Our defence: Is it system, effort or talent?

[satyr9]

I think it's very hard to build a proper system without any kind of defensive anchor. To me it doesn't necessarily have to be a C, although that's the obvious and easy way. However, I've got to go with talent first for now, because I think no matter the system, they will all rely on trying to direct the other team to your strength to be effective and if you don't have any defensive strengths there's only so much a system can do.

I think there must be a way to get the group of players assembled to be better than the worst defense in history, but I don't think you'll ever get the group to be worthy of much more than that. Defense breeds on success. The other team's confidence wanes, your own team works harder and harder when they get stops, it all just builds on itself, but on so many nights for the Raps there's no one to start that momentum. I don't think the talent needs a total overhaul, but somewhere in the starting 5 you need a guy who can consistently make plays on the defensive end and if you have that you can tailor a system to your strengths. Without it, there's too many ways to attack any system for an opposition and you'll get carved up on a fairly regular basis.

[HiJiNX]

It's all three.

The system we use requires athleticism that we don't have.

We don't give effort for four quarters.

Chris Bosh is our best overall defender this season...which says a lot.

[Harry Palmer]

Right, Harry- but what if Bosh played C and was our rim-protector?

Sounds crazy, but it might suit him better. His timing is pretty good and Bargs clearly is not that guy. That's what he did as a 210lb rookie, no? He's still skinny-ish, but I kind of like that because it helps guys avoid accidental body contact on block attempts. If we're going to get better on defence Chris has to be an excellent help defender IMO, from somewhere, because we don't have much talent on the ball and people will inevitably get in the lane.

Bosh will get killed by Cs? He gets killed by everybody, and there is far less talent at the C position so he can concentrate on helping. I'd rather have Bargnani on most PFs anyway. I understand this would but pressure on Bargnani's terrible rotations when Bosh would leave his man, but I'll try anything at this point. Easier to learn than timing.

The 2-3 zone could work at times, but Hedo just can't get to the corner. That's what killed us the other night when we tried it. But then again, nobody ever makes it to the corner in time on this team, it's like we think it's the longest three or something.

I also think we've got to try a big frontcourt of Bosh, Bargnani and Amir for stretches. When you sub Amir in for Hedo you get way faster AND longer and you still have lots of scoring and 2 good offensive rebounders. Then we can play some 2-3, because we've got better long rebounding out there.

Also, guys, you can't overlook the fact that Atlanta may be one of the toughest matchups in the league for our team specifically, and they also just plain make shots against us, easy or tough.

Well, we do try that at times, but it's problematic in several ways.

The cost of his having to carry the burden on D as well as O goes beyond the wear and tear on him as a person; it opens us up to teams running it through him to get him into quick foul trouble, and elimintate him from the game at both ends for big stretches.

I agree he's a more natural rim protector than Bargs, but neither is good enough to rely on, and either one comes with a significant cost in other areas. What we're doing now is, in some ways, what you suggest above...we go through a fairly endless series of adjustments and counters as the game wears on, with the one constant being the perim guys looking to help fairly quickly...but none of them are long term solutions, and all of them are sort of digging a hole to fill a hole.

[Rebel INS]

The system is the same system Boston, Atlanta, and various other teams in the NBA use. Protect the paint, protect home court, push players baseline, trap PG's on the perimeter etc..

It's not our system. It's the **** players. Period. We have switched systems multiple times and our defence is still trash.

Exactly...no defensive system in the world can make half-way competent defenders look this terrible. It's a combination of effort and talent.

Bargnani is a poor help defender. Bosh is a poor man defender. Turk is below average in general. Demar is doing alright for a rook but he's still a rook and should be expected to have lapses. Calderon is calderon

Combine that with the apathy these guys show on defense and it's not a huge secret why we're so awful

[The Journey Man]

Talent easily tops the list.

No one is reinventing the wheel with defensive systems. There just aren't that many variations, and all of them work given the talent and effort. People talk about JVG...you know what JVG's system is?

Well, first, he's an atomatic 1-up, which wouldn't hurt us too bad in that we rarely get offensive boards anyways, but what we get would be cut. It would also affect our offensive spacing because he wouldn't want bigs in the corner.

