing the Raiders' No. 1-ranked offense, the Buccaneers reinforced the theory that defense wins in football — and in most sports, for that matter.

Fans prefer offense, leagues manipulate rules to promote offense and the greatest stars are offensive machines. But many championships are built on defense, which some executives find to be a far more reliable foundation than offense.

"I was hearing No. 1 offense against No. 1 defense before the Super Bowl, and I was thinking, `If this was like baseball, you know who is going to win,' " said Brian Cashman, the Yankees' general manager.

Rod Thorn, president and general manager of the Nets, said, "Good defensive teams don't let good offensive teams do what they want to do."

The Yankees won the World Series four times in five seasons from 1996 through 2000, including three successive titles, with good fielding and strong pitching. Many rival players believe reliever Mariano Rivera was single-handedly responsible for the Yankees' winning four titles, rather than one or two. When the Yankees' string of titles ended in 2001, they were beaten by a team — the Arizona Diamondbacks — "who pitched better than we did, and had better fielding," Cashman said.

"We lost that series because of poor pitching, and definitely poor fielding," he said.

The best offensive players usually do not get as far in the playoffs as the best pitchers. The last time the American League's most valuable player appeared in the World Series was in 1990, when Rickey Henderson played for Oakland, and there have been two National League M.V.P.'s in the World Series since 1991 — Chipper Jones with Atlanta in 1999 and Barry Bonds with San Francisco last season. The last N.L. home run champion to play on a championship team was Philadelphia's Mike Schmidt, in 1980. Reggie Jackson, with Oakland, was the last A.L. home run leader to win a title, in 1973.

On the other hand, six Cy Young award winners have pitched in the World Series since 1990, from Atlanta's Tom Glavine in 1991 to the Yankees' Roger Clemens and Arizona's Randy Johnson in 2001.

The Chicago Bulls won six National Basketball Association championships, driven by the greatness of Michael Jordan. But the most menacing aspect of that team, Thorn says, was the defense played by Jordan and forwards Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant. "They had the best in the league — Scottie and Michael," Thorn said, "and they had Grant, one of the best. They went all over the place, sideline to sideline."

The Bulls supplanted the Detroit Pistons, a championship team that played a physical, pounding style of defense. The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers preceded the Pistons and the Bulls, each manned by excellent inside defenders like Robert Parish and Kevin McHale and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, superlative rebounders in Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and smothering perimeter defenders like Dennis Johnson and Michael Cooper.

Basketball coaches preach the value of defense, believing it to be the most consistent weapon, and playing defense presents a more predictable action. It is simpler to throw or catch a fastball than to hit one, to rebound than to shoot 3-point shots. Pippen had his share of bad shooting nights with the Bulls, for example, but with his athleticism, height and long arms, he presented uniform problems for the players he guarded.

"There are lot of little reasons" defense wins championships, Thorn said. "But the basic reason is you have more control over what you do on defense."

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, the highest-scoring team in the N.B.A., wrote in an e-mail message yesterday that he felt the "media perception of defense wins championships is misguided."

"Whether it is football or basketball," he wrote, "your ability to manage your salary costs and approach getting the biggest bang for your dollar has far more impact on the quality of your team than whether you go for defense or offense."

In basketball, Cuban wrote: "What happened in the past has absolutely no impact on how teams win in the future. The luxury tax and zone defense rules have changed how teams are built."

There has been a longstanding belief in the National Football League that championships are built around quarterbacks, a hypothesis supported by Bart Starr and Bob Griese, Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana and Steve Young and Troy Aikman and John Elway. Those eight combined to win 20 of the first 33 Super Bowls.

"I have never bought the theory that defense wins championships," said Ernie Accorsi, the Giants' general manager. "I think defense makes you competitive, but I also know we're in a passing era, we're in a scoring era. Dick Butkus didn't win a championship, and John Elway was in five Super Bowls. Great quarterbacks win championships."

With the salary cap leveling the playing field, the last three Super Bowls have been won by teams with unheralded quarterbacks: Baltimore's Trent Dilfer, New England's Tom Brady and Tampa Bay's Brad Johnson. Brady performed exceptionally, while Dilfer and Johnson were functional.

Possessing a superstar quarterback may have once been a prerequisite for a championship, but now it means devoting more salary-cap room to a player who typically is at greater risk for injury than any other.

"Tampa Bay had a pretty good defense," Accorsi said, "and they maximized the offensive talent they had. Balance is the answer."

Two of the last three Super Bowls have been won by exceptional defenses; the Baltimore Ravens dominated the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV. But in the last 20 years, teams that led the N.F.L. in scoring have won more Super Bowls (six) than those with the highest-ranked defenses (five).

"You go back to the St. Louis Super Bowls — they won it, or got there, with their offense," said Tom Heckert, the player personnel director for the Philadelphia Eagles. "You can have a good defense, but the bottom line is, you still have got to be able to score points to win those games."

But the Eagles' strength has been defense. When Philadelphia drafts in April, Heckert said, "If there are two guys with similar ability, one with the offense and the other with the defense, we'd go with the defense."

Tampa Bay emphasized defense and was repeatedly frustrated in the postseason before this year because the Buccaneers lacked a useful offense. But that changed this season under their new coach, Jon Gruden.

"I just really felt that we had a world championship defense the second day of minicamp," Gruden said in San Diego. "I've never seen anything like this defense. I knew we were improving on offense. With the way our quarterback has played, I knew he'd capitalize."

And the Buccaneers re-established defense as a reliable tool for success.