prophet_of_rage wrote:JayTWill wrote:prophet_of_rage wrote:You can't hide Deuce and Brunson. Cade was cooking evwrybody down low. And then whoever was left had to deal with Harris 6'8 and Thomson 6'6. With 6'6 Beasley coming in.
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Cade went to work on McBride last night. Tatum went to work on Mikal the game before. Booker went to work on OG the game before that. What you won't see is a player going to work on Hart or Brunson very often because Thibs tries to hide them as much as possible off ball although it does feel like he has taken some of the defensive responsibility off of Mikal in the last month or so which may be part of the reason we saw Deuce on Cade all game instead of Mikal. If Thibs did put Hart on Cade, Tatum or Booker I have a strong feeling they would have went to work on him too.
I'm not a fan of undersized backcourts and was one of the few people that thought Grimes should have been placed back in the starting lineup in last January in place of DDV since I thought Grimes was a much better defensive backcourt pairing with Brunson and DDV offense and experience could have been used on the bench. I still wanted a bigger, stronger more versatile defender to pair with Brunson. Deuce is far from my ideal backcourt pairing with Brunson but Hart isn't either. He has plenty of his own defensive issues this year.
https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612752&Season=2024-25&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&PlayerIds=1628404&OnlyCommonGames=truehttps://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612752&Season=2024-25&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&PlayerIds=1628973,1630540,1628404&OnlyCommonGames=trueThere is no indication that Hart is better defensively for the team especially when paired with Brunson. Hart is stronger but incredibly undersized also with other defensive limitations.
I'm afraid I have quite no idea what you are arguing. My position is simply Deuce is too small to be paired in the backcoirt with Brunson.
Is it your position that the Knicka backcourt players are all small and defensively poor?
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I'm saying replacing Deuce with Hart doesn't make things better defensively this year. Hart has been complaining with the refs instead of getting back on defense at times. In transition he hasn't been consistently sprinting back. He gets caught ball watching far too often. He likes to sink down into the paint in anticipation of a rebound but he doesn't box out or keep track of his man. He can be slow to close out. He does all this while also being incredibly undersized himself. He provides a little more physical resistance in the paint than Deuce but he only has a 1.5 inch standing reach advantage over Deuce.
Some clips from last Piston's game with almost a full roster outside of Mitch
https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&ContextMeasure=DEF_FGA&EndPeriod=0&EndRange=28800&GameID=0022400549&PlayerID=1628404&RangeType=0&Season=2024-25&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&StartPeriod=0&StartRange=0&TeamID=1610612752&flag=1&sct=plot§ion=gameObviously they don't show all of the things Hart does defensively good and bad but in those limited clips I don't see much positive impact from Hart. He is just kinda out there. Either shots go in or they don't.
If you put him in Deuce's role yesterday I don't think it would have gone well either. Hart doesn't really have the length or athleticism to bother many good offensive players. He doesn't slow down big guys or really quick guys or really skilled guys. I would think his best defensive matchup would be against more physical guards/forwards but he admitted his toughest matchup is Demar Derozan. I'm not really sure who Hart defends well at this point.
Hart helps on the glass and finishing a defensive possession with a rebound is incredibly important but so are the many other things occurring before the rebound opportunity. The team has had defensive issues as a whole this year and I believe Hart has been part of the problem.
What do you think Hart's strengths are defensively outside of rebounding?