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The coaching staff needs to address it. from an actual specific instance, nothing is hurting us more... on BOTH ends.

Defensively:
-Nash/Vaughn have been super stubborn going over and trailing on every screen.
-this puts our bigs (not great moving their feet) in a bind defensively
-it puts Harris/green/kyrie/harden in a position where they have to rotate and scramble - not their strength
-allows many open threes and offensive rebounding chances as we are out of position

We should be switching the 1-5 pick and roll more. maybe alot more. maybe always. We need to at least see if we are better off with mismatches vs being out of position. i like deandre on a 1 and harden holding off a big more then i do both of those guys out of position in space having to hedge.

Offensively:
-We dont use it enough
-It is one of Harden's best weapons (same was true of levert, who was hurt by a lack of PNR with Allen)
-Creates mismatches
-prevents stagnation

After rewatching the games, alot of it was because teams are zoning us a ton, making harden pass from out high and eliminating the effectiveness of a screen. but you need to force teams out of the zone, which we have only done by going small. we need to get them out of zone with deandre on the floor. which can be done with him in the dunkers spot and not overpassing and taking the 3 when its there.... but alot of it is just spread sets with teams playing off green. and as good as green has been from three, teamswill take that over a harden parade to the rim/FT line.

coaching staff needs to step up. i get not alot of time to practice, but some of these changes are not difficult.

I hate our switching defense. We just don't have the personel to pull it off.

You need athletic dudes that can can play 1v1 defense but also fast enough to rotate/recover. How many of those do we have? Brown and KD are the only solid perimeter defenders in my eyes.

DJ is too slow to make recoveries, our guards aren't great at staying with their man, not to mention we are SMALL and get destroyed on the boards.

I'd much rather we start playing some zones seen it seems to really throw off some teams(us) + go back to man-to-man defense.

Switching defense won't work with this group. We'll see if some of Marks future acquisitions can change that equation.

Claud wrote:I hate our switching defense. We just don't have the personel to pull it off.

You need athletic dudes that can can play 1v1 defense but also fast enough to rotate/recover. How many of those do we have? Brown and KD are the only solid perimeter defenders in my eyes.

DJ is too slow to make recoveries, our guards aren't great at staying with their man, not to mention we are SMALL and get destroyed on the boards.

I'd much rather we start playing some zones seen it seems to really throw off some teams(us) + go back to man-to-man defense.

Switching defense won't work with this group. We'll see if some of Marks future acquisitions can change that equation.

Thats the whole point, you are asking guys who already struggle to move their feet to defend after putting them out of positon. at least with a switch, we arent scrambling. it will instantly take away the open 3 point looks. it should definitely cut down the offensive rebounds, as most of those are because our center is in no mans land after the pick and roll.

its pick your poison. and deandre/perry/green on their PG ill take over 5 guys scrambling

This problem starts with DJ - who is often guarding NO ONE on 1-5 PNRs. Not bothering the ball handler. Not disrupting the roll man. When guys do rotate properly, he never makes any sort of 2nd effort to prevent shots at the rim. It puts a ridiculous amount of pressure on the help defense. Guys like Kyrie or Harris are supposed to slow down the roll man and give DJ enough time to get back. He usually just gives up on the play.

The 2nd big problem is guys like Kyrie or Harden are just not rotating into the paint. They get lost often. They need to get in the paint and trust that they'll have help when we scramble on the perimeter. They just need to get better at this. When they're locked in, they don't have any problems so I don't think it has to do with speed or anything like that.

Switching everything is just a band-aid. Sure, you can live with it against the Magic in January. I don't want to go down that route against elite teams unless it's 100% necessary. Even then, if guys are playing lazy or getting lost - no scheme will work.

MGrand15 wrote:This problem starts with DJ - who is often guarding NO ONE on 1-5 PNRs. Not bothering the ball handler. Not disrupting the roll man. When guys do rotate properly, he never makes any sort of 2nd effort to prevent shots at the rim. It puts a ridiculous amount of pressure on the help defense. Guys like Kyrie or Harris are supposed to slow down the roll man and give DJ enough time to get back. He usually just gives up on the play.

The 2nd big problem is guys like Kyrie or Harden are just not rotating into the paint. They get lost often. They need to get in the paint and trust that they'll have help when we scramble on the perimeter. They just need to get better at this. When they're locked in, they don't have any problems so I don't think it has to do with speed or anything like that.

Switching everything is just a band-aid. Sure, you can live with it against the Magic in January. I don't want to go down that route against elite teams unless it's 100% necessary. Even then, if guys are playing lazy or getting lost - no scheme will work.

i agree with everything up until the last part. the last several champions all switched basically everything. lakers, raps, warriors, cavs. analytics have shown you are better off forcing a bad shot switching to a mismatch then straight up defending screens. although its not super cut and dry or definitive.

I think you need to at least mix it in, or do it when your bleeding. because i dont think any of the things you mentioned will change much.

There is no grey area, I'm either 100% in agreement with Prokorov or stridently opposing. On this topic and many others over the past couple of days, we are lock-step aligned.

We need to switch all screens as our primary defensive philosophy. Our effort can be better, our stunts and wrinkles can be better. But this is our fundamental flaw that teams are abusing, and is the main reason teams are getting high percentage shots every trip down the floor.

It is not possible that DJ is worse switching screens then he is currently. He's long and strong, you don't need elite quickness with the wingspan of a condor as long as you can get in a defensive position. Plus, if hes already defending on the perimeter when the shot goes up, he only needs to run 75' to the other end instead of 90.

Agree with going all in with the switching defense, force teams to slow things down and play iso against us. Nobody in the league can beat the Nets playing that game.

And DeAndre for all his strengths just rolls out the red carpet when the other team runs a PNR - obviously getting a mobile defensive bigman is the number 1 priority right now and I'm sure Marks is working on it.

ecuhus1981 wrote:There is no grey area, I'm either 100% in agreement with Prokorov or stridently opposing. On this topic and many others over the past couple of days, we are lock-step aligned.

We need to switch all screens as our primary defensive philosophy. Our effort can be better, our stunts and wrinkles can be better. But this is our fundamental flaw that teams are abusing, and is the main reason teams are getting high percentage shots every trip down the floor.

It is not possible that DJ is worse switching screens then he is currently. He's long and strong, you don't need elite quickness with the wingspan of a condor as long as you can get in a defensive position. Plus, if hes already defending on the perimeter when the shot goes up, he only needs to run 75' to the other end instead of 90.

We do seem to have that effect on eachother

Like you said, it is not possible for the alternative to be much worse. And no one can outscore us trading iso for iso.