Courtney Lee would be the perfect fit with Rockets. Defend 1-2-3 positions, hit open 3's and miss clutch tip's @finals and make Dwight angry His contract looks awful but since we got Dwight I got Jeff Green on my mind. I think Boston have some interest in Asik for Jeff Green trade, they don't like Lee's contract and they can dump Lee if they agree to trade Jeff Green and Lee for Asik and say umm, 2nd round pick?
I always loved Lee (I wanted him to be our starter before we got Harden and after Martin got all butt hurt about the Pau Gasol) and Jeff Green is really intriguing... The problem is I don't think the contracts are worth what we'd get out of them.
Your perimeter defense depends on your interior defense, now we have Dwight and Asik... We shall see reasonable improvement on D.
I have an easy solution: guard the 3 point line and don't help on the inside if your guy can shoot 3s. Let Howard/Asik clean up anything that goes in the lane. This way the only uncontested shots would be long 2s... I know it's not that easy, but in principal it would be very Moreyesque to only allow the least effective shots. And what really hurt us last season was helping and leaving the man open and not fighting through screens (I am looking at you Harden...). I believe all our perimeter guys are capable of decent defense - Parsons and Harden have shown it before, Lin has shown flashes, Beverly and Garcia were pretty good last season. They just need to go back to work hard.
If they play like they played in the 2nd half of the season, they are both more than worth their contracts. The bigger question is what Boston is trying to do? Trading Green / Lee for Asik isn't a tanking move, it's probably about lateral. I doubt Ainge will trade just to trade... (Although pre-Garnett/Ray Allen trades, Ainge did make a bunch of curious lateral trades, so who knows)
The solution is that Harden needs to step up and put more effort into playing better defense. And he will, now that our offensive pace will slow down due to Dwight. Defense is all about chemistry, effort and repitition. It doesn't matter how talented your players are, almost anyone can play great defense if they put in the work required and defense is all about work. If a player is talented enough to be good offensively, he's also talented enough to be equally great on defense. The question is who or what will motivate that player to becoming better defensively. Harden was a 6th man before he came here, he was never asked to play much defense and now that he's a lead dog he needs to improve that, drastically if the Rockets are to succeed.
this, we needed our guards to help double teaming opponent big last season , with Howard/Asik, they can stay with their man now.
Perimeter defense is overrated in importance. You only really need one strong defender on the perimeter as long as you have elite interior defense, which we surely do between Dwight and Omer. Parsons can, IMO, be very good defender, if we can reduce his minutes a little bit and lower his offensive burden. Dwight's presence should help with both. Lin and Harden also have defensive potential; they're just young and relatively inexperienced. Hopefully they will improve in time. Beverley is already a pretty good defender.
No, perimeter defense is not overrated. Especially in this era where if you so much as lay a fingernail on an opposing player you get called for a foul. Perimeter defense is more important now than it's ever been. Good perimeter defense is all about patience, film, understanding ball movement and how to gamble, and also about chemistry with your teammates. A good "team" defense takes a few years to develop, and you need to keep personnel turnover to a minimum like the Spurs do. But most of all, you need a coach and a system in place that rewards players for playing defense. You need to play smart offense too, if you play at a super fast pace and don't make the other team guard you for 20 seconds on the shot clock then you aren't making them use energy. Smart offense wears opposing teams out so much that playing great defense isn't even necessary. Thats basically how Greg Popovich built the Spurs.
Steve Nash is a better defender than most people give him credit for. I could find you the comparisons when he plays top tier PG's but I don't feel like looking it up and presenting everything. Nash is an underrated defender. Brooks was a young guy and never developed much chemistry with his team because his role was always changing. It didn't help that he also played for Adelman who eats and breathes offense and doesn't put much emphasis on playing smart both ways.
Nash's defense was acceptable when he played in Phoenix because they hid him in zones and their bigs hedged aggressively against screen and rolls to allow him time to recover and stay in front of his man. Their schemes were always designed to minimize his weaknesses on D. But Nash has been a terrible 1-on-1 defender going back to his days in Dallas.
What is the difference between coaching philosophy in Nelle and Mike Antoni? Well, you might find some on offense but in defense you will find zero.
That was a prayer shot, but if Parsons was not playing so far off Ellis, it may have been a different story. The fact remains, that both Harden and Parsons played ineffective D against Ellis all game long. Parson's D regressed considerably last season but Harden has never really been known for his D.
Harden can play defense when he wants to and I am optimistic he will improve especially if McHale instructs him too. Harden is the kind of player that does what is needed of him. In OKC he did what was needed of him and in Houston he will do what is needed of him.
The defensive issue have a lot to do with our offensive pace. It gave other team more processions, more semi fast break, more easy buckets. Howard should be able to provide the low post option thus slow the pace down. The defense number will automatically go up. Don't worry.
I'd like us to have that swingman off the bench provided some size at the 2/3. Not just length and being scrawny. Outside of that there's three defensive philosphies we must go after hard next season; 1) Emphasizing the box & 1(with Parsons as the 1, or Tjones, or Garcia or Bev if it's a PG) 2) Playing more 1-3-1 zone(with Dwight as the back 1 and Parsons or Garcia as the top 1) 3) Tunneling all screen and rolls by hedging, and into Dwight and/or Asik(whoever's playing). That'll be our biggest strength defensively, come out and hedge EVERY screen and know where Dwight/Asik are force the offensive player INTO them.
I believe on this one a little bit. It may work for smallish perimeter players. Just funnel them toward our "towers" of defense. Problem is for players like LBJ and Durant. They are tall and given some lift, it'll be a little bit harder to challenge them. For defense to work on them is just to lure them on a 2-on-1 situation but they are great passers so being able to rotate as fast as possible to the open offensive player is a must. Well that's how superstars are. They are almost next to impossible to contain that's why AI and Metta are priced players. I'm hoping CP25 will develop into a better defensive player just like George and Leonard.
