Everyone seems to like the offense, it's fun to watch and exciting. But, these offenses don't win chmpionships. They just don't, defense needs to be played to win games. Les Alexander is an idiot if he makes Morey form a team that runs, constantly refusing to really play D. No defense, no playoffs. We need Jeff Van Gundy or something. And, dear god, don't say kneejerk, look at all of these Beverley threads. Point is, we need to play defense. I know it takes a while to form chemistry on that end, but we haven't seen the slightest bit of improvement on the defense, anf eventually we need to play defense. We all want playoffs correct? We aren't getting it unless defense is played.
You're asking for a lot. Young teams and young players play poor to sub-par defense (and offense), both individually and as a team. This is not conjecture, this is evidenced over many seasons of games for many teams. http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/3/2/773198/kevin-pelton-blows-minds-a Here's an article with a closer statistical look at correlation between age and defense (and offense!). http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=571 Here's another interesting take on age vs performance. Some of the charts are especially interesting... like for teams under 25, it's VERY rare to have a winning record. http://www.blazersedge.com/2008/12/12/690628/ages-experience-and-win-in Our defense isn't great, and that should be fully expected. New coach, young players, inexperienced players, and a new team. It *should* continue to improve over time.
honestly - our problems are more on the offensive end than defense. the issues we have on D is that we don't have strong big man to protect the basket. and that's not something a coach can fix - that's a GM problem.
+1 Our players look gased out at the tough January schedule. The 120 point wins were fun to watch but too many BtoB games there is less energy. Efficient is down. Gotta to learn to win low scoring games with defense In the playoffs it's almost the same situation Even if the Rox make to the playoffs, can't make it any further if Rox dont change and save their legs and tougher D
We have Omer. If you watch him closely, he defends amazingly well - arms straight up and down, altering shots. He did it again and again last night against Collison. The problem is help defense from the 4 isn't great and since the 4's can't contain their own man, the guards have to come in and double, leaving their guy open (one pass away). Moreover, against fast guards we need to start trapping them high before they even approach the foul line. Opposing teams do this to Lin and Harden every single game to close the paint to them while we let opposing guards penetrate w/o help defense when Harden/Lin funnel them baseline. Patterson needs to flash out to block his path when he's the only "big" on the floor.
