Rocket's defense - how will we stack up?

Why do people keep having t-mac Guarding point guards he will never stand a chanse againsed the elite point guards of the nba

 

Yeah, it's crazy. If T-Mac could guard point guards, then we could have kept Deron Williams in check in the playoffs and advanced to the 2nd round.

 

With Artest here now, it allows tracy to concentrate on offense. in the last couple of years tracy had to play defense on the best or the second best scorers of opposing team and by the time he got on offense, he was exhausted. now he can conserve he's energy on defense and go allout on offense. i expect he's numbers and field goal % to go up. thats why i dont see him playing any PG roles anymore. we'll use him as a primary scorer again. much like he was used in orlando.

 

I would put Artest on the PG and T-Mac on the SF. Except for Chris Paul. Everyone else I bet Artest could shut down.

And why are people putting Dorsey ahead of Hayes defensively? He's a rookie and will probably make mistakes as well as get whistled for BS fouls the way Scola and Landry were treated last year.

For one possession give me Chuck Hayes at PF.

 

I don't know about the best ever, but they will be tough next year. Stats can be misleading as far as all-time best, but it looks like we'll be at the top again which will be great. I hope our offense can catch up to our great defense. I don't think we have a true weakness on defense.

 

Uh... Ron, defending point guards? I thought there were other people outside of Jason Williams and Kirk Hinrich playing point in the league. It might work as a sudden tactic, but I just don't see him keeping up in the long run. Rafer's okay there, actually. And Chuck's the man if you want defense.

 

Thank you. I swear half the members here must be 15 years old with some of the stuff I'm reading. A rookie drafted in the second round is going to come in an immediately be a better defender than a 4th year guy who has consistently been a great defender his entire NBA career? ok.

 

Here's a newsflash: No one can guard the elite point guards of the NBA when they are on...hence, they are referred to as "elite."

Just saying, with today's rules highly geared to let guards go untouched to the rim, the defender is already fighting an uphill battle. You need team defense to hope to "contain" them. Damn...that sounds so cliche'.

 

Having a few guys to "welcome" them at the rim helps too.

 

Interesting questions. . .

First, to your question about defensive teams in the last 25 years . . . not a good question. Because of the rules changes, the way a team can play defense has changed significantly even in the past ten years. In the 90s, there were no zone defenses, handchecking was allowed, the game was much more physical, and the best way to score was through a post up big man. in todays game, the off-ball double team and the zone defense have removed a lot of the power of the post up big man as a primary scorer, and the post game has instead become the primary threat solely as a way to cause defensive distortion. Today's game emphasizes guard play much more, and hence we see this renaissance of great PGs. Anyway, point being that comparing defensive teams across eras with different rules is not really fair, because the way defense was played was different.

on to the current rockets squad. there will be certain things this rockets team will do very well defensively. having tracy/shane/ron allows the rockets to switch on 2/3/4s very easily on defense, without giving up size or defensive ability (assuming tracy is trying). and no, i'm not saying tracy can guard 4s. all i'm saying is that in a pinch, off a screen, he could pick up the man and it wouldnt be an egregious mismatch. however, not that many teams run screen rolls with their 2/3/4s so its a bit of an overrated defensive advantage. i dont see the rockets being any better playing the 1/4 or 1/5 PnR, which is the primary offensive weapon that kills us. this is what utah/new orleans have used to destroy us in the past. ron does not help guarding 1s or 5s, so CP3 and Tyson can still run their PnR and eat up Rafer and Yao. DWill and Boozer/Okur can still run PnR or PnP and get whatever they want. So the major defensive weakness has not really been addressed. To guard the 1/4 and 1/5 PnR effectively, you need intelligent, disciplined, mobile, athletic big men (like a KG, TD) because they can show and prevent penetration, and have the length and quickness to rotate back and cover the diving/popping big. so to some extent what i'm saying is that the way to attack the rockets d has not changed. the things teams have exploited in the past, they will still be able to exploit. Based on the current personnel I would say that the rockets will still be really good against teams like LA that feature a dominant wing, they will still be really good against jumpshooting teams like toronto and dallas, and they will still be really good against teams with a traditional post up offense. but they will still struggle against PnR teams, and teams with penetrating 1s.

so no, i dont think we will see a historically good defense. Not without a much more mobile person playing the 5 spot, and a much more physical point guard. That's my opinion anyway.

 

I think people are overrating how much of an improvement on defense Artest will bring. I'm not sure he's that much better than Shane in a team unit like the one that the Rockets utilize. We are still weak defensively at the PG spot and teams with two good wing players will still be able to score their points. In crunch time I think we'll see more of a difference when individual plays get highlighted, but I doubt we'll see this team go from being a very good defensive team to being one of the greatest of all time. We didn't improve our defense by very much, because the great defensive player we acquired replaces a good one in the lineup. Our weak spots on defense are still unchanged.

 

Shane Battier didn't allow Tracy to concentrate on offense?'

In fact, too many times Tracy seems to give subpar defensive efforts to "conserve his energy."

 

While Artest replacing Battier doesn't help on the defensive side, I expect Battier replacing Head will help a lot. Also if the offense is more efficient due to an additional scorer, the defense may improve as it sees fewer transition defense opportunities.

 

Man, a great post. I think you brought some things to light that I hadn't given much thought. Our glaring weakness on defensive is still the pick and roll against great point guards and their centers or power forwards. That's all the more reason why starting Artest will be so important to me. Our biggest improvement to our defensive, other than Shane now coming off the bench, will really be our improved OFFENSE with Artest starting. Many people recognize that putting more pressure on a player on one end of the court, takes a little out of their ability on the other end of the court. So with teams trying to stop our big three in the lineup at the same time with help defense , their players will have more difficulty being as effective on their offensive end. Hoping so at least.

 

Also, there are way too many elite PGs in today's NBA. Chris Paul is ridiculous.

if we can not defend them anyways, how about we get a similar PG who does not care about defense but can put points on the scoreboard efficiently?

Defense of a PG is overrated and pretty much irrelevant for a contending team.

Impeach Rafer.

 

JVG has said Artest has trouble defending the p'n'r because of his body width.

 

Your editing of my post and your comments makes it appear that I believe that Artest will be a help to our defense on the pick and roll. That is misleading as to what I said.

I said he will help our defense more because of his offense, by putting more pressure on the other teams players on their defensive end of the court, which usually makes a player less effective on the offensive end.

 

High quality stuff, man. You need to post more often.