SOUL wrote:swarlesbarkley wrote:zaymon wrote:Fultz- he hide a little in his shell. Its a little disappointing becouse he could dominate Young, and yet he hesitate, or force it with offensive fouls. He is not ready to lead this team, but still he was a net positive on the floor. Thing that worries me the most is his defense (payton alert). Guys blow by him with ease, and not just Young. He makes it so difficult for Vucevic.
lol
Every PG who has played with Vuc has made it difficult for him, I guess. Interesting way to ignore Vuc's defensive deficiencies.
If you listen to our broadcast, they blame the guards. If you listen to other broadcasts, they roast Vuc. I'm gonna guess the crew that has no "all star" to support is being more honest.
I've been saying this since the Payton days, that great individual point guard defense simply doesn't exist anymore unless you're Marcus Smart or maybe 3-5 other guards in the league that can recover on screens/bully a guard to get the ball out of their hands and disrupt the play before it begins.
As long as you aren't DJ Augustin who just trails every single play or doesn't even make an effort to stay in front for a few seconds.. that's literally the job of the pg. Hell, sometimes it's the point guard's job to steer the opposing pg into an area where the big man can step up and cut off his drive.
This unicorned point guard defender that stops every point guard from getting an open shot, can warp through screens, and makes sure they don't get into the paint either simply doesn't exist.. it's called great team defense, talking, helping, and making the smart/right decisions fast.
Payton's lack of understanding of basketball was actually huge part of Magic defensive sucking.
He went to Suns, they had 24th defensive rating with him.
He went to Pelicans, they had 22th defensive rating.
He went to Knicks they have 23rd defensive rating.
Magic get rid of him and go from 110,5 def rating to 106, 8 in matter of days pre/post allstar game.Coincidence? From 3rd worst to 10th best.
Overall point guard defense isn't THAT important, but mostly because star PGs don't defend other star PGs ,rather get easiest assigment that night to get much needed rest.
That being said, i still don't see how somebody like Booker or Trae Young will ever contribute to championship conteding roster with their level of defense. Being glorified stat padders on teams that struggle to win 25 games and target of any good offense.
Comes as no suprise that under Monty Williams Suns won most games in Booker era as he pulled his usage down so Booker is averaging less amount of shots since his sophmore year.
In general good defense is mostly based on making as little mistakes and forcing ball in hands of players that are not other team's top priority and pushing great players into shots they are not great at. If on given night Steph Curry and Klay get 8-10 corner 3s, your defense failed. if you forced Klay on off-balance, off dribble shots, your defense did good job. Ofc he still might hit it, but not close to a catch&shoot rate.
As for offense ( tied with Booker, Young mention) you want star players but you want free -flowing offense that isn't focused ONLY on that 1 or two players. That's why team like Blazers never took another leap. Their Lillard-McCullum duo and offense around them made everybody else aftertoughts. And this doesn't mean they don't need to shoot most shots , because Klay and Curry also did, it's how other 3 players on the court operate with them. With prime Warriors it was ballmovment, moving screens, cutting, ball was in hands of each and every player. Blazers offense is - "OK Lillard" , it's time to another iso. KK Coach"- takes 36 footer. On the way back to defense McCullum is already calling his next shot
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. -John Lennon
