Durvasa, it is the scheme associated with the player. I've said many times yao is an excellent post defender,but now with his balance and mobility, last night,emeka just kept pinning him under the basket. If you play paul, give him the gate and make him the scorer. Last night, they had brooks trying to dance the screens,which was the gate, but the big didnt fan out to give recovery and help. So when brooks went under,there was no help,paul kep penetarting and surverying and now the shooter got butt naked. Also,lets give some credit and Ive talked to him a few times when he was with the toros, delmps gave paul the move shooter he needs since peja went in the tank. I said preseason the rockets would have trouble and would have to battle that team and its true if paul stays healthy. As a team and playing against certain guys, you have to know the personel. When paul gets below baseline,he's sinking the defense and looking for the kickout shooter. In mid range pick and roll,he's looking for smith and west. Whats disturbing is they made the run when he was on the bench and bayless,willie green,and jason smith were playing against lowry and company.
Remember, Adelman complained that they didn't get time in the preseason to fully prepare for the season b/c of all the travel. With Yao coming back and all the new players, its understandable the team is going to struggle some. The important thing is that the team improves over the course of the next few weeks. The problem the Rox have is that they started the year unprepared and against a couple of very good teams and 1 very good offensive team. Hopefully, even while trying to put all the pieces together, the Rox will be able to beat some of the mediocre teams coming up(though the Rox currently are a mediocre team).
I'm confused. You were arguing before that what was wrong with the scheme was that the roll defender wasn't showing hard or blitzing the ball-handler. They were play in-between, "half-assed" help D. In the 3 plays you cited, the one at :40 is where the roll defender showed hard on the ball-handler, and the ones at 1:24 and 1:32 are examples (with Yao) where the help played "half-assed" help D. What is the scheme you wanted Adelman to employ, again?
Again, I agree with that. To me, its not really a scheme problem. The Rockets understand what works when defending Paul -- like you say, make him a jump-shooting scorer but also keep him out of the paint -- but their players just didn't execute it. Combination of mistakes and individual defensive deficiencies.
really? I remember brooks committing a silly foul on Paul after turning the ball over with a behind the back pass then tripping Ariza unnecessarily after Ariza stole the ball from Martin then trying to take a charge when he was well within the restricted area those are 3 really stupid fouls right there that had nothing to do with Brooks trying to guard CP3 on pick and rolls that cause him to be in foul trouble. Maybe he doesnt commit those 3 silly fouls and he could try to play better defense on the pick and roll but Brooks was not in foul trouble because of the pick and roll
I certainly agree he made some poor choices last night.....especially on some of his fouls..... But so did everyone on CP3.... Anyone posting clips of Cp3 torching Lowry too? Or is this only a Brooks thing? DD
The question, to me, is whether the opposing players shot at a higher than expected percentage, given all of the circumstances (individual skill, distance from which shots are taken, whether shots are off the dribble or stationary, quality of challenge, etc.). It's too simplistic to say that Player X hit shots because he's good. The thing is, even the best players miss a good number of shots, especially well defended ones. I can live with, for example, the Monta Ellis taking a bunch of more or less contested 20 footers off the dribble, which he normally shoots at, say, 42%, but managed to hit 75% of them one night. You chalk that up to luck and move on. On the other hand, if you are giving a good 3 pt shooting team a bunch of open looks from the arc, and they ended up killing you by shooting, say, 12 for 25 from the arc, then it's crappy D and there's something to work on (whether by playing better defenders or switching schemes or whatever). To me, whether a team played good D (or good O) is not to be judged by whether the ball went through the hoop, but can better be judged at the moment the ball left the shooter's hands. It takes some elements of luck out of it. If you freeze the tape at the moment the ball left a shooter's hand and look at where he is, where the defender is, who the defender is, whether the defender has his hands up, whether the shooter was on the move before shooting, etc., this is a better way to judge whether your D has "worked" or not.
Funny, the "insanely simple" task of "staying on his own man" was AB's responsibility on Steve Blake's game winning 3 pointer. What an idiot Adelman is for having that scheme knowing that AB cannot execute it.
I have said as much that AB left him wide open, that was 100% on him. Now the Shannon Brown explosion that got the Lakers back in the game...well..... To quote the PS3 guy. "Well played Mauer, well played !" :grin: DD
DD is showing off his bb knowledge again! After all, playing defense should be easy for most of the players. Just stay on your own man! But what if you couldn't? How many times did we see AB get burned by that simple P&R?
Lowry definitely did a better job on Paul. He at least made him work for his points and didn't let him waltz into the lane unimpeded. Sure, Paul will still get his against Lowry, but just a few extra stops and disruptions and we win that game.
See, it is stuff like this, that make you just roll your eyes.....and throw your hands up, if this guy would have read all the posts and discussion he would have a decent understanding of the conversation. Instead, he just comes in to be an arse......yeah GARM FTW !!!! Oh please show us the highlights of that.... DD
as for Lowry last night - I did not watch the 4th quarter of the game last night let me say this first since I had a dinner to attend and I figured they would lose somehow in the 4th Lowry did defend Paul better but the thing Lowry did a lot better than brooks was the switch (at least through the first 3 quarters) at times off the pick and roll if Lowry went under and the 4 man (usually Hill/Hayes) switched onto Paul Lowry would stay with Okafor or West and at least try to play D on them...and obvious mismatch match but if Paul tried to make a pass to the big at least it would have to be a slower, higher pass to the big which hopefully would give enough time for our guy to rotate back. A quick pass to West/Emeka's hands would have been deflected by Lowry. Paul ended up passing the ball to the wing instead. One time west did get the ball free throw line and tried to back Lowry in but lowry didnt give an inch and west gave the ball up. Paul is going to score on anyone..the guy isnt a top 2 PG in the league because he gets stopped all the time, but Lowry was smarter with the help and fought through the screens a lot harder to force paul to his second or third option in the pick and roll. The switch is something Brooks did not do much of last night there were times when our guys (either Hayes/Hill) had better position to defend Paul on the switch and Brooks kept trailing and following Paul...Granted that its better not to have Hayes or Hill directly on Paul in that scenario Brooks sort of was in no-mans land..he wasnt guarding the Hornets big guy and he wasnt in proper position to be a secondary trapping or primary defender on Paul. At that point CP3 just dumps it back off to the wide open hornet big for a layup/jumpshot. but this is a bit silly because everyone here knows Lowry is light years ahead of Brooks as a defender, but there is still plenty Brooks can do to improve his defense even with his size he just doesnt have it in him mentally to be get down and play defense. You have to be mentally tough to play defense, pretty much all the "mentally tough" guys in the league and historically have been good defenders. No one is asking him to be like Lowry on D but try to fight through picks better and if you have to switch on a big man..switch its a mismatch yes but its still better to have someone guarding somebody than nobody and sometimes the switch can be the correct play. at least in this case Hayes and Hill would sag off of CP3 giving him space to shoot and be close enough to their original man (that now brooks/lowry would be guarding) to help if CP3 decides to pass it to the Hornet big. And if CP3 shoots...great he is a good shooter but the more he shoots the ball the less involved everyone else is and the less dangerous the Hornets become.
I agree with your entire post, Lowry is a better defender, by a long shot, and especially agree with how you ended it, that is what I have been saying all thread long. Make CP3 a shooter not a passer. DD
What happened to the amazing double teaming plan? I mean didn't we lose all these games BECAUSE we couldn't stick to our own man?
