Warriors vs. Bucks Nov 8, 2005 (FSN 5:00 PM)

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kensaku:</div><div class="quote_post">I respectfully disagree. I think your concept of team defense is skewed a bit. Team defense has nothing to do with "slacking" or not being able to play individual defense. It's about being able to rotate, knowing where your teammates are. It's not about giving up on a play and hoping that your 4 or 5 will cover the shot. Yes, if you get beaten off the dribble, you will need to rely on your guys inside to close the gap, but that is only half of what team defense is.

You say this will put a lot of "pressure" on Foyle and Murphy or whoever else may be playing inside. Well, I've got some breaking news for you, IT'S THEIR JOB TO DEFEND THE BASKET. If they crumble to the ground and cry because they have to, dare I say, cover the guy with the basketball going full speed down the lane, then they don't deserve to be in the league.

Really though, team defense is about rotating, playing into your opposition's weaknesses, knowing when to help or not help. It has little to do with an individual's lack of man-to-man defense.

You say Dunleavy's team defense is not impacting the game...hmm. How many times has Dunleavy taken a charge because he KNEW where the player (that he is not assigned to) is going? I have seen him do this more than any other player on the team.

Again, you are misinterpreting "team defense." But, I'll play with your definition in this context. Dunleavy or Pietrus should have guarded Redd to be "team players?" Hmm, considering how well J-Rich was defending Redd, that would A) make no sense and be quite an insult to J-Rich and the coaching staff if Dunleavy or Pietrus suggested that they defend Redd in order to play "team defense." Also, Richardson and Redd play the same position, so it would be quite the mismatch for Dunleavy to defense Redd. I don't recall, but Pietrus might have guarded Redd in the game, but he played minimal minutes. So, do you think J-Rich was upset that he had to "carry the scoring and defending their most dangerous player?" That's a rhetorical question. I'm sure Richardson was esctatic that he played so well and would gladly welcome the challenge again (next week).

And once again, you are misinformed on the concept of team defense, team play, and basketball in general. I completely disagree with this statement as you'd want your best defender (for a respective position...i.e. you'd want your SG to guard their SG) guarding their best offensive player, period. So, do you suggest since Richardson is so ELITE, that he shouldn't succumb to playing defense at all? That he's "too good" to have to guard Redd and that his little minions, Dunleavy and Pietrus, should do that? Your statement makes little sense.</div>

It's indeed Foyle and Murphy's job to defend the middle (which Murphy doesn't do well). However, you can only bring so much pressure on them, because if you let them defend the middle countless times, they will be in foul trouble sooner or later, and that's why each players have to do individual defense to some extent to put the pressure off. And, since Foyle is the only decent defense presence in the middle, once he gets into the foul trouble, we really rolls the red carpet to the basket. Luckly for us, Foyle has been relatively free from the foul trouble, and that's one of the main reason why we allowed other team to shoot 41% from the field, excluding today's game.

Dunleavy is known for taking charge from college, and he does a nice job at that part. However, I would gladly exchange taking charge for decent defense.

If you think Richardson should guard Redd because he is a SG, then why Richardson guard primary offensive SF instead of Dunleavy? If Richardson would be insulted because other players guard tougher match up, we have been slapping Dunleavy's face ever since he entered the league. My point is that role player should take tougher match up in defensive end to take a pressure off because primary offensive player should concentrate his energy on scoring and avoid foul trouble. For example, Redd guarded Richardson at the other end, and he picked up 5 fouls when Bucks needed him the most. It really isn't uncommon that role players pick up tougher match up. However, in our case, our primary scorer is defending tougher match up regardless whether that player is SG or SF, while we hide Dunleavy to weaker match up. And, in other end, it's Richardson who does most of job as well. If we are talking about players like Mullin or Jamison, who can put serious numbers in offense end, sure I can understand why we hide them at defensive end. But, that's not the case in our situation. If Richardson should score and guard tougher match ups, what exactly tells about Dunleavy, who doesn't do at offensive end and guad weaker match up at defensive end? At least Pietrus can take tougher match up like guarding Ford in limited mins, and when he is on the court, he picks up tougher match up instead of Richardson.

