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Bad Defense

I'm not as down on Corbin as others. Don't love him, but I think we'll get a much better idea who he is as a coach with a team he can build from the ground up. He was handed a roster that made it virtually impossible to establish an identity (bunch of vets on expiring contracts). The young guys played hungry and disciplined this season, and I think Ty did a good job letting them play a lot of their minutes together, and allowing them to fail from time to time (late game isos for Gordo, plenty of touches for Favors) without breaking their spirits. I'm not sure Gordo and Derrick were ready to be handed the reins at the start of the season, and making decisions that would destroy the locker room (benching the vets) could have had some negative longterm consequences (on both the young players and the organization). It's entirely possible Ty gets the young guys to play hard together next season and define themselves as a team. Or he could fall on his face...either way, 13/14 is the make or break season for Corbin, as I see it (unlike many others, I don't think canning him would have been the right decision, regardless of the financial ramifications).

I'm also still on board with re-signing Millsap, especially if David Locke is right about what the market will be for his services this summer (a little over $8mil per), provided he's willing to let Gordo and Derrick take on leadership roles.


I tend to agree with some of this. Corbin was sorted forced to play the vets. I put more blame on management for that. So I am willing to give Corbin another year, but there are some red flags. Such as Corbin's seemingly inability to draw up out of bounds plays and last second shots.
 
The silly part of this discussion is that Ty got in a pi$$ing contest with Roger Braille who is a good defensive player. He and mangement exiled him off the island and we missed the playoffs by a couple of games. A hard defensive player may have made that difference along with the DLeague dudes who didn't get a minute of PT.

Roger was the missing piece??

Turbo false.
 
I'm not on board with signing Millsap though. Its a bad idea. Dude will start pouting the minute he gets benched, which is where I would want him. We can't put Kanter or Favors on the bench for 4 more years. Not to mention we would probably would lose one of our core four if they all turn out to be really good.
 
I actually disagree with what I'm seeing here. We had defensive talent all across the board. Imagine:

PG Burks
SG Kid Balla
SF Junkyard dog
PF Favors
C Kanter

That team can lock down on anybody and actually isn't worse offensively than the Chicago Bulls. The main problem we have is a coach who refused to play his best lineups. he kissed big al's *** no matter what. no accountability for the vets. You can't win doing stuff like that. You just... Can't!

what really made last season unbearable to watch was an inefficient offensive structure which revolved around Big Al and jumpers. When Mo and Foye chucked and got hot, the pressure was on the opposition to score. When they had a lot of pressure to score, they screwed up which led to turnovers. However, when our chucking sucked, the opposition could execute their offense without any pressure, and more often than not, exposed our horrific defensive philosophy and lineups.

It all goes back to coaching.

Bad lineups make it impossible to win. Poor/ineffective offensive and defensive strategies make for some ugly as hell basketball.
 
The silly part of this discussion is that Ty got in a pi$$ing contest with Roger Braille who is a good defensive player. He and mangement exiled him off the island and we missed the playoffs by a couple of games. A hard defensive player may have made that difference along with the DLeague dudes who didn't get a minute of PT.

Roger was the missing piece??

Turbo false.


First of all, to agree with PKM, Roger was not a very good defensive player for us. I fully support Corbin and the FO in telling Braille to stay away. Best decision of the year... although, with him on the team, maybe we would have got a better pick?
 
I actually disagree with what I'm seeing here. We had defensive talent all across the board. Imagine:

PG Burks
SG Kid Balla
SF Junkyard dog
PF Favors
C Kanter

That team can lock down on anybody and actually isn't worse offensively than the Chicago Bulls. The main problem we have is a coach who refused to play his best lineups. he kissed big al's *** no matter what. no accountability for the vets. You can't win doing stuff like that. You just... Can't!

what really made last season unbearable to watch was an inefficient offensive structure which revolved around Big Al and jumpers. When Mo and Foye chucked and got hot, the pressure was on the opposition to score. When they had a lot of pressure to score, they screwed up which led to turnovers. However, when our chucking sucked, the opposition could execute their offense without any pressure, and more often than not, exposed our horrific defensive philosophy and lineups.

It all goes back to coaching.

Bad lineups make it impossible to win. Poor/ineffective offensive and defensive strategies make for some ugly as hell basketball.

Did you seriously do the Kid Balla thing? Are you PK? With all the crap you post I could see it. I'm pretty sure nobody else in the world would call Hayward Kid Balla and think they were cool.
 
