Our defence: Is it system, effort or talent?

[dagger]

Watching last night's game at the arena, where you can see everyone's D simultaneously, it seemed as if effort wasn't the issue (no matter who was on the court). With the exception of a couple of embarassing blowbuys - one with Turkuglu stands out but the help didn't help him - we put in the effort. We were leaping at three point shooters, getting a hand in the face of many, and they still made shots.

The Hawks, on the other hand, played hard on the ball D on the perimetre, which not only took away some of the space for our shooters but also forced some transition turnovers. We also had some unforced turnovers in the second quarter in particular - Belinelli, who isn't one of the usual scapegoats so didn't get much blame for last night - had three turnovers in the first six minutes of the second quarter, contributing significantly to Atlanta's momentum. (Jose may be having a terrible time defending, but others are little better and frankly, Jose is still our best ball control guy on offence.)

Anyway, I digress. I think the system we play is a big issue, because frankly, I don't think the talent we have is so bad we couldn't do better on defence. Yes, we aren't supremely athletic, but we are tall. Defensively, the speedy Hawks attacked the middle, but they had some embarassingly easy drives from the top of the arc all the way to the basket. One reason was our penchant to throw a big at the top of the arc to disrupt the ball handler, and that won't work against a young, swift athletic team. They drove past our bigs so quickly that the rotations couldn't pick them up in time.

So if I was the rank the defensive problems right now, I'd say 1) System; 2) Talent and 3) Effort.

That means with the talent we have, we have to change the system. It would take longer to change the talent, but in the interim, a different system, more conservative with less reliance on switching, especially with pushing our bigs out to defend the arc, will at least help. Mix in some matchup zone, and force teams to shoot mid-range shots, seems better than a system which allows good shooting teams to kill us behind the arc. I'd go 2-3, to protect the paint and the corners where we get killed, and if someone is going to shoot 30 foot threes to beat us, well, that's still a better percentage play.

[Test of Wills]

Effort and hustle.

Some of our guys just don't have it, you can't teach effort and hustle.

[jrsmith]

Who the hell cares. This team has had the same defensive problems for years, sometimes it looks bad sometimes it looks horrific.

The only obvious constant is that its not going to work with this horrific core thats in place so they need to be moved.

Arguing as to why its happening while keeping the same scrubs together its something that boils down from our GM, the only purpose is to waste time and distract from the real issue which is this pathetic group needs to be dismantled.

[timdunkit]

When your epically bad ... it has to be all three ... If you have one of 3 (a system, effort or talent), you can be 20-25th ranked defensive team. Hvaing a combo of 2 will get you into the 10-20th range and a combination of all three gets you top 10 ... But when your conisdered the worst defensive team statiscially of all time, it has to be all three ... no effort, no system, no defensive talent ...

[Mos Def]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it has to do with basketball IQ (having that 'court sense') and athleticism (not as it pertains to jumping ability but more towards having quick feet and strength). Otherwise I don't understand why our players can't hound the opposition like Atlanta was doing to us. If you look at how Atlanta played played defense, they were using their athletic ability to hound and stick to our players out on the perimeter. I guess I'm essentially saying that it is a talent issue more than anything.

[RonaldArtest]

It's all 3, but the order for me is System, Effort, then Talent. When we get killed on D, it's obvious that we aren't playing as hard as we should, and that's effort. This team is more talented than Kevin O'Neill's team that he made play solid defence, so that's a system problem.

[Undefeated]

It's more of system and conditioning for me. The effort was there in the first half the game because I saw everyone making rotations and closing out hard on the shooters, which I agree with you dagger. Came the second half, rotations were sloppy and soft close out were made. That’s a sign of fatigue to me. But when you're this bad, it's likely all three...

[Kevin Willis]

Talent, effort, system. As Dagger commented, you can see that Atlanta has great talented perimeter defenders who were all over our guards and wings. You can also see that they were going almost all out on every possession. Given those two factors does the system really matter so much?

System matters when there is such a deficiency in the talent that it covers up our mistakes. That's why I put talent first to recognize the fact we need a system to mask our shortcomings. I say effort next because we've had stretches where we were able to shut teams down with our defense using a heightened effort (ie. Chicago, GS, Washington, Cleveland). However, our talent doesn't allow us to shut down high octane teams so we will have issues with Phoenix but no so much Chicago.

Since we can't do anything about the talent at this point we need to get by with effort (pride) and an understanding of the system. We also need to realize that some teams are going to be bad matchups for us because of how our team is constructed - like Atlanta. If by the end of the year we can improve our defense so that is not last, we will be alright. That can only be done with effort and understanding the system because we're out of luck with defensive talent.

