Raptors Pursuing Diaw

[fatlever]

i think tsherkin makes some great points...

for example, we all saw felton get roasted by nelson in the playoffs. that definitely was a factor in us losing. however, i still believe the main reason we lost that series (at least on the defensive side of the ball) was because we made the commitment to overplay howard. normally when our pg gets beat off the dribble chandler/nazr/theo were right there to cut off the penetration and boris or crash was sliding to cover the center. against the magic our centers were always staying at home giving nelson way too much space in the lane. finally we were rotating off the shooters leaving all their 3pt guys wide open. we sold out so much to stop howard that it burned us everywhere else on the court.

of course, the real real reason we lost that series was our offensive ineptitude.

so if i had to rank the reasons we lost (other than the magic clearly having more talent)

1) bad offense
2) defensive philosophy, doubling howard leaving shooters open, not rotating to help on pnr fast enough.
3) felton vs nelson

[BigSlam]

I think people get too hung up on what a bad defensive point guard is these days.

Fact is that thanks to the hand checking rules, there are really no good defensive point guards - unless you are talking about post D and PG's rarely post up (J.Kidd being one of the few).

Felts didn't get burnt by Nelson because he was really bad. Fact is there just isn't that much you can do to guard a point who has a quick 1st step any more. The defender is on his heels going backwards. Any PG with a bit of speed will get by him.

The only really good D a PG can play is playing ball denial and knowing when to go over or when to go under a screen.

[tsherkin]

As I said, the bigger value you get out of a point guard on defense is how he plays team defense. That's why someone like Chris Paul or Rajon Rondo is a valuable asset on defense.

Some guys, like Deron Williams and Chauncey Billups (or Jarrett Jack, actually) know how to use their size to their advantage (even with the new rules) and that helps them out defensively, but by and large, your point is going to get beaten and help D is the big issue.

Hell, you can reverse engineer this truth; David Thorpe said, back in 08 or 09 when I interviewed him, that Kevin Durant's biggest problem as a scorer was that he could blow by his first defender at ease and didn't know how to react to the second defender and it was his biggest issue (I think this was in his rookie season, come to think of it). Obvously, he corrected that issue but it highlights the idea that NBA scorers are really good at getting past a single defender and that team D is far more important.

For example, I have never really been blown away by Felton as a defender. Or Gerald Wallace as a man defender when he's playing out of position. Or Boris Diaw./

But Wallace is a phenomenal defensive rebounder and help defender with enough athleticism and attitude to harrass anyone and he hustles hard on help D. And the whole team looked really good in terms of how they covered for one another, so Charlotte was a brutal defensive team.

It's not about individual defenders, at least out on the wing. They're helpful, I mean we all saw Raja Bell, Shawn Marion and Kurt Thomas help make D'Antoni's Suns and make them a nearly average defensive squad back in 05 and 06 despite terrible defensive coaching and Amare Stoudemire (and to a lesser extent, Nash) on the basis of their individual D... but that's not common and you're better off employing a system like Charlotte or Milwaukee. Couple of average-ish man defenders and some really good help defenders.

The point? Not that important defensively, and will not be so ever again, thanks to the elimination of the handcheck. Sidney Moncrief? Gary Payton? They wouldn't win a DPOY in this league, their defense would be sabotaged too much.

[dmutombo321]

I think people get too hung up on what a bad defensive point guard is these days.

Fact is that thanks to the hand checking rules, there are really no good defensive point guards - unless you are talking about post D and PG's rarely post up (J.Kidd being one of the few).

Felts didn't get burnt by Nelson because he was really bad. Fact is there just isn't that much you can do to guard a point who has a quick 1st step any more. The defender is on his heels going backwards. Any PG with a bit of speed will get by him.

The only really good D a PG can play is playing ball denial and knowing when to go over or when to go under a screen.

I generally agree with Slam's points.

But I would point out that there were also several occasions where the 5'10 Nelson was drilling 3 pointers in Felton's face.

I dont view Felton's thrashing at the hands of Nelson an indictment on Ray. Nelson is just the more talented player. It wasnt any prettier with DJ on the floor either.

And, as fats alluded, the bottom line is that the main reason the series ended as it did was because Orlando was/is far and away a better team.

Picking games apart, there were probably a dozen plus different things Charlotte could have done better to mitigate some Orlando's dominance and possibly even have stolen a game. But the end result ultimately would have been the same - an authoritive series victory for Orlando in 4 or 5 games.

Be ready for more of the same this year..