WIZARDS @ MAGIC | JAN 6 | TUES 7:00PM

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Well I respectively disagree with your stance (and from the sound of it, so does WizStorm). From what I gather, you were pinning blame on Gil for Caron and Jamison's poor defense because they don't score as much when Arenas is on the floor, when in reality they are scoring about the same on the same amount of shots w/o Gil. So the hypothesis doesn't make much sense to me.

You should already know I respect you, yungal. You're man enough to admit when you're wrong I'm man enough to admit you've nailed me being wrong in the past. (Mo Almond is nowhere near as good as I thought he'd be.) So, yungal, it's not about respect between us. We just disagree on this one.

I said that Gil makes everybody better offensively. I'm not saying Caron's and Antawn's defense is bad because they don't score as much when Gil is on the floor, however, I see how you could infer that from what I said.

The issue is with them watching the ball while he's taking often ill-advised shots.

As for the team "watching" Gilbert when he has the ball in his hand....guess what: every team with a premier scorer has that problem. It's the job of the coach to ensure that doesn't happen by getting everyone involved in the offense. The thing is though is that the Princeton Offense was ran in a way to get Arenas, Butler, and Jamison scoring opportunities and to put them in favorable isolation matchups. That's the way the offense worked then, and now. You can't blame Arenas for that.

I do blame him for launching shots from near halfcourt when he's feeling it, and for some of the shots taken early in the shot clock with noone in position to rebound. AGAIN, I say I'm not complaining about his offense, however. It's the fact he himself hasn't defended well in the past. Lyrical already posted about Sessisons beating him.

Lyrical put it best when stating James certainly isn't a defensive downgrade over Arenas.

We both agree coaching has a lot to do with the defense. I'm pretty exhausted on this one.

You're right. I'm wrong. I'm just an Arenas hater who blames poor Gil for everything. Even when I post about his bad defense, you're right, yungal. It's not Gil's fault. Ever.

[doclinkin]

Wonder why we're talking Gilbert in this game thread when it's clear if we had Brendan (of last year) we woulda won this thing. BWood has the strength to muscle Dwight a little, and the savvy to flop like a sonnuvagun when he doesn't have the strength. Thatst eh best way to take him out of a game. Foul trouble.

But back to the Gil conversation.

Thing is I'm confident Gilbert will improve defensively. He's a guy to always try to prove people wrong. He's heard an earful over the past couple years about how the defense is better without him. On the other hand pre-re-injury (post rehab part one) he opened up the year with significantly improved defense, even while he was struggling to regain his shot.

I agree somewhat with CCJ that Gil's poor habits and concentration have affected the defense of the players around him. Gilbert watches the ball, and loses his man. It's no coincidence that he's consistently been the #2 rebounding point guard in the league, behind only Jason Kidd. He's more interested in where the ball is going than where his match-up is in a given moment. It's a bad habit that leaves him vulnerable to screens and backdoor cuts, etc.

But I think it will help a ton that we have dedicated rebounders on court with him. In the past we've had pretty mediocre defensive rebounders as our last line of defense. We've given up too many 2nd chance points, it's natural to want to cheat to help out and poach long bounces. But with Blatche and McGuire next to Caron and Jamison, we've got eager and dedicated boardsmen at every position. Each man can jsut rebound in his own space, no worries. Gil can begin to grow confident that if a shot goes up it's somebody else's job to grab it. And sprint upcourt to initiate the fast break without the ball. Caron, Dray, Dmac all have the inclination to pass after a rebound. Gil will love the chance to solo and finish, or even make a flashy dump off to the trailer.

Success encourages repetition. Gil has played solid man-on defense in the past, but has said he feels like the team needs him to concentrate his energy on scoring. In part he's right, we weren't stopping anybody anyway, and there were plenty'o times when the team couldn't score a lick without him. Hey, witness a 6 point 2nd quarter... But that said I think we have enough skill and scorepower now that he can afford to conserve energy and defer to those who are getting the job done, until his skeeyoze are needed most. Same way he played next to Larry, happy to defer to LBoogie until he was required to step up.

I suspect we'll see a slightly more mature Gil, hopefully as focused as he had been. The loss of a good-guy coach will also tend to have an effect as a reminder that the game is serious. You don't do your job, somebody loses their head. Often somebody else, not you. And he's smart. Most of his assessments of the game have been pretty spot-on and on-point. He's a student of the game, knows what he's looking at. No knock on him that he also is a student of the media, knows how to get noticed, earn endorsements. We watch because it's fun.

It should say something that we haven't heard a peep out of Gil for a long time. Kid is in the workshop, working on his game. He'll need a bit of time to bang out the dents and sand the rust off, especially on offense. I'd bet he'll spend some part of his on court re-hab proving himself useful in other ways: passing, defending. It will be some time before he can reliably fire up the old Hibachi. But that's fine. Doubt him? Good, that's fine too. Kid plays best as an underdog anyway.

I get the feeling, long term, even if he's lost some of his quix, Wiz fans will be pleasantly surprised. But seriously, this is a kid who lives for little more than basketball, you got to expect he's tensed like a bowstring eager to play. Whatever it takes I think he'll work like a demon to regain his game and improve.

[yungal07]

Fair enough CCJ. I just don't like when Arenas gets pinned with this team's shortcomings when it's not his fault IMO. I think he has alot to do with it, but it's not his fault Jamison is 6'8, 220 and too small to play the power forward spot and it's not his fault Caron is 6'6 and undersized. I also don't think it's his fault that Eddie Jordan built the offense for him.