We SHOULD in theory have better D than two years ago. RoCo and DJJ in place of Aminu and Hark. Our second unit two years ago didn’t have anyone special on D. We have GT as a reasonably good defender now. Why do we suck so bad defensively? Hopefully just a matter of time, but like you said it shouldn’t be..
The missing ingredient in this analysis is rebounding. Aminu has a D Rbdrtg of 21-23% RoCo is at ~15%
Defense is hard to measure but for what it’s worth RoCo has a career DBPM of +1.1 while Aminu’s is +0.6. That stat takes into account rebounding.
to start with, I'm not sure RoCo and Jones are a better pair of defenders than Aminu and Harkless; not yet at least. RoCo probably operates better defensively than Aminu on the perimeter, but Aminu is bigger and better equipped to operate in the paint while being a much better defensive rebounder. And I'm not sure there is any real evidence that Jones is a better defender than Harkless either. The Aminu/Harkless pairing was actually quite good defensively their last couple of seasons in Portland. Pretty likely the RoCo/Jones pairing is not going to match, if they can, until they have 30 or 40 games under their belt. this year's team does have Trent off the bench. But the rest of the primary rotation off the bench, Melo, Hood, & Kanter, are bad defenders. Meanwhile, that past Blazer team did have Turner and Curry (both decent defenders situationally) as well at the big body of Meyers in the paint (Layman was probably a better defender than either Melo or Hood). And of course, Zach was coming off the bench too. Nurkic-Zach-Aminu-Harkless-Turner-Curry. That's 6 rotation guys average or better in defense. Won't have that many this season I think it was a way premature assumption so many made to think this year's team was immediately going to be good defensively. It's going to take time and with no training camp, most of the season may be gone before the defense gels, if it does. And, there's still that issue that the two guys who will get most of the minutes on the team are small guards bad at defense. That Blazer team we're talking about finished 16th in defensive rating. Bottom half of the league. This year's team might beat that, but a top-10 defense may be a bridge too far
@illmatic99 you should request a thread title change to: stott’s changing up the defense by tossing it out the window.... My prediction. If we are injury free and not in the top four in the west at all star beak, either stotts is replaced or management forces him to become head coach offensive coordinator and hand over 100% of the D to a defensive guru, whoever that may be. we have length and speed now. There is no way we should be able to instill some sort of defensive stretch like the pistons had with the wallaces, etc. Im no xo guy, but i havent seen much zone. much more like scrambling to keep up with man to man coverage. What happened to handstretch zone philosophy?
At some point it’s worth pointing out the GTJ is not some sort of special defender and is below average at present with room to improve, but his excellent sometimes shooting offsets his sloppy defense.
I agree. He does have a lot of room to improve. However GTJ's defense is special when we compare it to the product we've watched the last 6-7 years.
what ive seen is he is really good at on ball defense. To me it seems to look like he is getting lost on help and transition defense but i think that might be due to other teammates poor floor spacing and that he is a biproduct of poor team defense. i think if/when the defense gels, he will not be trying to cover so often and thus, look much better overall on rotation, help and transition D. Im not sure he is going to look good on d if he isnt on ball, until the defense as a whole figures it out.
You and I just differ on our valuations of these players' defense. I think RoCo and Jones are much better than Chief and Moe but that's just my opinion. I think Gary is a much better defender than Seth. I'm guessing that you are assuming Hoodie is going to be a much worse defender than he was before the injury because before the injury he was a much better defender than Turner, Layman or Curry. I can't disagree with you if you think Hoodie will be a worse defender because I haven't seen enough of him post injury to make that call. Where we agree is that it's impossible to have an elite defense when the two guys getting the most minutes are Dame and CJ. I just think our defense can be far better than last season and even better than our WCF team was. Our offense shouldn't be any less potent than that WCF team's, in fact it should be better as well. So I still think the prospects for this season are pretty good and will be disappointed with a finish outside of HCA.
to start with, I was as much talking about Aminu/Harkless as the starting forward combo and the defense that generated, as I was individual defense. I'm just not sure how anyone can judge Jones to be clearly superior to Harkless on defense at this point. And by Harkless I mean when he was a Blazer. And Harkless was mostly a starter while Jones was mostly a bench player; that makes a difference. And it's going to take time before RoCo/Jones develop the synergy that Aminu/Harkless did RoCo vs Aminu is interesting. As I said, I'd grant that RoCo is better on the perimeter. But Aminu is better defensively in the paint IMO. And he was certainly a better defensive rebounder which I count as important defensively for front court players. To me, a decent gauge is to compare a player's defensive rating vs his team's defensive rating each year. All 4 players are + on defense. Jones and Harkless are around +0.5, although Harkless did have a season at +2. Now, Aminu hovered around +2.0 while Covington has generally busted over the +3.0. So by that gauge, he's better; and except for a couple of early seasons in Philly, he didn't get the bump of playing on a top-5 defensive team. Hood?...yeah, we disagree there because Hood has never been a good defender IMO. Not in Utah, Cleveland, or Portland. And from what I've seen so far, his lateral mobility is pretty bad at this point Trent?....I think he's decent on defense, but has very quickly become overrated on that end. He brings an intense defensive style, but I also see him lose track of his man and where the ball is often. I'm confident he'll get better at that end, but his inexperience is showing I doubt Portland will be a top-10 defense this year. There are simply too many bad defenders in their rotation
Really? For me, it was Kanter in game 3. Seems like a lot of their open looks was trying to compensate for Kanter's man.
I've heard the players in the past talk about funneling the hoop opposition into our big men, which is why our big men have historically had foul trouble. Stotts gonna Stotts.
With Covington and DJJ both known as good team defenders (Covington being very good), who are the guys on our roster that are legit defending guys on the ball? Trent and who else? I ask because if we don't have multiple dudes who can defend the ball, isn't it fair to assume we'll always be chasing, scrambling, and reacting on defense.
Great observation. In 2019 we were able to minimize Kanters defensive liability better than any other team has. Putting him out in space would be a horrible move by Stotts. I'm not sure it makes Nurk a better defender either as he's proven to be good at playing that middle ground between helping on a guy attacking the hoop and staying with his guy. Not to mention, he's coming off a serious injury.
So who has the "Athletic" that can copy and paste this story? How is Boylen going to help the Blazers? https://theathletic.com/2277277/202...y-work-in-progress/?source=emp_shared_article
I don't know. I see he was brought in for a three week consultation. I'm encouraged by that. I'm betting this was Olshey's idea.
Nothing too groundbreaking: “Defensively, we kind of believe in the math here,” Boylen said. “So taking away corner threes, contest the rim, limit rim opportunities, and make people play between the 3-point line and the restricted area.” But just to have a new voice and to know the team is concerned enough about the defense to bring an outside guy in, I think that's good for the players' motivation.
It's a little odd to me that the only mention that I have seen of Boylen is in this Quick article. Wouldn't some media outlet have wanted to do a story on this; it's not that often that a team brings in a former head coach to help out for three weeks?
