Game 8 - Trail Blazers - Pistons 11.9.10

[JD43320]

I guess there are ways that Kuester could improve the defense but let's be honest when a 36 year old broken down shell of his former self Ben Wallace is by far and away the best defensive player on your roster your defense is just flat out going to suck. Ben and Stuckey are the only two good defensive players we have on the team. That's it. Tay was a good defender when he had two shot blockers behind him. Now that he has none he is average at best. Daye, CV, and Bynum are just brutal defensively. Rip is average at times. Gordon is too short to guard quality SG's. Monroe hopefully turns into a good defender. McGrady is broken. This team is not built to play D.

Offensively we aren't built to be consistent either. Tay is the only player we have that isn't allergic to the post. In time Monroe might be a good post player but right now he is not. CV is afraid of the post. Stuck can post up some PG's but we need someone to actually run the offense. We are completely reliant on jump shots and the occasional drives of our guards (who are not good at finishing around the rim). That kind of offense will always be inconsistent no matter who the coach is.

[JD43320]

And another point about the roster and how it affects the offense. Rip's game no longer works because of all the changes made. There is only one player on this team that can set a decent pick and that's Ben Wallace. He when he had guys like Sheed, Dice, Okur, Cliff, Corliss, Webber and Elden that could set picks AND that the defense had to worry about guarding he got a lot of clean looks. He doesn't get those anymore because nobody has to respect Ben's offense. People have to respect Daye's shot but he's more likely to give a defender a paper cut than slow them down on a pick and CV just gets doughnut powder on them. He use to have a PG that could hit an open jumper and had 3 point range. Now he has Stuck and Bynum two of the most unreliable shooters I've seen in a long time and defenders don't respect them. And again as opposed to getting clean looks with Chauncey he now gets an extra defender cheating over to him because you don't have to respect those guys on the perimeter. This is why I find all this Rip hate appalling. It's not his fault that Joe got rid of all the bigs and PG's with good fundamentals and replaced them with twigs, midgets, tweeners, doughboys and combo guards thus gutting a big part of his game.

[Choob]

People have to respect Daye's shot but he's more likely to give a defender a paper cut than slow them down on a pick and CV just gets doughnut powder on them.