Last night during the last 3 secs of the game against the Thunder, we were leading by 1 point, Martin was on the floor to play defense. If he's really bad defensively why did Rick put him in there?
He's long and good at playing the passing lanes?? The other team didn't have time to set up a situation to exploit his weakness??
Lol, I remember asking myself that question when I saw him walk out of the huddle. The only justification I could think of was maybe Adelman couldn't trust the alternatives to not foul.
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Because Rick didn't want any rockets player to foul the opponents. If a rockets player tried to defend too hard, he might foul, and the rockets could lose in that situation.
he is a very lax defender and is constantly out of position; the other posters are right, you can trust him not to foul because he wont be any where near his man.
Martin's bigger problem is that he does not handle the ball. Defense is just effort and team thing, his defense will be better when the whole team want to play hustle.
Watching the tape again, it looks like Martin was defending the inbounder, Sefalosha. So, there's not a great risk of him failing while defending the only guy on the court not allowed to shoot. It's conceivable Thabo could inbound and get the ball back for the final shot, it wouldn't be the shot OKC would want, even with Martin guarding. And, it's obvious from how Thabo steps into the court that he's not expecting the ball back. Given Martin's length, it could make sense to use him to defend the pass, not that he did a great job or anything. Also, do I remember correctly that Adelman waited for OKC to set up for the last play and then called another timeout to change the defensive plan?
Yeah, but initially he was on Harden for some reason. After the final timeout him and Lee changed assignments. The initial assignment on Harden was both bewildering and terrifying that our coach could be that out of touch with his player's abilities.
that's right.. he did call a second time out. is the video available online? and also this is not the first time this happened where Martin played d in a close game. I don't remember what game was it but I was also surprised to see him there.
It could be that they thought Harden would inbound, or else Adelman saw Martin line up on the wrong guy, and called a time-out to make sure he was guarding the inbound pass. I wouldn't put much stock in the play that didn't happen. I would have liked it if Martin would have crowded the inbounder better or slid over to cut off the entrance pass to Durant, but I can't complain too much with the coaching decision.
I always wonder what games you people watch. And why people say Lowry is so great and Martin is so bad. Lowry is constantly getting beat off the dribble. He fouls to stop his man. Yet he is a great defender and Martin sucks. Martin will never be an elite defender because he is not strong enough and quick enough. He also doesn't have that super long reach and large hands that alot of great defenders have. But Martin is fast enough and he does make good defensive plays on the court from time to time. Yes he gets beat off the dribble from time to time but this is the NBA everyone gets beat off the dribble. You don't notice it as much when Yao is back there to help. Also make no mistake about it playing hard defense like Battier does affects your offense. I am not saying he lets up but if he concentrated on defense even more to the point he got fatigued his offense might suffer. Martin isn't Kobe but he gets us easy scores on a team that struggles to score. He will never be Kobe or Lebron. But players like Martin are not easy to come by. ANd if some of you would watch him during the games you would see his defense is much better than you think. The bottom line is the coaches watch so much more tape and study there players very well and they know martin is much better at defense then most on here think. That's good enough for me.
Without turning this into a Lowry versus KMart debate, I think the issue that the majority of people have with Kmart's defense is not just the result, it is really the overt lack of effort on defense. Even Shane/Ron/Bowen and other elite perimeter defenders occasionally get torched. The issue with Martin is that he constantly plays matador defense, doesn't utilize his quickness unless its to gamble for steals, seldom bodies up or plays physical (as evidenced by his extremely low foul rate) and in general refuses to bend his knees and get in a defensive crouch. For all of Lowry's shortcomings, I don't think even his worse detractor would question his effort defensively. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Kmart.
Sorry for the double post, but to clarify I was actually replying to Old Man Rock's post criticizing Lowy's defense.
