We need bench scoring.... badly.

Mirza.

Teletovic.

 

They probably don't feel this way, but the more this team wins and that later in the season they win, I think management needs to feel a responsibility to bring in more help.

 

I would hope that were the case because regardless of record, there are some glaring holes. Someone probably knows this but when is the last time a team with a defense rated as low as ours won the title? Made the Finals? Made the conference finals? Even if there are some that did, I'm guessing that is a very short list. Add to that the extremely low production of the bench and now you have two filters to search by in looking at playoff success.

Certainly an opportunity and potentially the time to make an upgrade. Opportunities and runs like this don't happen very often.

 

Who is untouchable and what do you think you can get in return with those who are?

 

Do we need more scoring or more defense? I know I have been advocating getting a good defensive big and there are times I'm disappointed in Mo williams. But I saw something in the last two games. First, against New Orleans, I saw Batum being wasted guarding Ryan Anderson, while guys like Holiday and Evans were running wild. Then tonight I saw him trying to guard Durant and he is not strong enough and physical enough to do that effectively. He is our best defender against guards and that's who he should generally be guarding. I also noticed that when Batrum got two quick fouls that Stotts put Matthews on Durant even though Wright (longer and bigger) was in the game. So there isn't much faith in Wright.
Any team that wants to win it all has to have a guy who can guard Le Bron and Durant. I would like us to find a long athletic, strong and physical backup SF, who can do that. In games where we needed to play this guy a lot, Batum would play the two. Matthews would still play 30 minutes a night, most of those minutes would be taken away from Mo Williams, he would play solely backup PG when Lillard was not in the game.
The question is, who is this guy? Who can guard LeBron and Durant? Wallace used to be able to do it, Paul George still can. But who else? He wouldn't have to be a great offensive player, or even good, average would be ok; although it would be nice to have one of those guys who bulls to the basket sometimes. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Batum did a pretty good job defending Durant in the 4th.

Right now, we need bench scoring. 9 points tonight? Tyreke Evans single handedly outscored our bench last night. I don't expect them to score a ton of points, but they need to at least score 20-25 points and not make a ton of stupid mistakes. It's not just that Mo and Wright are shooting poorly, they're also making bad decisions with the ball and playing very poor defense.

 

LeBron has averaged 25/9/6/2 steals during George in the regular season through 11 games against each other.

He's averaged 30/9/6/2spg/1bpg against George in 13 playoff games.

 

Nobody can shut down LeBron, but Batum is one of the few that can guard him.

 

do you have shooting % somewhere; I would like to see that?

 

That's true that nobody shuts him down; I was just looking at this article http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ion-to-guard-lebron-james-next-season/page/30, and nobody really shuts him down. I guess what i am mostly saying is I would like Batum used more to guard those that he does best again. There may be several ways to do that; i was just thinking of one.

 

OK, i will answer my own question. From that link I see that Trevor Ariza is actually one of the best defenders against LeBron. But he has really improved on his only weakness, 3pt shooting, in the last couple years, so he is quite valuable for Washington in fact his PER is higher than Batum's). On the other hand they are only at .500 and this is the last year of his contract. I hate to suggest this because Wesley Matthews is by far my favorite player; but if we traded these two straight up, we would have room to resign Ariza. I will keep working on this because I really can't trade Wes.

 

OK, you (and I) don't like that one. Did you know that Tayshaun Prince has been one of the best (statistically) defenders of James. I'm guessing since he is a little longer than Batum he might do well on Durant also. Has two years left on his contract, so that fits. No problem in a backup role I think. More gettable than Ariza I would think. especially as memphis is 4 games under .500 right now. How about Wright, Leonard and their choice of Crabbe or Barton for Prince? Is that too much to give for a 33 year old? maybe hold onto the SG....
We would still need to find another backup C.

 

Here is the link.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=georgpa01&p2=jamesle01

51% regular season vs. George/51% playoffs versus George.

 

Thank you. I've been thinking about the statistics. I know Batum must have looked pretty bad statistically tonight against Durant but since he was able to guard him one on one, presumably that made the rest of the Okies less efficient. So maybe Batum did do pretty decent. I still think it wouldn't hurt to have a defensive specialist, Prince has held LeBron to 45% and that's over a lot of games. But he only has a PER of 7.7 this year, maybe he is finally over the hill?

 

The thing is, there is a lot to address. The bench is so poor both offensively and defensively that there are a lot of options in terms of places to improve.

• Front-court scoring?
• Perimeter defense?
• Shot-blocking
• Better shooting?
• Less turnovers?

Take your pick. There are a plethora of things to be addressed. No one player is going to do that but I can't believe NeO can't find SOMETHING that would help alleviate at least 1 or 2 of those issues.

 

Against the Pelicans, Tyreke outscored our entire bench.

Against the Thunder, our entire bench didn't even break into double-digit scoring

This is not new. Don't let the bench sabotage the season NeO.

 

So you are saying having three PF projects plus a SF/PG that do not work well together as your bench is a bad idea?

 

Have you ever wondered if bringing in a true playmaking PG may take care of all needs?

I always thought someone with great court awareness could make other around him better. This gives better opportunities for defensive specialists to not worry about having to score. The floor general will find you in rhythm or under the basket for an easy score.

I think we absolutely need that "playmaking" reserve. That should be our #1 concern.

 

Offensively I'd like to see the bench get more efficient. I don't think they need to score a large volume at all, as there is always a starter in the game and compared to other teams all of our starters are great scorers. So our starters can fill the role of other teams primary bench scorers. Other teams have starters who are limited offensively so they need bench scorers to provide relief to the teams main offensive players. Wes or Nic can be the main offensive options for longer stretches of play when paired with the bench.

But having guys off the bench who help score efficiently would really help. I just don't see this team making any trades though, CJ is probably our only hope of a radical change off the bench.

 

The 04-05 Suns are the closest comp to this current team as I can find.

That Suns team was first in the league in 3PTA, near the best in the league at limiting 3PTA, and mediocre defensively (PHX was ranked 17th).

http://tinyurl.com/ky684mn