The Big Who Can Space the Floor -- The Actual Problem

Some of you kiddos are blaming McHale, some of you Martin and Budinger, others the ghost of T-Mac. Yet, what those of you pointing such fingers don't seem to understand is our actual problem -- we cannot defend opposing 4s who can shoot the rock. When we play teams with traditional bigs, things go wonderfully and they have for years. For instance last year (2010-2011) we had the following records against teams with your regular type big dudes --

Grizz: 3-1
Clippers: 3-1
Kings: 3-1
Pacers: 2-0
Celtics: 2-0

And against teams who can roll with a stretch 4 man in the fourth quarter --

Dallas: 0-4 (Dirk)
Magic: 0-2 (Anderson, Hedo)
76ers: 0-2 (T. Young)
Spurs: 1-3 (Bonner)
Suns: 1-2 (Frye)

Now how do we solve this? Is this Scola's fault? I think yes, partly. The man has been quite the albatross in late game pick and roll situations (Paul Milsap anyone??) and is consistently slow to recover to his man after showing on the roll. This can be attributed to him having to carry the offensive load down the stretch and, also, him being a pretty terrible defender outside of the paint.

This is also a coaching problem: under JGV (a defensive wiz) this was never an issue with Scola. McHale tried to do something about it tonight and, theoretically, it should work especially when applied against teams that don't have stud centers like Howard. This will continue to be a problem if only because taking out Scola is NOT the solution. He's our best low post scorer/late game option and it's the job of the staff to figure out a way to improve our defense of big dude shooters.

Until then expect more knee jerk hate after losses that, by now, should kinda be expected.

 

This is true enough.

Technically once you have one man out of position you have about 2 others out as well.