durvasa is right. Defense had been the identity of the team during the streak and now it's very vulnerable. We gave layups upon layups against the Kings and even had difficulty against the Wolves. The next road game is going to be very tough as well.
it just took a little while for teams to figure us out how to attack our weak interior defense, after yao went down. deke can hold the fort a little bit. but for one he can't play long minutes; and against teams with strong interior offense (be it a strong big or good penetrating guards or both), it's just really hard to come up with an answer. with mcgrady ailing, we can't go outscore-the-opponents route, either. that's what made it tough for us. all the recent losses (boston, new orleans, suns, spurs) are of a similar pattern; and even in wins there were warning signs. i said earlier in the week that today's game in sa would be an almost sure loss. got cursed for "know xxxxx about bball". sometimes you just hate to be right. but i told you so...
That's grat thread. I've been saing that for a long time. Of course you can't win games with McGrady and Rafer shooting that poorly but our defense sucks even more. During the winning streak the defense was our key. We were the best in the leauge in points allowed and fg%. And for several last games we've sucked as hell. Teams are getting shoots they want, EVERYBODY can go to the middle without any problem, we are not guarding penetration. The defense is just at it's worst. Now Adelman has another problem to solve...
