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People gets it wrong, his passes and court vision are amazing, but his defense is his main weapon. Anyone watching the game against the Thunder had to agree. For the boxscore guys, I know Westbrook had all those points, no need to point it out.

He was an elite defender in Europe. People were skeptical he could do it in the NBA, but yeah, he's kept it up. Fantastic defender. Top 3 PG defender probably.

His pnr defense needs work imo, but that is also on the bigs. Also, he helps off too much sometimes, I'm not sure if that is by design or not. But his instincts are really good.

It was obvious he was going to be a great defender in the NBA watching him in the Olympics a few years ago.

Odd game to make a thread after, but yeah he's generally great. Tonight he had a ton of steals but Russ was god mode so not much he could do overall.

Rubio is a great defender at PG but this is a weird game to bring it up.

Oddly I feel Rubio is a better team defender than an individual defender, which really is rare for a PG.

When playing 1 on 1 defense, he often gets beat by some of the ultra fast guards and he would get backed down by the stronger guards.

What he really excels at is by playing terrific help defense, harassing big men on the double, and disrupting opponent fast breaks.

rottenzombie wrote:Oddly I feel Rubio is a better team defender than an individual defender, which really is rare for a PG.

When playing 1 on 1 defense, he often gets beat by some of the ultra fast guards and he would get backed down by the stronger guards.

What he really excels at is by playing terrific help defense, harassing big men on the double, and disrupting opponent fast breaks.

This. His long arms and instincts are what really make him great...but obviously he's not a super athlete so he gets beat by super quick guys...and he's not very strong yet.

Plays the passing lanes really well. His lateral quickness is probably underrated. I have to admit, though, that I probably fall victim to the same weakness to offense that other suffer from. 90% of the time I watch him play, I'm watching him on offense. Most of the time I notice his defense is on steals. PEACE.

rottenzombie wrote:Oddly I feel Rubio is a better team defender than an individual defender, which really is rare for a PG.

I feel like J. Lin is kind of that way, too.

spearsy23 wrote:Odd game to make a thread after, but yeah he's generally great. Tonight he had a ton of steals but Russ was god mode so not much he could do overall.

Russ is hard to stop when he has his shot going. Even then you can't stop his driving ability....

Rubio still a good defender

EzeDoesIt wrote:

rottenzombie wrote:Oddly I feel Rubio is a better team defender than an individual defender, which really is rare for a PG.

I feel like J. Lin is kind of that way, too.

Maybe its because they both have good court awareness.

Pretty odd time to start a topic considering he got torched today, will give him props on those steals though.

Imagine how good he would be with a player like Durant. Everyone would be saying he is a top 5 PG in the league.

He had great defense even before his injury. I remember - he holds his hands out like waving antennae...very distracting.

JF5 wrote:

spearsy23 wrote:Odd game to make a thread after, but yeah he's generally great. Tonight he had a ton of steals but Russ was god mode so not much he could do overall.

Russ is hard to stop when he has his shot going. Even then you can't stop his driving ability....

Rubio still a good defender

Not just talking about Westbrook. Obviously it is tough to stop Westbrook, who is one of the top athletes in the league.

I remember guys like Jennings and Teague were giving Rubio fits. These super fast guards could often get past him without too much trouble. Rubio could still poke the ball from behind from time to time, though.

Do elite defensive PG lead the league in steals?
I think they do.

Colbinii wrote:Imagine how good he would be with a player like Durant. Everyone would be saying he is a top 5 PG in the league.

Not really. Durant really doesn't need anyone to create shots for him. Rubio would be terrible as a spot up shooter when Durant has the ball creating. If Rubio's OKC PG, OKC's starting lineup would only has 1 legit scoring option and it would be horrible and put too much pressure for Durant to score.

I watched around 75% of the game (multi-tasking), but from what I remember, Westbrook didn't really score that much vs. Rubio, because Adelman keeps playing small-ball with 2, sometimes even 3 PGs, so Rubio is often put on SGs or SFs (as his size is much bigger compared to Barea or Ridnour).

But anyways, Rottenzombie's assessment is pretty much spot on. He's a good 1on1 defender who has problems vs. either very fast or very strong PGs, but a SUPERB team defender, pretty much being an annoying pain in the butt to every team with his annoying hands and also very smart positioning.

carayip wrote:

Colbinii wrote:Imagine how good he would be with a player like Durant. Everyone would be saying he is a top 5 PG in the league.

Not really. Durant really doesn't need anyone to create shots for him. Rubio would be terrible as a spot up shooter when Durant has the ball creating. If Rubio's OKC PG, OKC's starting lineup would only has 1 legit scoring option and it would be horrible and put too much pressure for Durant to score.

You wouldn't build a team with just 1 shot maker. I said imagine if he had Durant, not the OKC team.
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