Dillon Brooks on Mental Lapses: “Feel like it’s the same guys that are doing that”

Congrats for determining the cause of .3 points in 100 possessions. You have extra ordinary analysis skills.

 

I guess, again, it's not even a fair comparison and Ime doesn't seem to hold this opinion.

Jabari gets tasked with switching onto Lamelo (and getting stops at that and no one brings it up) and tasked with guarding Wemby and Paolo and Franz and whoever and Sengun DOES NOT get tasked with this because the team tries not to get him into switches.

The reason Jabari gets beat on defense more often is because of WHO he is guarding. This is why defensive stats are always hard to decipher because the best defenders on your team are going up against allstars nightly, of course some nights they look bad. If Jabari goes up against Durant and Durant cooks him that's what Durant does. So what? Not that defensive advanced stats are useless.

But people literally made this same excuse for Alpi in the Warriors game "This is what Steph does to everyone no big deal." they'll never make that excuse for Jabari.

Funny thing is, it's fine, Alpi's prototype rarely is known for playing defense well in space, big low post centers tend to suck at it. It is what it is. Yao sucked at it too. Hakeem was the rare exception.

 

I'd say Bari is a better perimeter defender by a hair, but Sengun is a significantly better post defender. Bari just gets pushed out of he way.

 

I don't think its by a hair, it's by a lot. Sengun isn't switching onto Lamelo and stopping drives, its just not something that's happening because they literally as a team try to prevent Sengun from switching.

I don't think it is close at all. Sengun is not a good perimeter defender, those guys are able to switch.

 

I think Jabari is fine when he has a certain task like getting a stop on someone, except when he is outmuscled. Mostly I see him miss things on team defense, wrong switching, not moving correctly or things like not closing an angle when the ball is moving etc.

 

He just misses Tari

 

Glad we have Dillon. He's already showing on and off the court why he was brought here.

 

I don't know of any site that would show stats which measure individual perimeter defense separately, but on nba.com Jabari was actually the worst Rockets defender last season...just barely behind Sengun.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/defense?Season=2022-23&TeamID=1610612745&dir=A&sort=DEF_RATING

 

No participation trophies here! You better not play dumb basketball on this team! love the messaging.

 

It's mentally soft. It has nothing to do with his strength.

 

Was he talking about himself? I saw a few defensive lapses from Brooks in the last game, including one that led to a drive that put Sengun in no man's land having to guard two guys. So yeah, lots of room for improvement from everyone.

 

Don’t see much of that either. People try to dive way too much into things and make up silly narratives that aren’t there. How about you let a 20 year old actually progress through his 2nd season without looking at him through a lense of some vet who’s been in the league for years. When he can legally drink maybe some of you can transition to some of these reaches as he becomes an actual adult

 

It's because its very hard to judge defense through a stat. There's a lot more variables that stats don't pick up and if there are these stats teams are likely not sharing them as teams do have their own set of stats.

For example. If Jabari is guarding Durant and having to switch onto Booker sometimes vs Alpi guarding whoever Phx puts out at center who is having the rougher night there? Drting isn't considering the skill of the opponent, just how many points are given up. Durant can go nutso and make anyone look bad so it's not always the best teller. It is good to have it lower no matter what but the point is that Jabari does not get many nights off on defense.

Even last year Silas had him guarding top guys, sometimes he'd even win those battles too but most nights you are going to lose those battles.

Look at the drtg for top defenders last year, like Dillon Brooks. It's not high because he sucks, its high because he gets tasked with being on the best players. The best players sometimes make great defenders look bad. Like how Curry crossed him over a few times then drained a three and did his little taunt....or how Wemby spun around Jabari and dunked on his head. You'll see Drtg all over the place for top defenders because its not the best stat, it is great when its low always but a high drtg doesn't necessarily mean a guy is a bad defender.

Bari's drtg last year is within 5 points of guys like Brooks or Jrue last year. Not that they were bad defenders, its just some nights they get lit up. We saw Harden light up tons of DPOY and all-world defenders, it happens.

My point is you can tell who are good defenders by what goes on in the game. From what I can tell there are a lot of actions from opposing teams to get switches away from Brooks and Jabari and are looking for easier guys. Yes Jabari gets lost on defense, but it's a new system, he's a young player. It happens, but you don't see teams actively targeting Jabari over and over and over again, even considering who he's usually guarding, and Ime trusts him in these spots says enough to me that he's likely doing his job.

 

Yup. That would be the play I was referring to. What play is everybody referring to about Jabari? He has his lapses for sure, though. He had one where i think he and Jalen ended up guarding the same guy near the FT line and left Lamelo wide open for a 3. That was a jacked up play.

 

According to NBA advanced stats, Smith has the best Defrtg among the starters. Brooks and Green are tied for the worst.

I know individual defensive stats don't tell a whole lot of context. But I still don't get why Jabari's defense has gotten so much criticism on CF. He's not great. But it's not like he's the single worst culprit of defensive lapses among the young guys.

 

Jabari, Sengun, Green - all of them make boneheaded defensive mistakes or are left looking around like "what just happened?" at some point during these games. BRO, IT WAS YOUR FAULT - STOP LOOKING AROUND! At some point stuff clicks. Or at least you hope so.

 

Alpi will wag his fingers asking for a coach's challenge on top of it .

 

I learned a long time ago that "basically" is just a euphemism for "not really".

That stat seemed relevant in a thread where everyone seems to think Jabari is a godawful defensive player while praising his frontcourt mate as secretly good.

All of our young guys routinely make defensive mistakes, some more costly than others.
So it seems a bit disingenuous to single out one big as if he's a defensive sieve while the other starting big is statistically worse.

 

Alpi's favorite move is the "finger swirl". Hakeem had his Dreamshake, Alpi has his "finger swirl". Alpi wants every play reviewed. That move always cracks me up.