I watched this season play out exactly as I thought it would: Great Regular Season Record Individual Awards like All-NBA and Maybe MVP for Harden Offense Galore and a 'Fun to Watch' Regular Season Game Plan No Defensive Strategy No Offensive Strategy in Crunch Time Poor Playoff Performance Can we all agree that Mike D'Antoni is not the answer and never will be? He is fool's gold just like his coaching has always been. I'm ready to move on. The Harden to PG was a good strategy over 82 games but not a good strategy for 1 game we need to win. Please help Les understand. I want to watch basketball and not some silly three point shooting contest every night . . . -rcketsfan1
I honestly can't believe there's a generation of people who firmly believed (and some still believe) defense wins championships.
We can't play good D with Anderson, Williams, Nene and Dekker getting major minutes. They're getting 90 minutes. Harden is already lost on D most of the time, he should be our worst defender if we want to win, but he's better then all 4 of those guys, maybe not Nene to a certain extent but Nene hurts this team on defense with his poor defensive rebounding and rim protection. If we take out the bad defenders/defensive rebounders, and insert good defenders/defensive rebounders, we become a much better defensive team.
60% D and 40%O but the best would be as balanced as possible. The Pistons won 1 ship and went to the Finals because of Defense Only. And beat 4 Allstar Lakers. The Suns never made it to the Finals with Offense Only. Without Nash they would be worse. You tell me. Defense can win championships. Talent wins championships? Pistons did not have otherwordly talent and got it done. They became Allstars not long before or after they won the ship. Except maybe for Sheed.
I think Mike D'Antoni might be as good of a coach as Harden is a player. Very good, One Dimensional but not Alltime Top 10 Great. Or even Top 20 Alltime. He cannot make Harden think about his own flaws twice.
Well, their defense was garbage because generally young players have no idea how to play NBA defense. That's kind of hte reason why they didn't make the playoffs. Talent wise, they probably should have made it.
No, there's just no shortcut. It's not offense. It's not defense. It's not talent. It's not chemistry. It's not coaching. It's not system. It's not "fit". It's not luck. It's all of those things vs the combination of all of those things your opponent possesses.
mda a good rs coach and good po coach for real contenders that need to be tuned up. other than that he sucks
I agree it is those things combined and beyond but to say Defense is not a key ingredient is plain false IMO.
Your defense helps win a game 7 in the finals but your offense is what gets you 50+ wins and the chance at a deep playoff run. The assistant coach this year did some nice things defensively but honestly it's personnel. One or two more players with good length and athleticism could be all they need to be a top notch defensive team but you sacrifice some offense. It's just not a real determining factor in getting to the finals anymore. Talent at the end of the day is what matters. We probably missed our window three years ago with a healthy Dwight Howard but we will see what happens the next year or two. A Kevin Durant or Kawhi though isn't falling in our lap like Dwight did.
Defense wins championships is still true to the point where the championship teams gets stops/lockdown when its absolutely critical. That's the difference between being legitimate or just a good team. But defensive first teams are no longer the teams that are true contenders bc you aren't stopping the likes of GS/Clev from scoring over the course of a 7 games series.
All of those things are key ingredients, including defense. Cleveland btw was the 11th worst defense in the league and has not been a particularly great defensive team in the playoffs. Many combinations can work, defense is not the most important factor. It's situational and multi-dimensional. Right now, I would load up on defense because you are not going to outscore the Warriors but you might outdefend them. If you want to win it all, defense doesn't win it all. You need great defense and great offense and all those other factors too. You can't base your analysis on the outlier Pistons or Mavericks. Who is winning regularly? Here's an absolute truth: no one has won the title in 20+ years without two current/former all stars. Our roster is average. Our defense is bad. It doesn't make sense to say that defense is somehow above every other factor when it comes to winning. If our offense sucked, then we would seek offensive and defensive improvements.
