It's a pretty interesting stat and chart. Robin Lopez's numbers were extremely impressive. Shows just how valuable and good his defense was for us. Hopefully our defense improves next year by just keeping so many guards from getting so many attempts inside the paint so often. I'm hoping Blake plays better defense than Mo, since I recall Mo overplaying a lot and letting his man go by him. And Dame let his get by him often too, hopefully he works on that a lot this summer. http://thechilltime.com/look-back-2014s-best-nba-rim-protectors/
I sat courtside at the last Suns game of the season and anytime Robin had to head to the bench, the Suns went crazy inside. He was easily as impactful on the box score as LA or Lillard in many games. I really hope Kaman can stop the drop off in interior D when Robin has to sit.
We indeed do well with respect to OppFG% in the paint. What we don't do well at is keeping the opponent from getting INTO the paint. In summary: Lopez = Good, Stotts = Bad
Yup. You could argue that teams like OKC, HOU, LAC, etc all funnel guys into their amazing shot blockers. Do we perhaps do the same? Also.... where's LA?
The problem is that the funneling doesn't seem to work for us. Either it gets our bigs in foul trouble, OR the guard just pulls up for a jumper. Neither Rolo or LA are good at closing on the guard, giving him a wide open jumper. Tony Parker ate us alive.
Only to an extent. Stotts' system is to avoid giving up threes. So the Blazers are aggressive about closing out on shooters and going over pick-and-rolls. And the Blazers' perimeter defense hasn't shown the ability to rotate and recover. Stotts plays a very conservative defense that doesn't ask for a lot of that, but that's likely because he doesn't think they can. It's possible that with another year in the system, they'll play a more scrambling type of defense. They certainly have the athletes for it, in Batum, Matthews, Aldridge and Lillard...it's just a very difficult style to pull off, because any mistake in "on a string" rotation opens up a huge hole. San Antonio plays it very well and the Heat, in their best years, did a great job with it.
Nobody show this to Robin! He deserves a HUGE pay increase... There should be an award for Worst GM of the Year, and they should give it to the Pelicans' GM for unloading Robin to sign, of all people, Tyreke Evans.
I liked what Payton said though about Lillard. Payton believes it's all mental, and that Dame needs to improve defensively in his head before he can improve defensively on the court. He specifically mentioned Beverley as someone that Dame should model himself after. I don't really see it because Beverley is essentially a clown, and uses over the top antics to get into the head of the other player. That's not really Lillard's game. He is much too reserved to play that way. I could see Payton identifying with Beverley though. That's exactly the kind of shit he would have pulled.
If we actually had a bench that could hold its own for a significant amount of minutes (a la the Sprus), then I think we would have the energy to play that swarming type of defense.
I really really really wish we would have drafted the Greek Freak. Could you imagine Barton, Antetokounmpo, and Robinson swarming people on defense?
Imagine what some beancounter would do. He'd count the dots missing names...SEVENTEEN. Credibility dead. Next chart please.
The chart on the actual website is interactive, you can highlight any dot for the name. The amount of names shown changes with the resolution I think http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/NBARimProtectors2013-14/RimProtectorsChart?:showVizHome=no
Marc Gasol's mediocrity on this chart is surprising to me. Didn't he get DPOY last year? Aldridge faces more attempts and affects Opp FG% more than Gasol.