eagereyez wrote:ExplosionsInDaSky wrote:Agreed ^ you can't put the defensive issues all on Okafor. He does his job as an individual defensive player. He needs to improve on rotations, PnR defense, switching, and help defense....All teachable, all achievable, and his struggles should be understandable considering he was just a rookie and Noel...who many consider elite at defense still struggles at. It takes time to learn the NBA game. Posters on here expecting him to be a master finished product fifty games into his career are asking way too much way too fast. It's also...totally not his fault that our starting backcourt is two guys barely six feet tall that are terrible defensive players. Our bench with Stauskus and Hollis (both willing defenders but not great) doesn't get any better. Covington was a good defender until he found job security, and the others Marshall, Pressey, Weems, etc are all terrible. Not a single solid defensive bulldog in the bunch besides TJ. Nope...can't blame that on Jah...but people who don't know team basketball and only look at spreadsheet stats continue to do so.
The counter argument to blaming the perimeter defense is that in the 600 minutes with Noel at the 5 and Grant at the 4 the Sixers defensive rating is 102.6. That would be third best in the NBA, behind only San Antonio and Atlanta. Or do the perimeter players only play defense when Okafor is on the bench?
My guess is the large majority of those 600 minutes came with grant coming off the bench against likely backups as well. I've seen the noel grant lineup starting recently and there was like a 5 game stretch or so where they gave up like 120 ppg.
