Game Thread GAME# 79: TIMBERWOLVES @ BLAZERS - APRIL 6, 2017 - THURSDAY, 7:30 (PDT), TNT

Well, we obviously are gonna draft Fultz and trade for LeBron next season... DRINK IT IN FAMS

 

Because players play.

 

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

 

So then by your logic Lillard's OTB Defense is because of Meyers? Crabbe has to stay in front of his man. Not Meyers.

 

That was my big takeaway from this game. Vonleh fought like hell all night, but he was just out reached by the Minny bigs. You gotta give him tons of credit for keeping at it and never giving up. Put Nurk next to him and with that kind of effort he's going to be ok. Nards was on the court in the fourth when the Blazers took over the game though, and it showed that all we were missing all game long was a legit center.

 

Leonard played decent in the second half, I'll give him that.

 

You know this, so I hope you're just playing dumb, but defense is a five-person game all the time. If one or more of your players are major liabilities, that means the other players have to defend in more risky ways to prevent the offense from exploiting the bad defender.

In our case, Meyers is one of the worst guard/wing drive defenders I've ever seen. He's a decent post defender when he can use his weight to prevent a guy from posting up effectively, but when a guard drives at him, he jumps backwards to avoid fouling, or fouls. It's bad news, and offenses know this. So what you get, instead of a lot of east/west movement or ball movement, you get a lot of north/south movement against our guards. Yes, keep your man in front of you, but when the offense is always attacking because your center is shit against drives, it's harder to do; you foul more, or you try for steals before the drive more to help your team. Risky behaviors.

A quality drive defender like Nurkic makes offenses think twice about north/south driving, letting a defender move laterally with the offensive player as they try to figure out the best way to attack. Meyers is like a neon light that says "DRIVE THRU ALWAYS OPEN".

I'm not saying Crabbe will suddenly turn into Bruce Bowen with Tyson Chandler behind him, but he'd certainly look better overall without having to force so much. Kind of like because our offense is good, he doesn't force shots.