JVG is supposed to be a defensive minded coach yet he allows his opponents to shoot 51 percent from the field and his team gets outrebounded....Inexcusable. If you're going to slow the game down and play that grind it out style, you have to get stops... We couldn't get stops when we needed them today...Our perimeter defense is absolutely putrid. JVG expects Yao to cover Deron Williams on the pick and rolls? You can't be serious. Switch off Hayes on Boozer and let Yao take Okur...It's not like anyone was guarding him anyway. We are a good defensive team against weaker opponents because we focus on that end, but talented teams have their freaking way with us. Again, if Van Gundy is going to coach this team and play that ugly style of offense, we have to get better perimeter defenders and bigger PF inside.
See in a way I want to blame JVG for not making adjustments, but really we just don't have the players. Alston gets beat off the dribble so often, Hayes is too small, Yao too slow, and Head is a HUGE liability on defense. We just dont have good enough players. Battier was overmatched on defense all series btw.
I agree we don't have enough defensive powers in the squad. But we have a lot offensive talents. JVG is a bad fit.
Bill Walton was right when he said our defense was overrated and all smoke and mirrors due to the slow down tempo. That is the only thing people credit jvg being good at and that is a fraud too.
We play hard on defense but we don't do anything scheme-wise that is so impressive...Teams constantly exploit mismatches against us and no adjustments are made.
Which has been happening ALL year and our coach fails to adjust his rotation to compensate. JVG's stubborness cost the Rockets this series and hopefully his job. DD
our defense was fine it's just that the jazz are the best executing team in the league. they set so many picks and cuts they almost always get an open shot. also factor in that yao couldnt hold boozer's jock strap and it's easy to see why they scored so easily.
i dont understand why battier covered Fisher all series long instead of Deron Williams Why not let Alston get Fisher, who is basically a jump shooter who is less physical than Williams and let Battier, who is a better position and mantoman defender, harass Williams?
I disagree...If you're a top defensive team, you do not allow the other team to shoot 50 percent from the field. you also dont get outrebounded by 10. Boozer destroyed us in almost every game and we had no answer. We defended him the same way every game. Williams got in to the paint at will and got too many good looks. Weleft Okur open all series and even Harpring gave us problems in the post. We had no answers for the Jazz's attack.
overmatched, overhyped, overrated. take what everybody thinks about him, and i disagree with all of it. battier is worthless. he's a complete statue on offense, and maybe slightly above average defensively, if even that. he eats up 40 minutes/game doing nothing. i am so sick of talking about him, and i dont feel like typing anymore. "intangibles that dont show up on the scoresheet", BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. he's a stiff who wouldnt even be rostered in the nba if he wasnt a duke grad, and well-spoken and nice. he IS a slightly more skilled Ryan Bowen. exactly.
guys, we dont have the pieces. how can we be a truely great defensive team with rafer and chuck hayes starting ? not to mention, yao is not athletic enough to be a REAL force on defense. no one is scared to take inside against yao because his reaction time is so slow. battier is an ok defender, but hes not athletic either. he didnt show me much defensively AT ALL in this series.
the thing with Battier is that he plays hard every play all season. so in the postseason, he has no extra gear while everyone else plays more intense, which makes him look worse than he is, as opposed to someone like Horry who really steps it up during the real season.
I agree...It's his focus and intensity every game that makes him above average....When everyone is focused and playing hard he is becomes very average...
We aren't that great of the defensive team in the first place. Our defense looked great on paper in the regular season, because JVG made the Rockets play the regular season games with playoff intensity. That advantage is gone in the playoffs because every team play their hardest games. The formula of our regular season success is using playoff mode in the regular season, but in the playoffs, every team is on playoff mode. Jazz walked in our house in the game 7 and dropped 103 points. That's not great defense.
