I see a lot of posts talking about DMo and claiming he is a bad defender. I think posters tend to confuse shot blocking & rebounding as good defense. Those things are important and it doesn't matter how good of defense you play if the team can't secure the defensive rebound. DMo is not good at those two things. Having said that, DMo's post defense is solid. In 14/15 it was more than solid, it was damn good and helped win many games. Dwight was easily the most dynamic defender on the team the last three seasons. He is an elite rebounder and a way above average shot blocker. When motivated he can take over a game defensively. DMo is none of those things. Unfortunately we also saw the bad side of Dwight. Too often he disappeared on transition defense. He frequently got lazy in half court defense. DMo always runs back in transition and never plays lazy in half court defense. DMo is not a guy that you can filter the opposing teams guards into and expect him to protect the rim. He is not someone that is perticularly good at help defense. What is DMo good at? He is a terrific man on man post defender. His length effects shots and (unlike his 1st couple of seasons) he has the strength to hold his position against most players. He is the teams best pick and roll defender from the post (although he sometimes gets caught chasing guards). In 2014 / 2015 DMo had some terrific gams on the defensive end. If the Rockets plan on playing of a disciplined team oriented defense, as opposed to the gambling style the played under McHale / JBB, I think DMo will be outstanding. The Rockets will need Capela for help defense, shot blocking and defensive rebounding. But as long as his back is good DMo will be more than fine as a man to man post defender against most of the bigs the Rockets will face.
for the millionth time, about 90% of dmo's minutes were at center in 14-15. he's a pf not a center, and he still put up good numbers for a first timer. since he got injured, he hasnt been the same. he can defend and rebound above avg level if he's healthy and playing vs pfs. if he puts on muscle to be a center he loses his speed advantage, his "xfactor". how is it so many on cf dont know this? i literally remember him stopping dribble penetration by moving his feet and rotating. its not that he's a 7footer but how fast he moves as a 7footer. he can wreak havoc if he ever gets healhty again. might have a 3 big rotation of ryan, cap, and dmo if he gets back to 14-15 level. cuz of nene's passing, maybe, if capela doesnt pan out this season, dmo can take his spot instead. he's that fkn good. just needs to get healthy. its a shame he and dwight couldnt reach their full potential. they would've made a nasty twin tower lineup
Dmo is a good defender. Also he is a good team defender. People claiming he is a bad defender either do bit wtch the game or confuse defense with shotblocking and rebounding. That being said. He is bad rebounder (sure he boxes out pretty good, but he lacks the explosiveness to grab a lot of rebounds). So I am not sold on him playing center next to Anderson. However with MDA it doesn't matter if you can defend anyway.... Losing Dmo would complete this terrible ofseason.
Agreed. I wouldn't call him excellent at any facet of defense, but he's perfectly solid when paired with anyone who takes pressure off him to rebound. You absolutely can't pair him with a weak rebounder like Terrence Jones or Ryan Anderson. With a Dwight or Capela alongside him he can hold his own defensively.
Yes, I was extremely impressed with his defense in '14-'15. Very solid. I remember looking at his rim protection stats and surprisingly, he was a top 10 rim protector if I remember correctly. After being a somewhat poor defender the two years before that, it was a pleasant surprise. Was looking forward to what he could do in '15-'16, but he hasn't been the same since his back injury. A lot of it may be due to him not being 100% yet since his surgery. Back injuries really take more than a year to truly recover from. I think he will be healthy this year and could regain his form.
DMo pre surgery was a good positional defender in the post. Post surgery, not so much. One on one he's good so long as his opponent can't face up and drive from 3 (poor post surgery lateral movement) and also can't overpower him in the post. And like you said, bad rebounder and shot blocker. So does that make him overall a "good post defender"? I guess that's up to individual fans' standards and judgement. For me, it's still a No or an Incomplete - depending on if he's able to recover his lateral movement over the offseason. We shouldn't think of him as a defender IMO. I mean, what elite offensive player would you want to match him up against? His defensive prowess might be overestimated here because we so often saw TJones be out of place on defense and Dwight not moving very much on defense. So seeing DMo move around and be good positionally was a big difference.
The thing regarding DMo was he tried too much to cover teammates holes in defense which eventually looked like DMo is bad in defense. European player, especially Lithuanian are known for solid defense (I am lithuanian btw) and I always was angry towards Rockets fans who called DMo a bad defender. Because of some lazy start players (we all know who are those guys) DMo has a bad look regarding his defense. However, the only issue DMo is rebounds and I agree about this. Player like DMo should get more rebounds.
This dude will not be on our team this year, he doesn't fit what we need at this point, we got our stretch 4 (he was never one) that's why they went out and got a REAL stretch 4... and he can't play the 5 with Anderson, no rim protection
DMO is NOT a good defender at center. He can't protect the rim and shotblock and he is not great at pnr defence and deterring opponents from the rim. All in all I would say his defence at C is average. Not bellow average or bad. Post defence? That's your argument? Why don't you tell me what % of plays are post plays right now in the modern game? Who are all those players who post up that DMO will have to defend?
he' snot a center, he's a pf. he's too weak for center. of cours ehe's not a good defender at center. how many times has this been said? ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuu
We need him to guard draymond Ariza got kd Harden got klay Bev got curry Dmo on draymond Anderson on iggy. Harden and anderon probably switch defensively or kj mcdaniels comes in to defend Iggy.
Heh, considering last time we took on the Warriors, he made Marreese Speights look like Allen Iverson, I would not bank on this.
This is not true. He was good at center and was a good rim protector. The stats also back up the eye-test. Let me see if I can find the rim protection stats from 2014-2015.
D-MO's rim FG% allowed number was 48.8%. That puts him slightly behind guys like Pau Gasol (47.8%), Andre Drummond (47.9%), Anthony Davis (48.5%), and DeAndre Jordan (48.7%). It puts him slightly ahead of guys like Steven Adams (48.9%), Bismack Biyombo (49.1%), Marc Gasol (49.6%), and Tiago Splitter (49.8%). Puts him way ahead of guys like Tyson Chandler (50.8%), Omer Asik (50.9%), Joakim Noah (51.5%), and Nikola Vucevic (53.7%). He wasn't one of the top rim protectors. But he wasn't bad at all. He certainly did a respectable job. http://nyloncalculus.com/stats/rim-protection/
I like his defense when he's healthy and in shape, definitely underrated. Assuming he can recover and regain the lateral movement, JVG would have loved working with him. Oh well.