Also, take a look at some of the other Eastern teams who are doing more road games and going out West - they're losing. Even Orlando. Teams will drop off from us or even come back to us due to schedule. If the team persists then by the second half it SHOULD recover.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Aggression and lack thereof. Too timid.

[Dr Positivity]

When your epically bad ... it has to be all three ... If you have one of 3 (a system, effort or talent), you can be 20-25th ranked defensive team. Hvaing a combo of 2 will get you into the 10-20th range and a combination of all three gets you top 10 ... But when your conisdered the worst defensive team statiscially of all time, it has to be all three ... no effort, no system, no defensive talent ...

This is the answer

But I vote effort first. We had intensity in Washington, Chicago, Milwaukee. Last night we somewhat contested people but didn't really make it difficult for them.

Good defences make the opposition take the shots we want them to. We didn't do that last night

[kcthekid]

effort
everyone slacks, which leads to poor rotations
everyone ends up watching the play
opposing shooters are camped ready to shoot, unguarded and if guarded not close enough
this is the N *FUZZIN* B A TRIANO, these playerss can knock down open shots when give the chance
this not international competition vs Bulgaria

plus when the other teams gives up a basket that kills the mood, they call a time out
Triano waits until were 10 points down to call it, at that point the game is over
its extremely repetitive and annoying

[lucky777s]

System is a proven nba system. Not some new creation by JT and MI.


1. Not Enough Athletes in rotation: Bargs, Turk, Jose, Jack, Rasho do not match up well at their positions. Belli may be average. Even Amir lacks the strength and fluidity required. That is most of our rotation.

2. Raw young players: the athletes we do have in DD, Weems, Amir, and borderline Belli all lack big time nba experience.

3. Mental preparation/toughness: players look mentally beat before they play at that end. They know they are overmatched and any negative play just locks them into a losing mindset. They quit.
They need to look at D like a baseball hitter. You are only trying to be successful 3 out of 10 times to be a decent D team. But to do that you need to compete your hardest all 10 times. Our guys play scared on D.

[StopitLeo]

No heart. Lack of leadership.

[dagger]

System is a proven nba system. Not some new creation by JT and MI.


1. Not Enough Athletes in rotation: Bargs, Turk, Jose, Jack, Rasho do not match up well at their positions. Belli may be average. Even Amir lacks the strength and fluidity required. That is most of our rotation.

2. Raw young players: the athletes we do have in DD, Weems, Amir, and borderline Belli all lack big time nba experience.

3. Mental preparation/toughness: players look mentally beat before they play at that end. They know they are overmatched and any negative play just locks them into a losing mindset. They quit.
They need to look at D like a baseball hitter. You are only trying to be successful 3 out of 10 times to be a decent D team. But to do that you need to compete your hardest all 10 times. Our guys play scared on D.

Except there are different systems, and you can mix up systems, so maybe this system isn't the best for us.

[s e n s i]

System is a proven nba system. Not some new creation by JT and MI.

True, but you can't just plug any system into any roster in hopes that it will translate to success. There should be other defensive strategies that could mask the lack of defensive IQ this roster as a whole possesses.

[lucky777s]

I do not believe there is a system in existence that this sadsack bunch of boobs could play effectively.

They lack the basic requirements. Can't hide that.

[timdunkit]

I do not believe there is a system in existence that this sadsack bunch of boobs could play effectively.

They lack the basic requirements. Can't hide that.

per 100 possesions, the Warriors allow 109.6 pts per game compared to the Raptors 116.4 .... The warriors have been without there starting and back up C (Biedrens and Turiaf) and have ran small ball with 4 SG's on the court or even at times running Maggete at the C spot ... So can you explain to me how are they 6.8 pts per game better defensively then the Raptors ...

[lucky777s]

Steals per game:

GS number 1 in league
TOR number 30 in league

Both teams know they suck but at least GS decides to be aggressive and force TOs to create easy buckets and take away possessions from other team. Might as well take risks if you can't stop them anyway.

Plus they have better perimeter athletes and playing small means they have better athletes at the 4/5 as well.

They show some heart and compete more possessions than the Raps.

[Yorkz]

But what was supposed to be this team's strengths on defence?

I thought it was supposed to be length in the starting lineup and Euro-style high-IQ team defence. Clearly, neither are working to our advantage.

[MikeM]

It's a combination of everything but most of all it's talent. When you can't move laterally no system is going to save you.