It'll look a bit worse as the year goes on, but that's pretty normal. I expect us to finish top 10 in defense though, hopefully also top 15 in offense by then.
Interesting to note (though likely affected by the teams we faced) our defense is 7th best against starters, and 1st against benches, based on OPP FG%
That is remarkable. What a change from last year. Guys on a string, flying around. Wish we didn't reveal our strategies too much in articles like this.
If your strategy relies on the opponent not knowing it, it's not a good strategy... a good strategy is one the opponent sees but can't counter anyway... I think ours is the latter.
We certainly have shown a lot more effort, I just wish we knew how to run a proper fast break off a steal. That's been a problem with EVERY Stotts team.
In the pre-season, I had three factors for the Blazers defensive improvement. EFFORT/ENERGY DEFENSIVE UNPREDICTABILITY TRANSITION AWARENESS Well, the effort and energy has definitely been a huge improvement. This article also states we've gone from 24th to 1st in transition defense. That's a huge improvement. However, I am worried about good teams game-planning around our defense and we should still look at throwing in wrinkles in certain positions. It's hard to determine when the right time is to throw in such wrinkles, but coming out hedging/doubling the pick-n-roll for the first few minutes of a game would likely throw off a team that would've prepared for the ICE pick-n-roll coverage we deploy. After we got them off-kilter, we could fall back to what's working.
Our strategies are able to be seen in film session. Teams have NBA scouts that scout other teams for everything, and trust me, teams know our defensive philosophy and scheme. Beating it is a lot harder than determining it.
We would've never had a possession like that. I should've added another factor to our defensive success in that thread I made, which would be each individual player being on the same page and defending on a string. The digs at the ball and the help positioning in this clip are very good. Never saw a position like that last year. And what's crazy is, in the midst of all this, Harkless (presumed to be one of our better defenders) has gone to shit.
Lets compare DBPM for the hell of it: LILLARD 2016-17: -2.0 2017-18: -0.1 Increase: 1.9 McCOLLUM 2016-17: -2.3 2017-18: -0.5 Increase: 1.7 NURKIC 2016-17: 2.2 2017-18: 2.4 Increase: 0.2 VONLEH 2016-17: -0.3 2017-18: 2.0 Increase: 2.3 AMINU (8 games) 2016-17: 1.2 2017-18: 3.1 Increase: 1.9 HARKLESS 2016-17: 0.7 2017-18: 2.7 Increase: 2.0 TURNER 2016-17: -0.1 2017-18: 1.6 Increase: 1.7 CONNAUGHTON 2016-17: -1.6 2017-18: --0.4 Increase: 1.2 DAVIS 2016-17: 0.1 2017-18: 2.3 Increase: 2.2 NAPIER 2016-17: -1.3 2017-18: -0.7 Increase: 2.0 On average, that's a 1.7 increase in DBPM across our top 10 players. Damn. That's legit.
That clip is great at showing what’s changed: Vonleh covers for Dame while he’s working around the screen but knows he’ll have to move back to his man... so he plays a quick zone to stop the drive but doesn’t switch. That more nuanced decision shows the maturity that has come to the team defense.
Yeah, it's basically how many more points per 100 we score vs our opponents when that person is in the game, taking only opponent numbers into account (thus defense). This doesn't stack (you can't just add up five guys with 4.0 DBPM and say we'll outscore them by 20 every time), and you really see the effectiveness in the 3/4/5 man lineup ratings, where you can see how those numbers stack. However, for a quick good/bad purpose: positive numbers are good, negative numbers are bad.
We got to the playoffs with them... Lets wait until we get further in the playoffs before we say we cant win with them though. Adjustments.
I'm interested in what the defense will look like right before the ASG when everyone is tired, before a week off to re-calibrate. If we're still Top 5, we should be talking about multiple playoff rounds as a possibility. Given Dame got us to the 2nd round twice, I'd be hopeful that a commitment to defense earns us a long 2nd round series.
