Can Dwight and Bev really mask this team's horrid defense?

Harden and Parsons literally carried us on offense tonight.

Parsons, 42 minutes, 11-19 fg, 27/7/7 and 4 steals.
Harden, 46 minutes, 7-14 fg, 33/10/8 and 6 steals.

All we needed was someone we could put on Brewer to slow him down. No way Brewer is getting 51 on Beverley.

 

Asking if 2 of the best defensive players at their respective positions can mask a terrible defense is a weird question. The answer should be yes. To me that's like asking, "Can adding Peyton Manning as our quarterback mask our terrible passing game?" It's really not a mask. Our defense gets better by adding 2 great defenders. Our defense looked terrific in 2014 until these guys went down, so have confidence that if they come back healthy it will improve, or "mask" our defense.

 

Obviously. The defense was top 10 most of the season

 

well they have done it before.. so yes, yes they can.

 

When are they back? Seems we need them to get HCA...

 

Another vote for "they did it before" --

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>As mentioned in the story this a.m., Rockets defense was ranked 9th before Beverley, Howard injuries; 23rd over 1st 7 games they missed.</p>&mdash; Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Feigen/statuses/454782454801248256">April 12, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Can't expect to lose your two best defensive players and expect 0 effects on the team defense, especially when one player anchors the paint defense and the other anchors the perimeter defense.

It doesn't help that Jones and D-Mo are really poor defenders and you can't expect any them to anchor the paint defense.

 

This is like asking if Harden and Dwight can mask our offense

 

Looks like you figured it out.

 

Harden is a lazy bum. He's godly on offense. But his defense (oor lack thereof) is so embarrassing to watch.

 

Michael Jordan was pretty good at masking the Bulls' lack of championship contention in the '90s.

 

Your perimeter defender has to be at the 2-3, mainly 3... Bev will help with team D but parsons has to step up control guys like brewer tonight, but he's not about about that life

 

I want to yes of course, but I'm beginning to think the departure of Kelvin Sampson is a much bigger deal than we thought it was.

 

Does anybody think Sampson's exit has had an impact defensively? I know Morey keeps trying to minimize it, saying they'd developed defensive schemes for every team early in the season, but I don't know...

 

Dwight's presence would have definitely shut down all those easy layups.

 

A lot has to do with not having a true backup center, just like last year. It's worse right now, though, because at least last year they knew how to adjust (a little) when Asik went out. Plus Asik now isn't quite like Asik last year (close though).

 

This team, even without Bev and Dwight, should have won games pretty easily like tonight's game. Letting Brewer drop 50+ on us is inexcusable.

 

You just need to remember one simple fact.

McHale has no faith at all on Lin's D, he will switch everyone on D to help him and more than often will just put Parsons on opponent's PG once he will see any sign of Lin struggling.

Hence everybody will be just out of sync.

With Bev, this will not happen and he can sometime even help out Harden on D.