RealGM

I mean, if he plays that type of defense on the Nuggets, he'd be at least a top 5 MVP candidate every season.

I know there are team defense schemes by Coach K, but there were situations where Melo locked down defensively one-on-one... his feet and hands are quick, he knows where to put his hands to disrupt and has a high (not just above average) defensive awareness.

This is why when he's **** defensively in the season, he deserves criticism, because it's all about effort..

Well I can't help but cheer for him in this off-season

No, it isn't all about effort. On team USA he has a real coach. One that actually cares and won't back stab his players. One that his players want to play hard for. In Denver, there is none of that. Oh, but the main point, in Denver, if you watched any games this year.. it seemed like none of the players knew what they were supposed to be doing on defense. If the coach leaves the players clueless, it is hard to put in effort. Also hard to put in effort for an uncaring a-hole.

any of us could lock down team canada

yunggunz wrote:any of us could lock down team canada

Did Canada have any NBA players playing for them last night?

Its not just about effort. You also have to be a heady player to be an effective defender. Melo gets away on offense without using too much smarts by being so athletic and naturally gifted. On defense he often gets caught up giving away silly fouls at the wrong time cause he's just playing off of instincts and not taking into account the flow of the game. He can improve his defense by gaining experience defending good players, but so far Karl has kind of shielded him from any difficult defensive responsibilities to conserve him for the offensive end. Well they have other options so I think last season and this coming one would and will be good opportunities to up his defensive IQ putting him up against the best players in the league. Especially since they arent trying to contend anyway...

SnakefromHell wrote:I mean, if he plays that type of defense on the Nuggets, he'd be at least a top 5 MVP candidate every season.

I know there are team defense schemes by Coach K, but there were situations where Melo locked down defensively one-on-one... his feet and hands are quick, he knows where to put his hands to disrupt and has a high (not just above average) defensive awareness.

This is why when he's **** defensively in the season, he deserves criticism, because it's all about effort..

Well I can't help but cheer for him in this off-season

when Melo plays that type of defense in the NBA he gets called for the quick foul, he gets away with it in international basketball because they let that slide but in the NBA as you have seen before whenever melo gets committed to actually playing man defense he gets over aggressive and it turns into a dumb foul

i wouldnt say melo was locking anybody up. i dont know which game you were watching. They were playing great team defense not scrambling all over the place like the Nuggets do. Can anybody honestly say there were games where Melo's opponents in the Nba lit him up. Was Lamar Odom going one on one and destroying Melo in the Laker series. NO. The Nuggets do alot of switching on defense thats the scheme that dumbass Karl deploys. Its great at getting steals which Denver was near the top or at the top. Karl is part of the reason that Melo's defense suffers.

I mean, if he plays that type of defense on the Nuggets, he'd be at least a top 5 MVP candidate every season.

Something to add to this, Melo was a top 5 MVP candidate before the AI trade. Remove AI, bring in a coach who will coach, and Melo will be back in that top 5.

i wouldnt say melo was locking anybody up. i dont know which game you were watching. They were playing great team defense not scrambling all over the place like the Nuggets do. Can anybody honestly say there were games where Melo's opponents in the Nba lit him up. Was Lamar Odom going one on one and destroying Melo in the Laker series. NO. The Nuggets do alot of switching on defense thats the scheme that dumbass Karl deploys. Its great at getting steals which Denver was near the top or at the top. Karl is part of the reason that Melo's defense suffers.

great post. the nuggets suck defensively because we have guys on the perimeter who get beat all the time...the team has no "team defense" at all. we don't rotate and can't get in position to recover from the defensive breakdown.

FIBA proves that melo is a solid man defender and is more than capable of playing in a "team" defensive concept.

games on thursday & friday at 6am mst.

corona wrote:games on thursday & friday at 6am mst.

If you can't catch it on tv, I saw a link on espn where you could watch it online for free.

watching today's game...it's pretty obvious that melo is a much better post defender than perimeter defender. outside of contesting jumpshots on the perimeter, he does a lot of stupid things...like playing guys who can blow past him too close, or sinking in and taking his eyes off his man.

he's just lucky he gets to guard a slow moving bigs with no post game in international competition. and he's doing a solid job of guarding them.

Do any of you know if LK is going tomorrow, or is he still banged up?

Im hoping LK plays. Would love to see him in some international action against the US.

It might be interesting if we play Melo more as a 4. Despite his lack of height in the post, he probably would do better defending in the post with his quickness and athleticism. With some teams he could get more rest there not having to follow any quick wings and thus a lot of his flaws can be hidden a bit more. It would definitely make it even harder for people to cover him on offense and we could spread the floor a lot more by putting more shooters in the lineup. His rebounding would probably improve drastically because he is already very capable of being a good rebounder and the lack of Camby will make the boards in Denver games much more contested. This may mean slowing down a little at times and not sending Melo on as many fast breaks, but this team is very capable of producing on offense and shouldn't need to rely mainly on the fast break for points. May need a coaching change though before any of that would work.

DaFan334 wrote:Im hoping LK plays. Would love to see him in some international action against the US.

It might be interesting if we play Melo more as a 4. Despite his lack of height in the post, he probably would do better defending in the post with his quickness and athleticism. With some teams he could get more rest there not having to follow any quick wings and thus a lot of his flaws can be hidden a bit more. It would definitely make it even harder for people to cover him on offense and we could spread the floor a lot more by putting more shooters in the lineup. His rebounding would probably improve drastically because he is already very capable of being a good rebounder and the lack of Camby will make the boards in Denver games much more contested. This may mean slowing down a little at times and not sending Melo on as many fast breaks, but this team is very capable of producing on offense and shouldn't need to rely mainly on the fast break for points. May need a coaching change though before any of that would work.

I wouldnt mind seeing Carmelo at the 4 in limited minutes. A smart coach would do this but Karl is not that smart. I would rather see Carmelo at the 4 than iverson at the 2.

EMB6903 wrote:Do any of you know if LK is going tomorrow, or is he still banged up?

Kleiza played, but didn't start, only went 1-4 on FG's, but made all his FT's 6-6, scored 8 points.

I know I watched, he didnt get many looks.


Melo struggled this Morning vs Russia but bounced back and had a great second half... and to the people praising Melos defense in international play, did you see him defensively vs an actually NBA player? AK47 was attacking the rim at will whenever Melo was matched up against him.

I know I watched, he didnt get many looks.


Melo struggled this Morning vs Russia but bounced back and had a great second half... and to the people praising Melos defense in international play, did you see him defensively vs an actually NBA player? AK47 was attacking the rim at will whenever Melo was matched up against him.

I'll be the first to admit that melo is a poor perimeter defender and gets beat routinely by anyone from positions 1-3 (even though he plays a lot better man D when he matches up with guys like lebron and t-mac).

but I really hate coach k's philosophy of switching these guys off the ball defensively. we are getting way too many mismatches on defense...like melo on kirilenko and melo on their point guard holden. heck...I even saw a few bosh on holden matchups, too.

but aside from man D on the perimeter...melo played solid interior man defense and was pretty good in the team defensive concept. he made correct rotations...he made few mistakes. he played with an actual IQ and knew what he was doing...which is completely different from the lost state he plays in defensively in denver.

Is it safe to say Melo is no longer the best player on the USA team? Wade has been playing "angry", LeBron has been killing it.

Having that "invincibility" of being the best player on Team USA snatched away from him, Melo has no choice but to become a better Nuggets basketball player, which is good.

Is it safe to say Melo is no longer the best player on the USA team?

naw...it's still just the exhibition games.