Concept of team defense sounds good on paper, but there is a reason why most of teams can't execute a good team defense, because it's very hard to put on the practice. If not, why can't we just collect poor defenders and make them a great defensive team? In order for you to do so, you first need a good presence in the middle and at least decent defenders at each position like Spurs or Pistons, or have number of quick and excellent defenders like former Bulls or Sonics. Also, you need a strong coach, who can really sell his defense scheme to players. There aren't that many teams which are equipped with those aspects, and we certainly aren't the one of those team. Yes, we do have some sort of team defense plan, but it's nowhere near to cover bad individual defenses, and that's why we have been a poor defensive team for a while. If Dunleavy goes to teams like Spurs or Detroit, he may be a better defender than with us. But, since he is not...

 

The most important thing that everybody seems to be missing is that this Warriors team is starting to jell together. Chemistry is a very underrated factor that the Warriors teams from the last couple of years have lack.This win by no means iseither trivial or extremly important but, it shows that the team has started to learn each others strenghts and weakness. Dunleavy might seem like he had a god awful game statiscally but, it is the little things like that charge he took or that 3point shot that help keep the Bucks at baythat makes him invaluable. We all expect Baron and J-Rich to carry the load everynight but, this team has the firepower to have different players carry the load on any given night. Heck even Fisher who took some god awful shoots came through with another possesion by bouncing the ball of a Buck player and that timely 3point shot. All I know is that we are 3-1 tie for first and as a long suffering Warriors fan that wants to be able to take my son to his first Warriors playoff game, I am in heaven enjoying this season.

 

First of all, Kensaku great to see you back on the warriors board. Im glad you are back.

Second of all, we are freaking 3-1 and just beat the 3-0 Bucks on the road. I am tired of telling people how good we are, the Warriors are now proving it on the court. The Warriors are also 3-0 when Baron Davis plays, talk about leadership.

Whether or not you hate Dunleavy, we are 3-1 and headed in the right direction.

 

I remember when we used to blow games exactly like this. It feels awfully good to see the O come up with big shots to close the game. I'm itchin' to see Ike play. We need more scoring in the middle. We can only build up from here. PROMISING!!!

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post">If you think Richardson should guard Redd because he is a SG, then why Richardson guard primary offensive SF instead of Dunleavy?</div>

The reason why Richardson sometimes guards SF's is because A) he's a better defender than Dunleavy and he's stronger than Dunleavy.

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">My point is that role player should take tougher match up in defensive end to take a pressure off because primary offensive player should concentrate his energy on scoring and avoid foul trouble. For example, Redd guarded Richardson at the other end, and he picked up 5 fouls when Bucks needed him the most. It really isn't uncommon that role players pick up tougher match up. However, in our case, our primary scorer is defending tougher match up regardless whether that player is SG or SF, while we hide Dunleavy to weaker match up. And, in other end, it's Richardson who does most of job as well.</div>

I really don't know how to reply to this as your thoughts are a bit jumbled (no offense). At one point you say we should not use Richardson to guard Redd because he's our primary scorer and that's a lot of "work" for him, but then you say he's the better defender, which I will not argue with. So, should he or should he not be defending the tougher opponent? I'm simply asking because you seem to be neutralizing your point. Are you trying to assess defensive match-ups or are you trying to argue a point? Either way, your attempts at such are a bit confusing.

All I'm trying to say is, in Dunleavy's defense (no pun intended), his basketball smarts, both on the offensive and defensive side, make up for his lack of pure athleticism that J-Rich displays.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AnimeFANatic:</div><div class="quote_post">No need to call names now.</div>

 

What I am saying is that Dunleavy really isn't a good fit to this club to begin with, and we really should have looked for another way to replace Dunleavy. Role players should help primary players, but in this case, our primary player is taking a slack for a role player, and it's a fundamental flaw for Warriors. But, since Mullin gave that maga contract, he is here for at least 3 years. I know it's futile complain, but because of his new contract, we are most likely to lose Pietrus and watching Dunleavy doing absolutely nothing for last 4 games just boggled my mind. Er, enough complain for now...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Todd$haw:</div><div class="quote_post">I remember when we used to blow games exactly like this. It feels awfully good to see the O come up with big shots to close the game. I'm itchin' to see Ike play. We need more scoring in the middle. We can only build up from here. PROMISING!!!</div>



I was a little nervous when they showed the clips on SC and with some time left in the game we were up 4 and Baron turned the ball over passing to Jrich. It was crazy to think Baron made that pass. Did you see how Jrich kind of threw the ball at Baron? I wonder if Baron was just looking to see if Monty was calling a time out when Jrich tossed the ball and Baron did not see it coming...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Warriorfansnc93:</div><div class="quote_post">

