Indeed. The question asks if they can have a top 15% defense. Defense is all about effort. Can this team put forth the effort to break into the top 15? I believe they can. Will they? lolz
I don't really get it. It always feels like the defense is decent, I see the effort, I see the idea behind the schemes, not much of transition defense collapse like last year. Just teams are shooting their lights of against us. Most of it contested. I just don't get it. So frustrating. No way that team can make the 4th seed with defense like that. We might get away with being 20th but I still reckon we need to be top 15 in order to be considered a good team.
I think that teams are coming into games against us prepping to shoot a lot of threes. In practices leading up to the game they are probably taking more, in warmups probably taking more. Would be no different than a football team running a scout team of wildcat to prepare for Arkansas back in the day with McFadden. They know that they are going to have to make some to handle big runs by us, so they practice before hand to hopefully get a little bump even if that isn't their typical style of play. Just a theory
Eye test looks solid but numbers don't look so good is partly because of the competition and one of the toughest strength of schedules thus far. Simply put; you can play decent defense and the other team still make the shot.
That's a good example of why some advanced stats are still too elemantary and can't say all the truth. Is there an stat that tells you the % of shots the defense contests? Points per possesion allowed in the paint? ... Another stat that shows little credibility to me. You have decent to solid defenders like Gordon, Ilyasova, Lavoy Allen, Tolliver, Parker, there down, while you have T-Jones, David Lee, Spencer Hawes, Blake Griffin in the top20/30 because they play in good defensive teams. But you ask Wolves fans and they won't back up putting Dieng as an elite defender, prove it. Bjelica # 13, Lee # 18, Meyes Leonard # 27.... The stat means nothing to me.
offense > defense in today's nba Top offensive teams (GS, Houston, Toronto, Cleveland) have way better team record than top defensive teams (Atlanta, Detroit, Utah, Orlando), and that's because with the explosion of Morey-ball style basketball, the offense has become so efficient in today's nba that no defense can really stop them. What you need is an elite offense with just good enough defense to win games, and I think we are in good position to be that kind of a team.
Actually, our adjusted DRtg (110.58, 27th) is a bit better than raw DRtg (111.15, 28th). http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2017_ratings.html My guess is that we are putting in the effort but still are not doing the right things.
Historically, teams that got to the nba finals were at least top 11 in defensive ratings. (With one exception of Miami 2005-6). Not saying that you need to be a top 10 defense today, or that this Rockets are aiming to reach the NBA finals, but you do need to be at least top 15 in order to be taken seriously. Even Dantoni is aware of that and this is why I'm so interested in seeing our defense jump to the next level, because offensively we'll be fine.
yes, that's why I emphasized 'just good enough defense', kind of like being at the middle of the pack. That would easily makes us one of the elite teams in the NBA; but the question is would you rather have 1st offense with 20th defense or 1st defense with 20th offense, and the answer is clearly the former. I've noticed this trend since last year where all four teams that made it to the conference finals were top 5 offensively but none of them were top 5 in defense.
True, I'm down with having 'just good enough defense' as a realistic goal for this team. But being 25th, 26th in Defenseive rating is exactly why no one is taking this team seriously. It is just another George Carl Denver 50+ wins first round exit kind of team. I know we can do better in that end. I actually see good defense but numbers are telling a different story. I'll keep tracking those numbers and hope they'll go down under 20th by the end of the month.
