[Clutchfans] Dwight: Defensive woes "starts on the perimeter"

Is wanting all our players to at least try on defense that much to ask? Anybody who doesn't needs to get his ass benched to send a message. Don't care who it is.

 

I do not know whether you play ball or not... But it is night and day in term of defensive effort level.

Effortlessly "invite" people drive by you while clapping your hands, e.g. Redick, Thabo, tony allen alike... is whole new level compared with incapability to contain/cover an offensive player's move, e.g. Gay and Thomas' tonite. The end result for a single possession may be the same, but for a 48 min ball game or 82 games ball season, players with no effort and no heart will never win championship, and will break true fans' heart.

The goal is not find a scrap goat for a single game's lost, I thought it is blatantly obvious that with the current rotation and Jame's me-stats-first mindset we are definitely heading into the wrong direction to the promise land.

morningdew

 

Thomas needed 17 shots to get his 17 points. I'd say that's pretty darn good D.

 

while you are busying defending Harden's lack of effort in defense, I would like to think it is a simple problem: all-in-effort but with bad defensive strategy/little experience may result in bad defensive possession and overall bad defensive performance, but still all-in-effort holds way way better chance to stop your opposite than no effort / ball watching "defense".. at least you are there, putting a hand in your opponent's face, and you are fighting through screens all the time. Short term result could be similar, but in the long run, the difference in defensive effort will dictate who can go deep in the post-season.

 

Except if you are watch the games that's not been the case. Lin has been good defensively since coming back from injury barring the OKC game where the team didn't have any legs left.

It's easy to say, oh look Isiah got 17 points. But did you watch the game? Did you see the amount of times they abused Brooks vs Lin? ESP in the fourth quarter?

The Sacramento announcers praised Lin for his effort on fighting through screens. Do you see the difference in size between Cousins and Lin? Half his picks are moving picks and to expect Lin to break through them every time is either bias or cluelessness.

To rewarch Isiahs points and be objective and try to decide for how many Lin is actually a fault defensively. You will be surprised.

Ofcourse Howard is not going to single out Harden publicly, he has to maintain some level of diplomacy. But acting like everyone is at fault on the premiter is a definite deflection of the blame from Harden.

Parsons is normally solid.
Lin is good as is Bev.
Casspi and Garcia are okay.
Brooks is poor.

Harden..........

Ultimately defense is a team game and you're only as strong as your weakest link and when your superstar doesn't even try that is going to create a poisonous atmosphere.

Harden has to set the tone with effort. Enough is enough. He deserves all the bashing he is getting and more. He deserves to be singled out.

 

I've been calling our bad defense for 2+ weeks and finally people starting to realize how bad!

The problem begins with McHale, with his overly dependence on his 3 players-Parsons, Harden, and Dwight.

1. Reduce their minutes, ESPECIALLY Harden, and get them healthy will solve lots of so called "effort" problem. McHale is clueless if he can't see this!

2. The biggest killer on team defense is isolation on offense. If they don't play like a team on offense, they will not play like a team on defense. It's not surprising that when assists % went down, so did our defense.

I hate to see the way Harden is becoming and picking up his bad habits so early in his career. If McHale can't rein him in and embed team concept into his subconscience, find someone who can before it's too late!

 

read the post you quoted...

Where did I even mention Lin anywhere in my post?

No one is looking at the problem, continuing to defend Lin and I've barely mentioned him in this thread.

When you take Harden off of the team, the defensive problems still remain.

 

The defensive issues fall wayyyyyyy beyond just Harden or Lin or Parsons or whoever. It's literally every single one of them failing miserably.

 

We were great in the Dallas game that we let them score 110 without harden.

 

Thomas was getting into the paint off the dribble at will against Lin in the last few minutes as clutch pointed out.

 

Isaiah Thomas needed, what, 17 shots to get 19 points? That's good defense.

 

Compare his first half to his second half. By your reasoning, the defense was horrible in the second half.

 

That's Hardens fault to.

 

Lol at all the Lin vs Harden jack ****.
no wonder this board is no longer fun to visit.

 

dwight is right but lets not act like our PnR and interior defense is all fine and dandy. TJones gets murked by opposing pf's day in and day out and late rotations are a huge problem for us defensively

 

It's all Hardens fault!

End of discussion.

 

Unleash Asik on the perimeter!

 

This, this and this. It's really frustrating to see all the blame being put on individual players. Harden and Lin especially. Parsons has been pretty average this season, tjones is pretty bad and dwight isn't as good of an anchor on defense as he was in Orlando. People need to stop using our back court as a scapegoat. it's pathetic

 

Combination of bad individual effort, bad coaching by Sampson and overall team effort. The issue gets compounded when it gets exposed when it matters band you would have thought the Clippers, Dallas(both games), Jazz and 6ers game fiasco would have solved the issues that has been hanging over this team, but it is still an ongoing issue .

I don't know what Sampson tells these guys, but it is not sinking in.

 

at least he cares. Harden will be Haren for most of the games.