Quick: Trail Blazers' season comes down to a simple question: Will they play defense?

In the NBA, one of the greatest coaching struggles is getting players to defend. After all, making the right weakside rotation doesn’t get players on SportsCenter. Fighting through screens doesn’t get a player voted to the All-Star Game. And how many times a player gets back in transition doesn’t show up in the graphs and statistics that accompany contract negotations.

But, as most can attest, defense does win championships.

That’s why every year, from the great teams to the horrible teams, coaches rage about defense, defense and more defense.

“I’ve always felt, if the coach gives in, the players win,’’ San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said Wednesday. “They all want to play offense, but if you don’t keep repeating defensive principles and doing the drills all throughout the year, it will dissipate a lot quicker than the offense will, and the players win the battle.’’

Here in Portland, coach Terry Stotts is immersed in that daily battle over defense with his Trail Blazers. Stotts is the maestro of one of the NBA’s best offenses, a beautiful symphony of player freedom that blends movement, unselfishness and sharp-shooting that tempts one to dream of deep playoff runs.

But he knows the offense can only take him so far in the playoffs. So he keeps up the good fight about that defense -- sleepy at times in transition, soft at times on the perimeter and all together too inconsistent.
“Coach preaches defense a lot,’’ Wesley Matthews said. “He just keeps talking about it. We work on it. We drill it. We drill it a lot. It’s up to us. We have to take ownership from start to finish. It about us transforming it to the games.’’

So as tempting as it may be to obsess over the Blazers’ recent slide -- losses in seven of the last 10 games after Wednesday’s 111-109 loss to San Antonio -- and fret about the recent rash of injuries to LaMarcus Aldridge, Meyers Leonard and Joel Freeland, the real focus should be on the Blazers’ defense.

Are the Blazers rotating correctly? Are they offering help? Are they getting back? Are they fighting through screens? Are they contesting shots?

“A lot of defense is focus,’’ Popovich said. “And I think it kind of reflects the character of an individual.’’

I’m not worried about the Blazers’ recent struggles, which has dropped them to fifth in the Western Conference. They grab that late-game rebound in Indiana, or make a late-game shot against Oklahoma City, or have better shot selection at the end of the Clippers game and the conversation is totally different. That’s how tenuous an NBA season, an NBA game, can be.

I’m more concerned about that focus Popovich talked about. That “character” that reveals itself in defense.

Do the Blazers have it?

Before anyone answers, consider this exchange I had with Popovich before Wednesday’s game.

He was answering my question about the challenge of coaching defense, saying it’s not something players want to do.

“Unless you are at a level where you think you can do something special,’’ Popovich said. “So if you look at you guys (Portland), for instance, you guys are playing great defense in a lot of areas ...’’
When I heard “great defense” it took everything in me to call B.S. on the legend. It must have shown.

“...Every coach bitches and moans they want to play better, like you are smiling like ‘what are you talking about?’ ... but we all groan about it,’’ Popovich said. “Because it’s something we have to keep repeating.’’
I asked him to explain how the Blazers are playing great defense when the naked eye and nearly all the statistics suggest they are average at best.

“They are long, they are athletic and they can make plays defensively,’’ Popovich explained. They can get to you, and they can contest shots because of their length and athleticism. That’s important, especially these days, because we all know how important the three-point shot is.’’

This is important to note. One of the great defensive minds in the NBA is saying the Blazers have the personnel to be a good defensive team. And like all of us, Popovich recognizes that at times the Blazers have indeed played good defense.

So that makes Stotts’ battle even more important, and perhaps even more torturous.

In basic terms, the Blazers give up too many points -- only Philadelphia, the Lakers and Denver allow more points per game. They also allow the eighth most points per 100 possessions (105.7). And they force the fewest turnovers of any team in the NBA. However, the advance statistics rate the Blazers as a middle-of-the-pack NBA defense. They rank 13th out of 30 teams in true shooting percentage allowed, which measures points scored for each shot attempt and 18th in field goal defense.

In other words, the Blazers’ defense is not awful, but it certainly isn’t good. At its current level, the Blazers’ defense probably won’t bail them out of many games when their shot is off, although it has happened a handful of times this season.

“There’s a fine line between bad, good and great,’’ Stotts said. “The great ones do it every night and for longer periods every night, and that’s what we got to get to.’’

On Wednesday against the Spurs, they didn’t get there. San Antonio shot 48.9 percent, including 55 percent in the second half and 58 percent in the fourth quarter.

A coach’s ultimate weapon is playing time. Popovich said he has used that as a tool to engage players to play defense.

“But you can only do it to a point. So you are going to sit your three best players if they didn’t play D that night? Then you don’t score any points and you lose,’’ Popovich said. “So you have to depend on a players’ character, his focus, and his ability to be mature enough to understand how important it is.’’

So do the Blazers have that focus and that character Popovich says he looks for when acquiring players?

“I think we understand the urgency of these last 29 games,’’ Matthews said. “Being one, two, or three all season long, and now to look at us being fifth, we see how fragile it is. Now with these injuries, the next week is going to be tough. But I think everyone is going to not only want to, but have to, man up on both ends of the court.’’

In the meantime, Stotts will continue to wage his war. Defense. Defense. Defense.

“He talks about it every day,’’ Nicolas Batum said. “Every practice. Every game. Every timeout. But it’s on us.’’

So why don’t the Blazers play better defense more often?

Batum shrugged his shoulders and began walking out of the locker room, turning to smile.

“Who knows?’’ he said.
--Jason Quick

http://www.oregonlive.com/nba/index.ssf/2014/02/quick.html#incart_river

 

Re: Quick: Trail Blazers' season comes down to a simple question: Will they play defe

Quick switches back from covering the Ducks and the Blazers start losing.

Coincidence?

:MARIS61:

 

Re: Quick: Trail Blazers' season comes down to a simple question: Will they play defe

They'd never sleep.