We are winning right now, so while nobody is screaming and crying, lets discuss the porous defense. I really don't get why it's not better. Individually, 4 of our five starters are pretty good, Lopez, LMA, Batum and Wes. And even Lillard isn't bad, but you put them all together and this team is shaky on D. Any thoughts?
Early in the season and we are playing teams at full strength? Guys are just hitting their shots? Hard to put one thing on it, but aren't we scoring a bit more than recent seasons, maybe a quicker pace means more transition hoops for other teams.
I think there is a degree of trade-off when you move to a more up-tempo game. More uptempo means more shots - for both sides. With more shots and, likely, more points being scored, your defense is naturally going to look less effective. I'm sure if you compare our defense under Nate (slowball) and now it will look better under Nate. However, I do agree there are times when the team looks like it isn't all there when it comes to playing good defense. I think that there have been some significant changes in the team and there is likely still some adjustments going on. My hope is that as the team continues to gel and play together that both the offense and the defense will pick up in effectiveness. In the end, all I really care about is that we score more points than our opponents. If the opponent scores 120 that is ok, as long as the Blazers score at least 121. Of course, back in the day, scores in the 120's were not uncommon, as they are now. Gramps...
Pulled this from yesterday's (?) thread: Well, based on Stotts' design to defend the 3-point line and force teams to shoot long-2s, we're doing a poor job. Here's how our OppFGA breaks down by distance (numbers are a day old - don't include last night's game): <5' = 41% 5-9' = 14% 10-14' = 7% 15-19' = 17% 3-point = 20% I also looked at where our shots are coming from: <5' = 30% 5-9' = 11% 10-14' = 9% 15-19' = 25% 3-point = 26% So while we are taking a fair amount of our shots from 3-point range, as desired by Stotts, we're also taking a lot of those low-percentage mid-range shots that we're trying (but failing) to make other teams take.
When teams go into their half court offenses we usually only give up tough contested shots, problem is teams have been hitting those shots. Transition defense is still bad but that's gonna happen when you turn it over on the perimeter.
for what it's worth Lopez's opponent PER this year (not including last-night's game) is 26.2 for comparison Matthews opponent at SG is 6.8
To be a good defensive team, the team must really work together. In our case, half of the rotation is new. I strongly suspect that the team defense will improve as the year goes on.
This happens a lot -whatever guard is up top for us, Lillard, Matthews, Williams, they get picked off and Lopez goes to cover their man. Guess who's left open? Easy bucket for the opposing center. I think the opening game against Plumlee really inflated his numbers.
Yeah I never liked opponent PER stats. We defend opposition players as a team. It does show what position we are having a problem defending, I'd assume thats PG and C this year. But that doesn't mean our PG or C are at fault defensively. For instance with Cousins, we left Lopez alone to guard him one on one. The team knew he would score a ton of baskets. But that single coverage didn't give the Kings shooters any open shots and eventually Cousins got tired of banging down low. Opponent SG only getting 6.8 PER while ridiculously low is somewhat expected since SG is the weakest position in the league right now.
Penetration has killed us this year and last year, although I think Lopez does a better job of stepping up to challenge at the rim than Hickson did for us last year. Last night Phoenix killed us on the pick and roll, which was really just a ball screen which led to a layup. The roll wasn't even needed. Our bigs are playing Nate defense (or was it Camby defense?) where they hang back in the key while our guard who's on the ball get's picked above the 3 point line. Then the ball gets a running start at the basket with only an immobile big guy on his heels in the way. The big has almost no chance to make a stop unless the guard makes a bad mistake. When we try to run a pick and roll, teams double the ball immediately and completely stop us in our tracks unless Dame makes a great move to split the double. I don't think I've ever seen us try the same tactic. We just sit back and wait to get attacked and hope they miss. Us shooting so many outside jump shots also leads to more fast breaks for the other team. Also, it's early in the season with a new center and other new key arrivals. Team defense takes some time to gel. Until then, I kind of expect some of our rotations to be a half-step slow which can lead to open looks. I'm worried about our D, but still kind of giving them a pass at this early stage of the season. Just my opinion so far.
I don't really care what they look like in November so long the arrow is trending toward improvement by the midpoint of the season and beyond. Mostly, I would attribute any lackluster team defense we've seen so far to new scheme and a few new personnel. And I'm going to be a broken record about this again, but 8 games isn't enough of a sample size to identify any meaningful trends ... particularly 8 games at the start of the season.
