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The Defense Thread

Surprise, surprise. So I guess it’s settled, we will never see a counter argument. Only complaints that the evidence was not provided in a timely matter lol. The point stands with or without the correlation. The correlation was done on top of all the other reasoning….but I guess since it was done 4.5 hours and I wasn’t there to serve every need of NAOS I wasn’t doing enough. It also makes all the other repeated points disappear into thin air.

Next time I will offer refreshments for NAOS while he waits and I write a dissertation on the Pearson coefficient. Or maybe I should find a way to explain with shapes and blocks, because explicitly telling what the values mean was not enough. God forbid I do anything besides explain basic things to NAOS. Seems like data exploration is to do nothing, criticize the people actually looking into the data, make them explain it to you, and then totally ignore the explanations and say there wasn’t an explanation or it was too unclear.

And let’s be clear here. The default position is that floaters are bad and allowing a lot of them is good. In the year of 2023 I’d expect all non-casual fans to know that. I don’t mean that as an insult, I truly thought that anymore who is willing to spend free time on this forum would have picked up on that.

If you did not know that, you could easily pick that up from the data you are presenting. The only reason we know why floaters are bad is this exact data. Every time the floater range is presented, you are presenting the argument that it’s not a bad shot to concede. If you are the one trying to go against the grain with “exploration” you should be the one who comes up with rationale as to why everyone has this thing wrong.
 
I honestly didn't expect us to be this bad, but was also counting on Kessler starting for the whole year to have a bigger impact.
 
I tried to do a defensive breakdown of the 3 pointers that Chicago hit to identify some common denominators but there really isnt any. Its just a mix of different things. Not seeing an open guy, spectating the play and missing rotations, half-assed closeouts (a lot of them), dying to screens or going wrong way around them, providing unnnecessary help and leaving your guy open and whatever you can think of.

The more I watched the more I felt like this is a personnel problem. We just dont have any good perimeter defenders in this team and our average player's defensive instincts are not even comparable to league average. It was even more obvious in the Bulls game where you can see Caruso fighting for every inch of advantage when we were on the offense. And its not only enough that we give up higher % shots, but then we also foul a lot on top of that.

As much as we sometimes gripe about the offense, the defense is the real killer. We cannot stop anyone.
 
I tried to do a defensive breakdown of the 3 pointers that Chicago hit to identify some common denominators but there really isnt any. Its just a mix of different things. Not seeing an open guy, spectating the play and missing rotations, half-assed closeouts (a lot of them), dying to screens or going wrong way around them, providing unnnecessary help and leaving your guy open and whatever you can think of.

The more I watched the more I felt like this is a personnel problem. We just dont have any good perimeter defenders in this team and our average player's defensive instincts are not even comparable to league average. It was even more obvious in the Bulls game where you can see Caruso fighting for every inch of advantage when we were on the offense. And its not only enough that we give up higher % shots, but then we also foul a lot on top of that.

As much as we sometimes gripe about the offense, the defense is the real killer. We cannot stop anyone.
Yes, our defense, perimeter defense in particular, is nowhere near where it should be. Offensively our guard situation has been pretty awful, but it's not any better at the other end of the court. Clarkson and Key are defensively useless, Sexton tries harder but is not much better, and THT isn't good either. We have Dunn, who is good, but Hardy hardly plays him anymore for some strange reason.
 
Yes, our defense, perimeter defense in particular, is nowhere near where it should be. Offensively our guard situation has been pretty awful, but it's not any better at the other end of the court. Clarkson and Key are defensively useless, Sexton tries harder but is not much better, and THT isn't good either. We have Dunn, who is good, but Hardy hardly plays him anymore for some strange reason.
THT is a good defender. He isnt a good PG defender, but he is definitely a good defender overall.

Sexton still has 0 steals on the season. Clarkson averages like .5 per game. Usually when you have bad defenders, they at least gamble and get some stuff done. Sexton/Clarkson are just pitiful on all fronts.
 
And it doesnt really matter if Sexton tries hard. He can press and body all he wants,. It results in 0 steals or deflections. Cool he got that 8 second call on PG once. Nice. It usually results in his defender just blowing by him or shooting over him
 
THT is a good defender. He isnt a good PG defender, but he is definitely a good defender overall.

Sexton still has 0 steals on the season. Clarkson averages like .5 per game. Usually when you have bad defenders, they at least gamble and get some stuff done. Sexton/Clarkson are just pitiful on all fronts.
I wouldn't say THT is a "good" defender although he sure is better than Clarkson or Sexton.
 
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