But okay, other end, assuming a neutral transition. He essentially clamps the lanes (he tends to force baseline, but I've seen his teams force elbow-in, too) and establishes a vanilla base where everyone overplays their man's strongside, and forces towards the middle. That's the key to his system: middle zone control. Another word for that is a center who intimidates. In NY he had Ewing and Camby. In Houston he had Yao and Dikembe.

In Toronto he'd have Andrea Bargnani.

Starting to see the problem?

If you lack the talent...especially at key positions...no system is gonna compensate. JVG or KO or others will improve it somewhat by virtue of pace, priorities, and by playing or not playing guys who don't buy in or can't get it done, but that itself comes at a cost...one I doubt we are willing to pay. In terms of systems that don't cost the offense, there's not much we can do to account for having a collection of defensively weak players, especially Bargs and to a lesser degree Jose.

Now all that said, I do think JT's system is in some ways ill-suited to our talents...but then so is almost any system I can think of. We are using a lot of hedges and overplays to prevent a breakdown of paint control and/or penetration and yeah, I agree, it's costing us at times, and isn't ideal to our talent...but then neither would be a system where we stay at home...you would just see teams go inside in the conventional sense, rather than forcing reactions to open lanes.

If we had the talent, finding a system would be a million times easier. Without the talent, there aren't really any systems that will make us any good. I somewhat agree that effort isn't as much of an issue as some think...I think we often start out trying our asses off...but after we get broken down easily on a few possessions in spite of the effort, our players often start to let up. I'm not excusing them, but it's sort of natural. Our combination of breakdowns, talent deficiencies and lack of awareness often makes effort moot, and you'll ususally see the effort sag when it has already become clear that effort isn't really getting it done anyways.

Interesting analysis Harry but a couple questions

1. Do you think any available centre could help our defense become average, say for example Dalembert or Okafor?

2. What do you make of stats on 82games.com that show that WITH calderon in the lineup with give up 9 MORE points/100 possessions. DOn't you think that adding a defensive PG will at least get us back into the middle of the pack in terms of defense, therefore hopefully allowing our offense to carry us?

[draft]

Our "system" needs a shot blocker. If we had Marcus Camby or somebody like that in the middle, we would be at least average defensively. Triano wants us to protect the paint and force players baseline but that's difficult to do without a shot blocker. Opposing players keep attacking the paint because there is no intimidation inside.

[elitehunter99]

Maybe its the system,

But I'd say its MORE lack of effort/lateral quickness/strength/stamina/athleticism... This team is lacking in one or more of those areas AT ALL the positions, each game exposes one area of weakness, and superior opposition exploits it. IT KEEPS HAPPENING REPEATEDLY.... I don't think Triano is smart/experienced enough to make adjustments to the system to make any drastic positive impact.....

Bosh/Bargnani - lack strength/athleticism/quickness/stamina/defensive awareness to play D consistently for 48 minutes like lets say Al Horford/Josh Smith, KG, Dwight Howard, Brendan Haywood, Andrew Bogut to a lesser extent JO/Haslem and Tyson Chandler.. Most of these players give 100% on each defensive possession AND they have the talent to be difference makers on D...

Perimeter D - Derozan is below average on D, Jack is average, and Turkoglu is slightly below the median IMO.... If there was at least one perimeter defensive stopper in the starting unit, there would be noticeable improvement, especially if Calderon is not in the starting 5.. Stephen Jackson was someone BC completely missed out on......

[Kevin Willis]

I like this topic from Dagger. Looking at the Houston game, it has to be talent and effort over system because they were able to shut them down. Granted Houston are a good match up for us but still we had enough talent and effort to do well. Looking at this formula, we should do well against Miami - who are also not known for their offense (outside of DWade) - and get smoked by Orlando because we don't have the talent to stop their offensive weapons and our system creates mismatches they can exploit. Even with good effort.

[jay632]

clasic raptors, they can't play for 4 quarters, some time they dont' show up at all.

[The_Hater]

It's a bad defensive system (for this team) using inferior defensive talents who don't always give a solid effort.

This shouldn't be a huge surprise though, if your defense is on pace to be the worst of all-time than you really need a perfect storm of mistakes to all happen simutaniously.

[redjediknight]

I think it goes together with effort and system. IMO, the system is too much--and that's why the effort is not present. Ties together, to be honest.