A bit of everything. Asik is the only guy who's a capable and willing defender, and does it every single night. Our forwards can't rebound, and our guards gamble too much. Players are inexperienced, and lacking of discipline and consistency. Night in and night out, we see players rush to help, and only leave better shooters open. Helping or doubling is fine, but you need to know who and when to help. There should be some better preparation, at least to know who in your opposing team would never need a double team. Coaching staff doesn't seem to have a steady defensive schema, and I don't see them emphasizing on disciplines.
Basically the owner said, Uptempo = fun = more tickets sold. So our team is assembled with no semblance of D, except Asik. Our coach doesn't seem entirely dedicated to teaching defense, either. He'll lament after games that "we played no defense" but he does little to nothing about it, really; and his main complaint is on the offensive end ("we stopped moving the ball, we took our foot off their necks"). Morey's giving lip service to how our system of play can win a championship but even Phoenix with Steve Nash in his prime never got to the Finals. Our players can score. I would hope that Morey (if he can't land a superstar with offense out the wazoo) circumvents Les and spends the cap space on someone who can play D.
can we both keep the uptempo offense and get better on defense? would you trade the uptempo offense for better d? would the current roster win more or lose more if they focused on defense by sacrificing pace?
It is. I don't mind it too much myself myself, though I do think it becomes predictable over time if you never change it up.
I read somewhere that the gambling is part of the plan. The steals that we generate = more efficient shots. Basically, we gamble that if we play the lanes, we'll get more breakaway or fast break dunks, layups, fouls, or uncontested threes.
Poor rotation, bad PnR defense especially (guys like Harden either can't fight through screens or don't know how or don't try hard enough), bad help defense. But team defense has a lot to do with experience and chemistry, so hopefully that's something to improve upon in the near future.
Asik and Lin are the only ones who play defense. Contrary to confirmation bias and unconscious p.rejudice routinely says, Lin is actually a good defender. His problem is he helps too much on a team that plays terrible D. He's better off on this team stopping his own man and not helping anymore. He has shut down guards like Steph Curry in games when opposing pick-and-roll wasn't regularly featured which would expose the poor defense behind him. Evidence: Last season, Jeremy Lin's defensive rating was 96.7 (which is excellent) and had a +6.1 net rating (also excellent): http://stats.nba.com/playerStats.ht...reType=Advanced&PerMode=Totals&Season=2011-12 This season, Jeremy Lin is #19th in the league for Defensive Player of the Year based on rate-adjusted plus/minus or rate above replacement player: http://www.nba.com/hoop/the_devil_is__the_dtails_2013_02_05.html To nay-sayers, look at Felton's defensive stats this year, it isn't just because of Tyson Chandler on the Knicks or Asik on the Rockets. Lin is 3rd in the league in steals and also plays very good help defense in the paint. His biggest problem is he gets NO HELP from bigs defending the pick-and-roll, and the interior defense after Asik is so bad that he over-helps in the paint too much, leaving open 3's. He over-helps too much in the paint because the interior D is so poor. That is nothing compared to how Harden or Parsons play defense. Parsons has a horrendous defensive rating. Pretty much every night you can guarantee that the player guarded by Harden and Parsons will go off above their season averages.
He has a point, Harden's defense is below average and picking one game where he played good defense doesn't make him a good defender. When your star player is not giving effort all the time on the defensive end of the floor that's not fine. However he's not the only reason the Rockets defense is bad, the team defense is just bad overall. Poor rotations and late closeouts on the 3-pt line I think are the biggest culprit which is a team thing not an individual effort. But this is what comes with young teams especially with a lot of turnover.
That was a pretty good post though that you deleted. Harden when focused plays pretty good defense, but at times he'll just watch the ball or lose focus. I do think it is fixable, it's just about the team as a whole getting a defensive mentality that enough is enough.
I think you nailed it, it's a combination of things. I don't see our defense improving very much this year, but I think next year we could possibly see some improvement. Next year all our young players will have a better idea what's going on. The coaches said before the season that it's difficult for an entire team of young players to play good team defense, it just takes time. I also think that next year our players are going to have a greater desire to play good defense. They've proven to everyone that they can score a lot of points, but if they want to take the next step, then good defense will take them there.
Thanks. I accidentally deleted the videos when changing the privacy/accessibility settings and had already deleted the edits from my PC after uploading them. Didn't want to go through all the editing & uploading hassle again. Tough luck.
Individually we should be decent, as reputations say that Asik is good, Lin/Parsons are okay, and Harden is below average. Patterson was average when he was the starter, and Motie is below-average. That should average out to a decent D - but that's not how defense works. But I've noticed that the help-D, for pretty much everyone, is god-awful. Nobody rotates, nobody steps in to take charges. Asik is capable of rotating well, but as the last line of defense, you can't expect him to bail out bad team-D at the rim everytime. Also, he's not an elite shot-blocker, and he has to pick his battles to stay out of foul trouble. In the 06-09 elite-D years, not only did we have premier perimeter defenders (Battier, Artest, Lowry, even Rafer was good), and an elite interior presence (Yao, Dikembe), but we also had guys who would rotate and help in the mid-range area (early Scola, Hayes, Landry). Everybody made an effort.
Piss and Vinegar You’re rapidly becoming DaDakota v2.0 I use to look forward to your posts and threads, now I just roll my eyes and shake my head. Really, it's time to get over losing 2Pat. Time to get back to the CH we all look forward to reading.
For people ripping on CH... 2pat was by far our 2nd best defender on principles. Your bigs are the ones who call coverages and that degermines how well your guards play the s&r. Young people play terrible team defense in the NBA and every quote from them about defense someone brings up how the coaches are on them about it... Chandler with gambling being the most recent example.
1) effort 2) coaching 3) too many risks are taken (like going for the steal) 4) team defense sucks --rotations are a mess except Asik on a side note, yes, DMOs defense isn't great but its only been 2 FREAKIN games as a starter. Give him a chance before condemning him for being terrible. He needs to learn the NBA style of play first. His offense has the potential to be borderline elite for his position--that is saying a lot. I think Asik-Parsons-Lin are all good-very good defenders. Harden's d is lackadaisical and dmo and smith are young and need to learn. DMO at least shows effort and willingness to try--now his decision making just has to get better. EVERYBODY RELAX! :grin:
you people claiming Asik is a good defender are blind. sure he rebounds and blocks (some) shots. but his help D and pick&roll D is pathetic. but he's still young. i think he'll improve in this area next season. Sampson the "defensive specialist" didn't show up. all season. there's your problem
