The last two games, the Rockets have given up 37 and 21 fast break points, respectively. I can't remember the last time the Rockets gave up that many fast break points over two games. What do you think is going on here? How big a factor is not having Shane Battier? Despite all the transition buckets we're giving up, we've still been able to hold teams to a low percentage from the field. But if there's a weakness in our defense early on, guarding in transition is clearly it.
The transition D has sucked......bad..... Let's hope it is a chemistry issue and they will get it sorted out....but even with all that sucking on trans D, overall, their D is good.... They are again among the league leaders in PPG allowed... DD
Here is your problem: Alston McGrady Artest Scola Yao All 5 of those guys are relatively unathletic for their positions or average, at best, athletically. Even when healthy, McGrady has lost the quickness he had 5 years ago. Artest is a beast but he's not fast and doesn't have great ups. Our starting lineup needs to execute the offense well, limit TOs and take smart shots. Otherwise, they will continue to get abused in transition, especially against younger, athletic teams. With Artest or Battier in the starting 5, we are clearly a halfcourt team. We need to take advantage of our size w/ McGrady and Yao as well as Artest's strength and ability to get to the rim or backdown his man. If we want to run, Brooks and Landry need to be on the court. The Spurs in recent years have also been a relatively unathletic team other than Parker and Ginobili. Oberto and Duncan are flat-footed bigs. The Spurs are successful at executing well and limiting TOs. We can and need to do the same with our starters and let the team run a little more when Brooks and Landry are in and Yao is on the bench.
i think we need to worry about offense more. 2 home games have been ugly. Tmac is way too slow, even slower than yao. did you see what happen when yao, brook, barry, landry,atest on the floor, much, much smooth offense, so is defense
Add in a T-Mac that has a bum knee, which is being game planned on by the opponent, and it gets even worse. Also, Rafer is crashing the boards a bit more early on this year. Last year he was more of a free safety after the ball went up keeping an eye out for any leaks.
it's pretty obvious...with tmac not being 100%, whoever he's guarding will look to score on him everytime (rudy gay, josh howard, durant etc) which results to artest picking up the slack on his defense assignment.. and yes, battier does make a big difference.
we played with the same lineup substituting battier for artest as last year and we were a really good transition defensive team. The difference is tmac can't run worth a damn and artest is in the post more often than battier who camped on the perimeter last year. that's why i think when battier comes back he's going to ease into the starting lineup and have artest come off the bench. but still, in late game situations we may see artest and battier on the floor together to maximize offensive and defensive potential. i do see this problem happening until battier comes back healthy. it'll be something we have to live with for a while. athletic teams that we will face for the next two weeks or so will continue to hurt us until battier comes back and/or tmac gets healthy. it's just something we have to live with. only thing we can do is take less long distance shots. rafer is not really helping our transition d because all he can do is shoot long distance shots.
I think when Battier comes back, T-Mac should rest his knee until it's a 100%. That is going to be really difficult to do if we're still undefeated at that time but we have to look at the bigger picture.
We still lead the league in fewest points allowed per game. And we are 3-0 while waiting on players to get healthy. I will take that. DD
transition defense is indeed our biggest hole for right now. i think that's mainly due to mcgrady not being 100% and having to defend howard or durant on the wing. when he recovers, i expect this problem to correct itself for the most part. another reason for this is our impatience (sometimes laziness) in offense. bad shots often lead to long rebounds and fastbreaks. i bet this will be adelman's main focus in the practice before we battle boston on tuesday.
Their transition D is pissing me off(especially in the Mavs game)! Athleticism has nothing to do with it. Its just bad defensive awareness which is might be due to chemistry problem. Rockets,Spurs and the Piston had great transition D last year but none of them were all that athletic. They seriously need to work on this during the off days or every athletic team will just torture us with easy transition buckets. Had they gotten this down, all of those 3 game would've been blow outs in our favor, thus giving Yao and Ron some rest. This should be a PRIORITY now RA!!
It's the lessons of JVG fading over time. I almost started a thread about this after Dallas but they won so I figured f-k it. JVG's #1 priority was transition D. Absolutely #1. He did it with crap athletes. He did it with good athletes. It was all mindset. Lessons learned....time passes....lessons unlearned.
Good thread durvasa. I agree that TMac gimping around is a factor, but Rafer's looked bad even when he has been back. Scola is just out of sorts and Landry finallt turned in a solid performance defensively. And apparently the scouting report on Artest is to outrun him. As much of the offensive load he's taken on he seems to be struggling in transition. But way too many inexcusable lapses thus far. Right now the team has pretty much coasted until the 4th quarter when they have seen more focused. That's all I've got.
Yeah, that's something I feared heading into this season. I actually expected the defense to slip slightly, even though we added a very good defender in Artest, because of what you describe -- the further away from JVG we get the more we lose our identity as a disciplined defensive team. Still, though I liked JVG a lot, I think the change is probably for the best.