I actually disagree with what I'm seeing here. We had defensive talent all across the board. Imagine:

PG Burks
SG Kid Balla
SF Junkyard dog
PF Favors
C Kanter

That team can lock down on anybody and actually isn't worse offensively than the Chicago Bulls. The main problem we have is a coach who refused to play his best lineups. he kissed big al's *** no matter what. no accountability for the vets. You can't win doing stuff like that. You just... Can't!

what really made last season unbearable to watch was an inefficient offensive structure which revolved around Big Al and jumpers. When Mo and Foye chucked and got hot, the pressure was on the opposition to score. When they had a lot of pressure to score, they screwed up which led to turnovers. However, when our chucking sucked, the opposition could execute their offense without any pressure, and more often than not, exposed our horrific defensive philosophy and lineups.

It all goes back to coaching.

Bad lineups make it impossible to win. Poor/ineffective offensive and defensive strategies make for some ugly as hell basketball.

Unabashed homerism + unabashed hatred.

How does one person get so distracted by his own over-symplified polemic?
 
I agree with GVC and PKM regarding coaching and leading players. But, someone needs to say this: we are desperately short of capable perimeter defenders. You've got to address that ASAP or it will be another year of very poor defense -- regardless of coach, system, and leadership.

If we can't get Schroeder at 14 (he looks like a capable defender), then I hope we spend #14 and #21 on perimeter-defense prospects who can shoot. We'll need these guys even if they are career role players.
if he wanted to build it from the ground up.
why not play the foundation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the core4 is the foundation that is building from the ground up.

he sure as hell aint building it from hte ground up.

he sees big al as his roof to hide under.
 
So, if Randy had a position then he might not be a bad defender?
No, that's not what I wrote. To spell it out: starting Foye (6'4") at SG and playing him extended minutes against Kobe (6'6"), Harden (6'5"), Iguodala (6'6"), Ginobli (6'6"), etc is never going to work. These guys know how to exploit a mis-match like that, and giving them 30+ minutes to do it is just bad coaching. It was like the bad old days of having Fisher as our SG, watching guys shoot over the top of him. Add in the fact Foye spent a lot of time on court at the same time as Jefferson, who was supposed to be responsible for helping him by defending the rim, or by being the big defender on PnR plays, and you have to admit he wasn't exactly put in a position to succeed, was he?

Being given these match-ups isn't Foye's fault. He should have played fewer minutes as a starter (like he did with the Clippers - see, even Del Negro isn't that dumb), or been playing purely back-up minutes and guarding other back-ups, which he is good enough to do. Hayward (6'8") and/or Burks (6'6") should have got any extra minutes at SG.
 
The thing with Foye is that he is undersized to guard SGs not that he doesn't try. I saw him trying hard to guard the likes of Kobe. It is not a matter of effort as it is with Mo. If I remember right Foye-Burks-Hayward backcourt was pretty good defensively.
 
No, that's not what I wrote. To spell it out: starting Foye (6'4") at SG and playing him extended minutes against Kobe (6'6"), Harden (6'5"), Iguodala (6'6"), Ginobli (6'6"), etc is never going to work.
If you can't effectively defend good players, doesn't that make you a bad defender? Foye is a bad defender at the 2. Having Mo-Foye defending the perimeter, with Al at the 5 behind them is a disaster waiting to happen, especially since there are more stretch 4s in the league every season, drawing additional help to the perimeter. You absolutely need a 5 who can defend the rim, and 1s and 2s who will at least be attentive, rotate effectively and provide a little resistance on the perimeter.
 
If you can't effectively defend good players, doesn't that make you a bad defender? Foye is a bad defender at the 2. Having Mo-Foye defending the perimeter, with Al at the 5 behind them is a disaster waiting to happen, especially since there are more stretch 4s in the league every season, drawing additional help to the perimeter. You absolutely need a 5 who can defend the rim, and 1s and 2s who will at least be attentive, rotate effectively and provide a little resistance on the perimeter.

Yes. The perimeter defenders need to bring effort and have good lateral quickness.. they don't have to contain their man, but at least slow them down a step to allow the help defender to, well, help.
 
Yes. The perimeter defenders need to bring effort and have good lateral quickness.. they don't have to contain their man, but at least slow them down a step to allow the help defender to, well, help.
For sure. I'd rank defensive priorities:

1a. Quick, long help defense from the 5 (or the 4, depending on which of the opposing bigs is a threat away from the rim).

1b. A system of rotations/spacing (load up the strong side, run shooters off the 3-point line and do not leave anyone wide open in the corner EVER at the very least) and good communication such that perimeter threats have less space to operate and shooters aren't left wide open after a crisp pass or two.

3. Pick and Roll defense from both bigs.

4. Resistance from perimeter defenders on isos and pick and rolls.

5. Post defense


Against some teams and in the playoffs, #5 is of more importance (bumped up a slot or two). As I see it, though, 1a and 1b are always most important. Teams get much more efficient offense away from the ball in the halfcourt than they do on the ball (roughly 0.8 PPP on post-ups, isos and pick and rolls ball handlers, roughly 1.0 PPP on cuts, spot-ups, pick and roll roll man, hand offs, etc.).
 
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