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The other Monta Ellis thread went into talking about Monta's Defense.

So lets clear the air and see how our GSW fans feel about Monta's defensive improvement over the years.

Regressed.

Last year I LOVED the effort. This year, let's say I'm indifference about Monta's D.

he is always expecting help to come, but he never gets the help. unless it's baron coming to reach and steal.

regressed, but the entire team has regressed imo

how many times have we seen that "swarming" defense that got us in the playoffs last year and beat the mavs?

What a laughably general poll....

The swarming D from last year was led by our captains...

Monta's regressed Instead of gettin 10 mpg in Montyball, where the only way to use his incredible speed was to get in people's face on D, he's getting 40+ being on the biggest mismatch defensively (lately) and being our best offensive weapon...

The true regression was Baron, Jax and our forwards not named Harrington... and you can make a case for Nellie too, for burning essentially everyone out.

Comeon, Reg. I went to games last year (not jsut when Monty was here) where Monta would pick up the pg at mid-court and hound him. The whole game. Now he lets them walk to the 3 pt line and then tries a lazy steal (like Baron) not moving his feet and lets the guy get in the lane. To blame everyone else and not hold him accountable for this lack of effort is not doing him any favors and reeks of an agenda.

Everybody is playing worse D than last year during the stretch run swarming D (where Monta didn't even play that much), but Monta is playing worse D than he has in his previous 2 years in the league. This is a fair poll to have and it is not laughable at all.

Even Derek Fisher could make Monta look foolish with fakes or by Monta having no feeling for where the screen would be or how to play it. Monta is getting better at not being tricked by veterans.

The scramble defense in which Monta can do well, does not work when a few teammates stop scrambling. If a few guys are overplaying and doubling while other guys just stand around the opposing team can find the open men.

The team defensive effort has been poor too often lately and Monta has been part of that. I trust that Monta will play hard again. When Monta plays hard now he is a better defender than when he played hard a year ago. It is the team's defense, not Monta's defense that has regressed.

yehyeh... I'm slowly starting to see that you're focus on 1 on 1 defense is not wrapping around the team defense aspect...

Monta's hounded some people this year, and its not much more or less than last year... Is that really what we're nitpicking on, anyways? Monta hounding a guy 30 feet from the hoop?

For the last time, and I'm cursing because its irritating, the negative side of Monta - this board is over it and then some. I don't need to point out that he can't guard space well, its pretty damn obvious... but now his on ball defense sucks because he doesn't want to put pressure on someone 30 feet away from the hoop? Especially when the point of our defense is to force the other team to get trapped and make bad passes?

It's flooring me how much of Baron's crap is getting attributed to Tay... there's not even a comparison to how many times Baron's tried that lazy steal attempt as to Tay.... Tay gets them into the low block, and that's where the forward is supposed to be. If only we had an athletic and long one to put down there...

BTW, anyone else notice Tay's pick and roll D has vastly improved? Good, because it hasn't... now that Buke's playing PF a lot and Pietrus is out, we don't have Al's dead legs as the help... So now that little pause that the forward creates gives Tay plenty of time to recover...

And I'm the one w/the agenda You may not like what I say because I'm sure of it, but Tay's not doing enough wrong defensively to even be labeled below average at this point.

SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:The scramble defense in which Monta can do well, does not work when a few teammates stop scrambling. If a few guys are overplaying and doubling while other guys just stand around the opposing team can find the open men.

This is exactly it... there's no accountability defensively on our team. Monta is to blame for his share, but there's no comparison to our top offenders of just being lazy (Baron/Jax) or just being lousy at positioning (Buke). What I get really sick of seeing is when our PG (all 3 of them) and weakside F see the double team, they do nothing, except sag into the middle... only Tay is fast enough to even possibly close out, though not tall enough to alter the shot of most SGs and SFs.

Meanwhile if the ball gets swung to the other side, the weakside F then has two people to guard for a quick amount of time, and usually aren't guarding either...

Since there is no real threat of being yanked for Tay/Baron/Jax, why even change?

plain and simple, Monta isn't keeping men in front of himself like he did last year.

I don't think you'll find a person on this board that dislikes his overall game, so don't use this as a platform to stand on and prop yourself up as the one true Monta fan...

it's just he seems to be letting opposing players get to places with ease that they didn't last year - with his footspeed, that shouldn't be happening.

Subaculta wrote:plain and simple, Monta isn't keeping men in front of himself like he did last year.

