Remember in Stotts first year here when our bigs would hedge pick n rolls? It didn't work to well because Aldridge and Freeland were too slow, therefore they couldn't get out on the hedge quick enough and couldn't recover to their man fast enough. Hickson had the feet but was just a bad defender in general. Now we have athletic big men that would be perfect for this scheme, but we continue to employ Stotts "prevent" defense, where the gaird goes over the screener to prevent a 3 and the big sags to protect the paint. The problems with "prevent" defense is: 1.) The ball handler can come off the screen and survey the entire floor, since theres no one in his face. 2.) Guards are able to build a rhythm by pulling up for easy 15 footers, which is an easier shot than if our big played higher and rode the ball handlers hip to the rim for a contested layup. 3.) It seperates the ball handler and his defender by too get a distance, causing switches. The ball handler is able to get downhill too fast (since there's no obstruction) for his man to recover after fighting over a screen. 4.) It creates offensive rebounding opportunities if the mid range jumper is missed, since the big contests and the gaurd is stuck on the screeners backside. The mid range I also results in a shorter rebound than a 3, so guys like Drummond can rebound any shot that Jackson misses, if Jackson misses any of his easy jumpers. This is why good backcourts destroy us. We need to go back to hedging screens, or at least switch it up with "prevent", hedging and trapping depending on the situation.
Why bother? Because I like to have an opinion about my favorite basketball team, and I like to post about them..
Great post Bones! Get prepared then . It wont be the last one. No I haven't changed my view. We are still a .500 club or better, but we are young. That type of barrage is new to them. Turnovers are abundant because of two things. One, when trapped more, the players don't know each others tendencies, so movement stagnates because the ball handler must assess first. When this team gets more gelled, these things will come quicker and thus easier. Two, because Stott's playbook is shallow for the moment and he hasn't needed to go deep into the match up game because he has won most of them from the outset. If it were a closer game for the first three quarters, I don't think the Pistons go on the run they did. Stotts would have been watching match ups closer and would have known better what to do the moment they started their run. Instead we were winning, so he was probably more focused on our 5 on the floor and how they were doing... then the Pistons rocked us with a one two combo of Drummond and Jackson that knocked us down and we couldn't get back up. I don't think Stotts or the team were prepared for that. Lesson learned. I love how Stotts said you cant flush this and move on because this is a game to learn from. That told me I am good to keep my faith in him. There will be more games we have the lead and lose. Hopefully not too many... but we will win our share as well. It will be a Roller Coaster season, but I'm aiming for more ups than downs. What did we learn from last nights game? Well we learned that our energy CAN be matched, so you cant just rely on hustle ball to win all the games. We also learned that we need to develop better paint work on defense off the ball. Part of how Drummond did what he did was he was already in the paint. Don't let him get in there. Box out better. Force him to ploy through you by being faster at the foot and thus letting him get an offensive foul before he gets to the paint. I think we learned that we have a ton of work to do with off the ball defensive positioning near the rim.
