Basically it’s a Favs issue. Those two have to play together... when Rudy is out we are basically just trying to out score the other team anyway. We ain’t stopping anybody unless Rudy is in the game.
Rudy is an elite defender, we all know that. But both of those lineups are really bad. They dont seem to play well together. But our defense is and always will be with Gobert in. But Favors is still an above average defender, Mitchell and JC are not. Also even with Gobert we arent really stopping anyone when it matters lately and that needs to change. Favors is hardly much of our issue. He fills in as a decent backup center for limited minutes, his effect isnt large either way.
Our team defense is poor besides Gobert and that starts with Mitchell. He needs to play consistent good defense as a leader. JC is also a bad defender, as is Bogie. But they put in more effort than Mitchell. It was better for awhile but dropped back off. I dont really think Royce is better than average defender but he puts a ton of effort in and plays decent team defense. Ingles is above average defender because he plays smart and has decent length but he obviously lacks some tools to be good. Favors is a good defender and has been his whole career but he isnt Gobert level defender, he needs effort around him.
I think we need more Oni and we need every player to start playing defense again, at least putting good effort in. We cant just funnel to our Center and hope for the best. Not even Gobert can clean up that mess.
Oni is in our best defensive lineups. He has mostly played with Gobert putting up a 88 defensive rating. His minutes with Favors are limited so it might be an anomaly but they are putting up 69 defensive rating. I think Favors needs some defense with him on the court. He cant get stuck with our worst defenders and expect there not to be a drop off and he cant cover the mistakes like Gobert can. Play good/decent defenders with Favors and it will be good. Gobert and Conley have played a lot together against second units. JC was shooting lights out and it was making things easy, but that is dropping off. Same could be said of Mitchell.
Play Conley, Ingles, Oni, Royce, and Gobert and we will easily have the best defense in the NBA. Swap in Favors and it will still be very good, but not quite as elite.