I don't think you'll find a person on this board that dislikes his overall game, so don't use this as a platform to stand on and prop yourself up as the one true Monta fan...

it's just he seems to be letting opposing players get to places with ease that they didn't last year - with his footspeed, that shouldn't be happening.

No, you will find one.

Subaculta wrote:plain and simple, Monta isn't keeping men in front of himself like he did last year.

I don't think you'll find a person on this board that dislikes his overall game, so don't use this as a platform to stand on and prop yourself up as the one true Monta fan...

it's just he seems to be letting opposing players get to places with ease that they didn't last year - with his footspeed, that shouldn't be happening.

Save you "propping myself up" garbage... I could really care less the results of this poll on this board, to be frank...

We're playing a completely different defense than last year... last year we had a zone that worked. We had 5 people good at running it (the starting 5), one guy who gradually grew into it w/his experience (JRich) and the rest looking relatively lost.

This year we go primarily man to man with the focus being on forcing drives, passing, and attacking the passing lanes... we're coming into game 80 almost and people are still refusing to recognize the defense we've been going for nearly all season.

mostly read, occasionally post but def gotta chime in on this shti...to me the team is pretty simple--you build around baron(yea baron), ellis, wright, jackson, and beans. this nitpicking crap over ellis' D is all fine and dandy but a team that relies on speed and quickness will never succeed if their legs are dead. odb--love the name- will be gone and smart will prob be in, he will prob keep up the nelson style O and pull an avery johnson and get "serious"about the d. they simply need a badass bigman(DROPPED THE BALL ON GASOL BIGTIME--BRAND ISNT THE SAVIOR) and some quality depth to surround the above mentioned core.

also--like to nominate sleepy51 for M(ost)V(aluable)P(oster),,,all of you whiners need to read his posts very carefully--dude knows his shti

also-also---somebody on this thing spells experience>>EXPERIANCE____it is spelled experience, sorry bothers me every time

later on---theres still hope---prob better off with a lottery ball but the playoffs are way too fun

Monta's D is okay,with some ups and downs. He's supposed to help force steals-turnovers and be quick to leak out. When we don't have the stoppers inside-that's less effective.

I'm thinking Nellie just does not advocate a press style. Monta has always seemed willing on D. We have no way to really know what part is what Nellie tells him to do.

x-PEER- yunce will help.

510Reggae wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Save you "propping myself up" garbage... I could really care less the results of this poll on this board, to be frank...

oh come on... you never pass up a chance to pat yourself on the back.

510Reggae wrote:-= original quote snipped =-

We're playing a completely different defense than last year... last year we had a zone that worked. We had 5 people good at running it (the starting 5), one guy who gradually grew into it w/his experience (JRich) and the rest looking relatively lost.

This year we go primarily man to man with the focus being on forcing drives, passing, and attacking the passing lanes... we're coming into game 80 almost and people are still refusing to recognize the defense we've been going for nearly all season.

none of this changes the fact that 'at times' Monta (who is one of - if not the - quickest player in the league) has let opposing players that he is guarding in the zone get by.

he needs to tighten things up.

he's an average defender, same as he was last year...

Subaculta wrote:-= original quote snipped =-




oh come on... you never pass up a chance to pat yourself on the back.

Exactly... that backpatting job is taken, thus I dont care!

And in response to the 2nd part, if he never let anyone through we'd be wanting him as DPOTY. There are games when he lets more go than not, but its extremely infrequent, and it goes over stretches (where he should be benched). But recently, when he realizes and understands that there is no low post help coming for whatever reason, he has kept his man in front of him.

I'd be much more worried about him sagging too far into the lane in the zone / help D... that's where the open shots on Tay usually generate from, that or a few screens...

Funny observation from last night. Ellis' great defense got him benched and replaced by a bad defensive DLeaguer PG for the rest of the 2nd half. What does it say about Monta's defense?

And we all know how much 510 hates this DLeaguer.

marthafokker wrote:Funny observation from last night. Ellis' great defense got him benched and replaced by a bad defensive DLeaguer PG for the rest of the 2nd half. What does it say about Monta's defense?

And we all know how much 510 hates this DLeaguer.

Monta's defense got him benched?

He was being saved for the Denver game... the Kings were never seriously coming back.

He was missed some layups and wasn't even running the fast break, he was gassed... too funny that it was because of defense - who exactly was torching him? He was doing decently on Kevin Martin, and then Buke came in and got rained on... then CJ comes in and guards that fat stub Anthony Johnson... (he guarded K-Mart a few times and got torched)

Wow... I can't believe it, but I'm actually shocked that came out... Ellis and KMart (on each other) played each other damn well equally, and this is what you pessimists see?