The Clippers

[mkwest]

Their defensive shortcomings have resulted in them essentially being swept out of the past two postseasons, as the San Antonio Spurs (110.3 offensive rating) and Memphis Grizzlies (109.7 offensive rating) scored at extremely efficient rates in their respective eliminations of the Clippers.

To shore up the defense, the Clippers went through a great deal of effort to acquire coach Doc Rivers. The challenge of improving a shaky defense will be far greater than merely implementing his lauded strongside defensive system, though.

They’re rolling the dice and hoping that Griffin and Jordan have been in need of a system all along and that Rivers can coax the defensive potential he gushed about at his news conference in late June.

Regardless of the glitz of the roster, the high-octane offense and the sky-high expectations, the Clippers will go only as far as their defense takes them. Without a slew of good individual defenders, the Clippers will have to take a more team-centric approach and ensure the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That responsibility falls on Rivers, and it’s his greatest challenge yet.

Ultimately, the Clippers’ ability to foster an elite defensive unit -- and thus having a legitimate shot at contending for a championship -- will come down to the roster’s ability to comprehend and execute Rivers’ defensive system. Subtle improvements would help, but chances are the Clippers’ defense needs a major upgrade to compete with the likes of the Spurs and Thunder.

Jovan Buha, ESPN Los Angeles

[Quake Griffin]

mehh....no excuses...no pre-built in excuses.


Rose and Boozer are both below average defenders and Thibs has made GREAT defensive teams out of the bulls.

everybody in our starting 5 is capable of being a good defender....maybe solid is a better word.
buy in. get used to each other. get on a defensive streak because those exists too....hopefully it comes after the all star break and going into the playoffs.

[mkwest]

Defense is the biggest question mark afaic. In practically every sport, defense wins championships. You can score all you want, but it doesn't matter if you don't get stops.

I'm confident that Doc and the new coaching staff will improve the defense, but by how much? It's going to take patience, hard work and a collective commitment. I'll take good team defense over an individual defender, so I do have hope. The 2006 team had some solid to good defenders, but it really was a team effort. I hope that this team also tries to establish an identity that prides itself on the defensive end.

[og15]

This has basically been my cry the past two seasons. People get so worried about offense and spacing and this or that guy needs to score more, and I'm seeing a horrible playoff defense that sets up a situation where they have to score al lst every trip down the floor in order to win a series. Also a team that rarely was getting a stop in key moments, that isn't a sign of success.

mehh....no excuses...no pre-built in excuses.


Rose and Boozer are both below average defenders and Thibs has made GREAT defensive teams out of the bulls.

everybody in our starting 5 is capable of being a good defender....maybe solid is a better word.
buy in. get used to each other. get on a defensive streak because those exists too....hopefully it comes after the all star break and going into the playoffs.

Mediocre and below average defenders can be hidden behind defensive anchors and a good system. So it's okay to have Boozer and Rose (who has improved) if you have Noah as your C, Taj Gibson off the bench, and Luol Deng.

That's why so much is riding on DJ becoming a high impact defender because you need to at least have some solid defensive player(s) anchoring it all. The best is a big and a wing, which you see in a lot of the best defensive teams.

Gasol / Allen
Duncan / Leonard / Green
Hibbert / George
Noah / Gibson / Deng (now Butler)
(Perkins / Ibaka / Collison combo) / Sefolosha
Okafor / Nene / Ariza
KG / Green / Bradley

Miami is sort of an exception because they run a scrambling pressure defense (what the Clippers tried last season) that is prone to problems against ball movement and outside shooting and requires guys that cover a lot of space. Still, they have Bosh who is one of the league's best big man pick and roll defenders, and Lebron who is self explanatory. Wade has also always been a good team defensive player / help defender, and though no longer elite, Battier is always in the right spots.

DJ is capable of being an anchor in terms of physical tools

Blake is capable of being a very effective defender and covering ground and being in the right spots, yea he'll get shot over by longer PF's, but that's irrelevant to your defensive impact if you're contesting their other plays effectively and taking away other things and defending well team wise.

Dudley is a very good team and IQ defender, and will be a positive defensively.

Redick is a par defender, but he can play to schemes, will work hard, force his guys to the right spots, etc

Paul is a good defender, puts pressure on opposing ball handlers and forces steals, knows where to be. He needs to be less lazy with screens at times, but he is a high impact defender at his position. His struggle is similar to Blake's, he can be shot over easily, there's nothing he can really do about that.

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Vinny got this team to defend at a top 8 level with a more scrambling, force turnover defense that generally doesn't work as well against more deliberate teams that aren't rattled by the initial pressure and trapping but kills the poorer teams and teams with shaky ball handlers.

Now, of course, the defense was pretty middling over the second half of the season, so the 8th ranking didn't really reflect the defensive ability of the team going into the playoffs. That defense isn't necessarily bad, but it requires a lot of helping, can cause you to over help, and requires certain types of players to be optimally succesful. Memphis offense when Conley was on the floor with the bigs basically ran in a way that took away all the strength of pressuring pick and rolls. The Clippers were not really good at defending after that initial blktz. Bledsoe is great for that defense because he's so mobile and athletic, Barnes also was good for it, Blake was good, Paul was good, Odom.

