The team is out of position because someone elses man has gotten past them for the 12,000th time, which causes rotation problems and the main people getting by their man belongs to Harden, Lin, and Dmo
That's true some of the time, but most of the time a weakside help defender starts coming over as soon as they see a pick and roll developing, not during or after the pick and roll occurs. Most of the time it's Harden coming over to help on an 1-5 or an 1-4 PnR, but if it's Lin or Parsons in position to be the help defender, they'll come way, way off of their assignment, too. I'm not sold on McHale's defensive system from what I've seen of it this year, but I'm inclined to think that the team defense, rotations, and communication should improve over the offseason and I'd like to see if things improve.
has anyone seen this article yet? http://www.sbnation.com/2013/3/7/4075958/houston-rockets-defense-breakdown-nba-2013
My man, excellent point, thanks for including. Our PnR D is horrible and either gives the other team a dunk or wide open 2 or 3. Our rotational recognition needs serious improvement... Love watching the Heat when they want to play D. JHardlyD needs to step up and stop worry about the offensive end only.
This person's analysis is comletely predicated on a "base" defense scheme. For example: What if the coaches had wanted Francisco Garcia to do a quick double on Brand because he is a weak post passer and Jae Crowder is not considered an outside threat at all? That changes the analysis entirely. I'd be careful before I put too much creedence in to a blogger's assessment of more grandiose defensive principles (do you double Dirk on the bounce or immediately? And what is the backside rotation from there - do you leak out a big for the weak side corner and fill behind with a strong side wing, or do you rotate from the top down to the corner and fill behind on the perimeter?), but I agree 100% that the ball watching and blow-bys are just bad individual defensive plays/effort.
You always "show" harder on a S&R as a help defender (unless you're guarding an elite shooter) so that the ball handler doesn't see a lane to the basket. You overplay momentarily so that the ballhandler doesn't have lanes to pass or drive and so that the potential roller doesn't have as much room to move and catch the ball (think Omer in traffic). You also want to overplay as the weak side roll help defender because as soon as the roller gets 2 feet in the lane, it's your job to "chuck" them and lay a little wood to impede their progress. That extra second is huge to a recovering big man. The execution of these principles is on the players themselves, but this is the system that McHale (and many other coaches) run. If you could expound a bit more, what about our defensive system are you not sold on? I'm not sold on our actual defenders, but I don't see a problem with our system as constructed.
Okay smartass then tell me where the defense is. He has defensive players on the team. Where's the defense, clown? You break out the name calling and i'm the keyboard warrior?
The defense is in the effort and talent of our young players (or lack thereof). Do you ever praise the coaches for developing sophisticated schemes on how to guard David Lee or Dirk? How about how they handled Zbo and Marc Gasol when we had to start MM at the 4 earlier in the year? Did you notice what they did for that game? Just look at this: We are actually #22 in the league in defense (for whatever reason people don't adjust for possessions when they say we're the worst evar omgzorz). Out of the teams who rank #22 to #30 in the league, only ONE of them is not one of the 10 youngest teams in the league. That'd be the Phoenix Suns and they're tied with us at 22. Out of the 10 youngest teams in the league, only TWO are outside of the bottom 20 in the league on defense. That'd be Golden State and Denver. Golden State is a highly talented group of young players that has roughly double the experience as we do on our team. Denver is very similar. Where do they fall in the league rankings? 12 and 16. An average of 2.6 and 1.8 points per 100 possessions better than us. Not really world beaters are they? It gets better... Out of the top 10 oldest teams in the league, only 3 are outside the top 15 in defensive efficiency: Mavs, Lakers, and Nets. Their problems are all well-documented. If you don't like our defensive system, please expound upon the exact principles you don't like (S&R traps on elite PGs, top down rotations, doubling principles, weak side positioning pre-screen, etc.). If you don't know enough to tell me what those are, don't call out a HOF defensive legend for not knowing anything about defense. Our defense sucks because we are kids in a league of men. Shane Battier is going to have a job for a long time in this league, and not because of his epic offensive skills...
I don't have a problem with the principles of the PnR defense, and I agree that most of the problems of the defense come from having a young team and that additional experience and coaching will improve things. What I see that doesn't look like an execution problem is that defenders give players spotting up away from the ball a significant amount of room, which is not always coming from taking advantage of a defender ball-watching to drift into a more open position. I realize this facilitates the break through defensive rebounding and cuts down on drives in the lane, but we give up a lot of open or lightly contested 3s. The problem is that the PnR defense execution exacerbates the negative parts of the tradeoff, so I'd like to see how it is after a year of coaching to see if the tradeoff is worth it.
It isn't about people agreeing with me. It's about facts. Watch the game tonight, and pay attention to Parsons, Lin, and Harden's off-ball defense. They're so focussed on watching the ball-handler that they let their man either get open for a shot, cut backdoor, or catch a pass moving toward the basket putting them on their heels. That's why you see Harden and Lin get beat on the perimeter. Parsons plays excellent man to man defense, but he gets beat because he watches the ball-handler.
Well we have close-out issues, there is absolutely no doubt about that, but that doesn't seem to be on the coaches. Dmo got pulled because of his close-outs. Kelvin Sampson was PO'd during the Dallas game in his half time interview because of our close-out techniques across the board (closing hard on shooting hard and, if any, giving the off-hand driving lane). I'm sure if you're willing to b**** on national TV about close-outs, someone has addressed it to these guys personally. We have issues with not identifiying shooters defensively, but in my opinion that's probably because as children we haven't gotten sick of the same guy sticking a fork in our eye every night for the past 5-6 years. Over time, James is going to get sick of OJ Mayo lighting his ass up. At present, he does not seem to care one iota about getting embarrassed defensively by a guy half as talented as him. I'm hoping the playoffs makes this team grow up and pay attention on defense. The coaches can't close out for guys, they can't see ball and man for them, and they can't hold their hands on cross-matches during the game(possibly what we do the worst defensively as a team).
TEAM defense from culture to skills and execution has to come from the coaching staff. McHale can't expect the players to figure it out themselves.
Execution comes from the coaching staff? Really? Strangely, I always thought the execution came down to the players on the team. I never yelled at my coach when I missed a defensive assignment because he didn't execute it for me... Must've been why I never went pro.