I was a little nervous when they showed the clips on SC and with some time left in the game we were up 4 and Baron turned the ball over passing to Jrich. It was crazy to think Baron made that pass. Did you see how Jrich kind of threw the ball at Baron? I wonder if Baron was just looking to see if Monty was calling a time out when Jrich tossed the ball and Baron did not see it coming...</div>

I thought the possession before that play Baron had re-agrivated his hamstring. Sometimes the pain will cloud your game play.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post">Nobody expect Dun to average 9 pts and 29% from the field while averaging more than 36 mins per game. But the problem is that he just signed 9 mils per year extension, and he is curretnly playing like a guy who receives 0.9 mils per year. He needs to do far and beyond from what he did last year to meet 9 mils worth, and frankly, I seriously doubt that he will ever meet that goal.

Currently, there is no question that Dunleavy is just sitting around 3 pts line and shooting 3 pts, since half of his shots have been 3 pts (29%), while attempting only 2.5 fts per game. At least, he showed little bit of life in today's game.

There is no way team defense is more important than individual defense, because team defense means that your teammates have to pick up your slack. Also, it's not like Dunleavy's team defense is impacting the game or anything. Besides, in order to utilize good team defense, first you need to do a decent job at defending your man, instead of being a revolving door and ask for a team defense from the beginning, because that put awful a lot of pressure on players like Foyle or Murphy and potentially collapse entire team defense scheme. If you really want to talk about team defense, today is the night where role players like Dunleavy or Pietrus should have guarded Redd. Instead, Richadson had to work his butt off to carry the scoring and defending their most dangerous player. Dirty jobs like defending their best offensive players should belong to the role player instead of your primary offensive players...</div>
Kwan, this definitely sums up the notion I have about team defense. It just can't be played well without good defenders to begin with. It's like building a bridge out of toothpicks, rather than building it out of a composite of steel/concrete (or in the case of earthquake country, steel suspension cables).

Take apart the championship teams of the last decade or so and everybody will see that all 5 starting guys on the floor are decent to above average defenders with at least one defensive stopper on the perimeter and one on in the inside with a good center. These guys are skilled individually and they also play team defense. A poor defensive team with 5 matadors can't play team defense as well as those skilled group of defensive guys, so the only option for the poorer defensive team is to just try to outscore the skilled defensive team and hope they don't score back.

I know we're not asking for a championship conteder, we're just asking for the playoffs, but to get there this year and for years to come we need to upgrade and not get stuck with bad contracts that have marginal-impact guys that can't both score and defend a little. We need a little more balance to our line-up and focus on impact and results rather than overmeasure the so called "intangibles" and overrate "team defense". Because everyone knows that "team defense" (in the context of the NBA) is slang for "potential career night for one of the other team's role players". I think our worst defender is Troy Murphy, but at least if he's getting boards and scoring a high fg% I don't mind the poor defense as long as he's connecting on shots and making it so we don't have to play defense twice in a row. Dunleavy is a good help defender and not that bad when paired up against guys his speed (which means playing out of position). His biggest issue is he doesn't bring defensive impact nor does he bring consistent offensive production. So what does he bring? It's not like he's racking up assists on the Grant Hill level or even on the Jalen Rose level. It's not like he's a hustle Najera or Cardinal type scrappy player. It's not like he's anything really other than a glue player. And this view is not based on the games only played this season, it was the last couple of years. When Dunleavy was playing hot it was either in times where we were losing badly and it didn't matter anymore or when others were hitting shots as well and doing it in more ways than just knocking down threes. The only game I really thought Dunleavy was a huge impact was his first season start against the Sixers minus Jrich where he racked up 32 points and we won the game. He hasn't done that in two years.

Dunleavy may get unfairly blamed for a lot of the team's issues, but I just wanted to point out that Dunleavy isn't really known for anything which isn't what you want in a starter. I also hope Diogu brings what Foyle nor Murphy could bring and that Biedrins/Taft become something. If we improve our talent level in the 4 and 5 spots, I think we'll be a better lock for making the playoffs. We just can't be a perimeter team that lacks defense unless we're shooting and hitting out free throws and rebounding like the Sonics.