That defense is awful for guys like Billups, Caron Butler, even Willie Green because you're asking them to be covering a lot of ground and to be in a lot of places defensively. It's also a bad defense if your big man is a Gasol or Hibbert who are not really quick and super mobile, so you're asking them to get to spots that they can't effectively get to. The strong side defense made much more sense for the Clipers because of personel. The scrambling type defense relies a lot on your wings / perimeter guys as well as a mobile pick and roll big man to really anchor your defense. When your wings are Green / Billups / Butler / Crawford / Barnes, you basically have one wing that fits into this scheme, Barnes.

The reason the bench was so much better on defense was that they had Bledsoe, Barnes and Odom, very good players defensively for this scheme. The starters had possibly the worst wings you could get for a scrambling defensive scheme.

If Vinny can do that with last seasons crew, I think Doc can definitely accomplish better with this years crew and his schemes, especially if Odom is also brought back. I think a strong side defense scheme will play better into DJ's strengths and Blake to me picks up anything you throw at him. I think a more solid and defined defensive system will do wonders for Blake.


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Here's a good article talking about defense (and offense):
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/914 ... ir-offense

[QRich3]

It doesn't matter until Blake Griffin develops a post game

DJ is capable of being an anchor in terms of physical tools

He definitely is, he usually has good insticts and timing to block and contest shots too. But he's barely been used on that role in the NBA and even if he does make that jump it's gonna take time to master the skills necessary to be a good anchor. He should be watching a lot of Hibbert, Gasol and Saunders film to learn how to move his feet and subtly rotate around the paint when he is far from the ball, which way they're looking at on every play to improve his awareness and all those small things that make a defensive anchor good. He's gonna have to be really vocal too, be aware of everyone's position on the court at all times so if teammates make a mistake or are gonna get caught in a screen he can shout at them for it. It's gonna take a change of mentality, a lot of in game repetition and more film watching. It's not gonna be an inmediate process and we probably won't even see full reward for that work this year, although we should see an improvement.

I'm very confident he can be a top of the league defender though, he's showed last year that he can learn to stop bad habits and improved at fundamental stuff like jumping straight to contest, not biting on fakes or riding the balance of holding the ball handler while not losing the screener on the pick'n'roll.

The rest of your analysis is spot on. Having guys like Dudley, Redick, Barnes and Paul on the perimeter means DJ's work is gonna be a lot easier to do all that, and Doc will make sure the defensive concepts are clear and everyone knows what they should be doing at every step. If Blake can fill that role of the maniac that can cover every rotation like Lebron does (he's showed some promise there already) we can be scarily good defensively, which is the only thing separating us from title contention.

Vinny got this team to defend at a top 8 level with a more scrambling, force turnover defense that generally doesn't work as well against more deliberate teams that aren't rattled by the initial pressure and trapping but kills the poorer teams and teams with shaky ball handlers.

Now, of course, the defense was pretty middling over the second half of the season, so the 8th ranking didn't really reflect the defensive ability of the team going into the playoffs. That defense isn't necessarily bad, but it requires a lot of helping, can cause you to over help, and requires certain types of players to be optimally succesful. Memphis offense when Conley was on the floor with the bigs basically ran in a way that took away all the strength of pressuring pick and rolls. The Clippers were not really good at defending after that initial blktz. Bledsoe is great for that defense because he's so mobile and athletic, Barnes also was good for it, Blake was good, Paul was good, Odom.

That defense is awful for guys like Billups, Caron Butler, even Willie Green because you're asking them to be covering a lot of ground and to be in a lot of places defensively. It's also a bad defense if your big man is a Gasol or Hibbert who are not really quick and super mobile, so you're asking them to get to spots that they can't effectively get to. The strong side defense made much more sense for the Clipers because of personel. The scrambling type defense relies a lot on your wings / perimeter guys as well as a mobile pick and roll big man to really anchor your defense. When your wings are Green / Billups / Butler / Crawford / Barnes, you basically have one wing that fits into this scheme, Barnes.

The reason the bench was so much better on defense was that they had Bledsoe, Barnes and Odom, very good players defensively for this scheme. The starters had possibly the worst wings you could get for a scrambling defensive scheme.

If Vinny can do that with last seasons crew, I think Doc can definitely accomplish better with this years crew and his schemes, especially if Odom is also brought back. I think a strong side defense scheme will play better into DJ's strengths and Blake to me picks up anything you throw at him. I think a more solid and defined defensive system will do wonders for Blake.

I think Vinny's premise was that Odom was our best interior defender and therefore he needed to build a defensive system that hid that hole in the middle and maximised Odom and Blake's strengths, and decided perimeter players having to get out of their comfort zone wouldn't be that much of a detriment. I can see how it can be a good idea if you believed that premise, the system that would do the best with what he believed he had. In reality, that kind of defense was kind of easy to trick if planned for and not easy to tweak once opposing coaches got a good grasp of it, and with hindsight (and probably without it too) it's easy to see that he should have put more of the load on Jordan and built a more conventional system where big men protect the basket and everyone tries to position themselves to clog penetration lines before having to rotate and leave a man open.