A Message From Dame...

[blue9]

@Minstrel ....I agree that they don't have many good individual defenders but some of the things they do from a scheme/help/positioning aspect would make a high school coach cringe. If someone gets beat because they are smaller or just not as athletic, that is one thing.

But I see heads turned, bodies turned, poor rotations, bad hedges......that make even also-rans loook like all-stars at times.

Last night, Hibbert, Belinelli and Kaminsky combined for 40 points. WTH! The game before, Kelly Oubre, who went into that game averaging 5.8 ppg, had 18. Tomas Satoransky was averaging 3.2 ppg....he had 10. Kevin Love had 34 points in a quarter against this group. Those are not uber athletic physical specimens. Most of them are scrubs and in the case of Love, he hasn't scored 34 points IN A GAME at any time the entire rest of the season.

Whether it is just a lack of effort, poor defensive philosophy, or the players just aren't doing what Stotts instructs......either way, all of those are very bad.

Exactly. There's ZERO reason this roster can't be average on the defensive end. Just playing fundamental, position defense would do that. Neither Dame nor CJ are such poor defenders that they can't play fundamental defense. They are too good, too smart, and too competitive. Our defensive woes start with Stotts. Our roster certainly doesn't help, but maybe that's a good thing? If we had players who were good enough to cover up for Terry's deficiencies we might not know just how bad he is.

 

[blue9]

I think you are saying they don't recognize patterns quickly enough. And it seems that enough practice at this and emphasis on this, would improve their pattern-recognition skills. If I was the coach of this team; I would practice only defense for the next month.

Also exactly! Defense is pattern recognition. That's something that can be improved upon.

Also, I think Minstrel is overselling the speed of the NBA. All too often - especially with our team - players walk the ball up the floor while other players stand stationary on the perimeter watching the ball-handler and a single screener work a two-man game. Maybe a few cuts/backscreens occur, but often go unused. These guys are all professional athletes - the speed of the game isn't too much for them to handle (except for Meyers).

 

[TBpup]

Exactly. There's ZERO reason this roster can't be average on the defensive end. Just playing fundamental, position defense would do that. Neither Dame nor CJ are such poor defenders that they can't play fundamental defense. They are too good, too smart, and too competitive. Our defensive woes start with Stotts. Our roster certainly doesn't help, but maybe that's a good thing? If we had players who were good enough to cover up for Terry's deficiencies we might not know just how bad he is.

So right. 'Average' defense to go along with an upper 1/3 offense would get much better results. That this team is dead last in many defensive categories torpedoes any good offense they get. We as fans are not asking to be top-5 but somewhere in the #13-19 range doesn't seem like an unreasonable request.

 

[Minstrel]

So every team should be at least average on the defensive end, because all it takes is effort. Which obviously moves what "average" means up (because there's no logical sense to everyone being average or above). If you think half the teams in the NBA are just lazy, your viewpoint is coherent (but silly, IMO). If you don't think that, your viewpoint simply doesn't make sense. "Average" is an NBA baseline based on what the median defensive team can do--by definition, about half the teams MUST fall below average. So there's every reason why the Blazers shouldn't be average--because their defensive personnel is well below average in ability. You can't "work" your way to average because every team is working, so talent determines it.