fishercob wrote:Three reasons this trade improves the Wiz's defense:
1) We'll be a better offensive team. More makes on offense = more opportunities to set up on D (rather than scrambling in transition) and force more misses.
2) We'll force more misses. This trade is going to facilitate bigger lineups on the floor. Historical evidence shows that bigger teams tend to force more misses. Opponents' FG% is also the highest correlated stat with defensive rating.
3) Better defensive rebounding. Out size and overal rebounding acumen is going to hold more opponents to one shot. We'll have mismatches some nights, but one balance, we're going to keep teams off the offensive glass.
Add into that the Flip is a huge upgrade over EJ coaching defense and that his scheme has a track record of success, there's every reason to believe the Wiz will be improved defensively next year. I bet they get to 20th, maybe even 15. With an elite offense, that's a 50 win team and something to build on.
Agreed on all counts. There have been few key problems with our defense under the most recent regime:
1. Scheme. We give up outside shots, defend the midrange, have no good plan for handling the pick and roll except to double down on penetration and 'help' our bigs.
2. Size. In order to keep our best/ most creative/ smartest offensive players on the floor we had to play tweeners at their smaller position. This meant that though we could play defense well occasionally, with hustle and gumption, we had to scramble to do it. You can't keep up that level of intensity and 'effort' for 82 games. Sometimes it's simply better to just be in the right place and be bigger than the guy you face.
3. Offense, see #3. It's well easier to set up in the right place after a made basket instead of scrambling for an offensive rebound after a missed shot. Court balance, transition D all suffer. Also, in the read and react hybrid P-ton scheme it required that we have players who knew how to make plays for themselves, instead of allowing the coach to do the thinking and groove some simple, reliable, repeatable sets. If the frontline guys weren't getting it done, we basically had no back-up plan except for rooks and young pups trying to learn a system that Jason Kidd says takes three years to understand.
4. Team defensive smarts and aptitude. We have some players long enough to defend well, but who aren't really sure how best to fit into a team scheme and who don't have the instinct to do it. We had a couple players with good defensive instincts but a coaching staff whose best strength wasn't with an eye to the in-game adjustment on the defensive end.
5. Depth. See 2 & 3 above. We were playing our top players exceedingly heavy minutes because if we didn't we had little to no chance of success (good for 19 wins apparently). Injuries would amputate the team's legs. We had no late season reserves of energy since we spent all our effort by December every year fighting back from a slow start. Players like Gil stated --truly, as far as I'm concerned-- that he couldn't expend the same amount of effort that he probably ought to on defense because the team needed all of his effort on offense at the other end. The times that he experimented early in the season with defense-first he would tend to play well at that end, but the team would always struggle to score. Then by January we were dealing with nagging injuries borne of exhaustion due to the lack of depth.
Now:
No simplified offense, but we have a coach who is skilled at designing certain plays to take advantage of skilled players. Which makes it individually simplified for that player. Puts most of the decision-making in the hands of the primary guard (Gil, coming off a 10-1 asst/to ratio return to the league after two years of watching from the coaching seats) but he will be able to surround him with good/low-mistake passers elsewhere (Miller, Caron, Foye, even DMac or DSteve) and willing passers in players like Blatche (who still needs to improve the TO thing).
He's got a team with quality depth and complementary offensive players behind and next to the stars. He likes to play long, wants to see Blatche next to Haywood (and Caron at 2 at times) and has a team defensive scheme that takes advantage of the team's length, even if we lack lock-down one-on-one defenders. He adds smart team defenders like MIller who should be able to funnel opponents in towards the baseline where his Bigs wait in position (not lurching around the perimeter as often), always a stride away from the paint.
We've got offensive capability in the starters and off the bench. We've got potential rebounding at every position 1 to 5.
I fully expect the defense to be upgraded, even if we're not gonna choke the opponents out.
Haywood is intimidating, Blatche has shown flashes, McGee has more enthusiasm than sense but he can block a perimeter shot from one-step in the paint, DMac can take spot-duty against tough opponents, Caron still has an eye for a steal when opponents get careless, Gil plans to spent more of his energy as a facilitator and team guy, freeing his energy to play the Team USA defense he was lauded for, then turn on the Hibachi 4th quarter. And in Foye we even have a better defending version of the Juan Dixon who won us a few come from behind victories in the last Larry season.
A good coach can use those tools to fashion a better defense, balance line-ups to allow for a good mix of scoring and D depending on that night's match-up. And Flip's a pretty good coach. So again, like the Flip hiring, this trade wasn't flashy, low-risk, but it for certain didn't hurt the team, didn't make us worse. Given good health... (pray for mercy) I'm pretty sure we'll see an untick in efficiency at both ends of the court. Considering how good we have been on offense in the past, that's saying something pretty special.
Plus, aside from Pech we didn't even lose any real developing young talent. I'll miss Darius' savvy and toughness, hopefully Miller's savvy can equal or surpass Darius' production.
