Not sure if you guys saw Dame in the game against Spain, but his defense was stellar. A real massive improvement on what we have seen in the past. 4 steals tonight, one of them that led to this play
Cue the obligatory "he gave up on this team so he stopped playing defense" or some iteration. I'm waiting...
Yeah he’s got a coach who’ll hold him accountable and actually gives a shit about that end of the floor.
I swear it's like Terry was telling them not to worry about defense and we would just outscore our opponents.
Dame has always had great moments, and periods of defense in the past. Many times on a player (Tatum) bigger than him. But rarely did he get credit, on Nat'l TV broadcast, or even here in S2, for it. Doesn't surprise me at all.
Agreed. I've seen Dame make a ton of incredible defensive plays. But you can't expect a guy his size to carry the load he does on offense as well as exert the effort required for a small player to be a great defender. He needs help.
Lillard is not a terrible defensive player and does put effort into it. He is also not is 6'6" tall with a 7'0" wingspan. He can be overmatched, but he has gotten stronger and in the last couple of years has been able to use that strength like Jrue Holiday or Chris Paul to muscle taller players away from the basket or prevent them from getting by him off the dribble. Having said that, he also plays a lot of minutes and his style causes him to exert a lot of energy on offense, especially since he is the number 1 option on offense. Holiday and Paul aren't the number one options on their team, so they can focus on offense. A different style of offense that doesn't rely on isolating Dame so he can go one on one all the time will probably result in Dame's scoring going down, but his defense would improve.
I hope that Billups offense scheme isn't basically "get the ball to Dame, you guys sit at the corners" or "get the ball to CJ, and you guys do whatever you want, because he's going to shoot" or "Melo shoots" or "Dame bails us out".
I thought Dame looked great on defense yesterday, even posted about it in the game thread but... That was a really old Spain team.
What motivation would any coach have to say such a thing? Dame got attacked in the first two exhibition games, so maybe last night isn't the new norm. Hopefully it was all Stotts and Dame will be an all-NBA defender next year, but I'm not holding my breath.
dame got attacked all through the first half last night as well. they were targeting him on switches and going at him. rubio cooked him a few times as well. something must have happened at halftime because he came out super physical in the third. refs let them play as well.
Not saying CJ didn't work hard on his game, but the other stuff maybe not as much. Looks like CJ has adopted the Dame way of doing things. Cross Training Baby. Looks real good.
