Do you think the Raps are going to hedge more on D?

[wtcantfw]

Thanks Mixx, that's helpful. He basically never hedges.

That said... even if we had the 3rd highest hedge % in the league, why is that a good thing if we had ended up with the 28th rated defense out of 30? Does Jonas hedging at the same rate as PP or Amir move us to 24th? 19th? 14th? Or were the largest defensive issues elsewhere on the floor?

Several years back, I think when we had VC and Bosh together, we emulated what Dallas was doing in that they switched everything. The thinking is that it was better to have a guard switch onto a big or vice versa, than to hedge and need swing help around, because it meant that someone was always glued to the offensive player and their scoring percentages were lower regardless of who was defending, than when there was moments of the offensive player being open or getting uncontested looks. IIRC, that worked very well, and if teams like GSW, Houston and Philly (who despite their poor record are learning some very good habits on both ends of the floor), why would we want to go against the grain and stick to the hedging mindset that obviously yielded poor results?

I remember those "switch everything" days with Smitch. Other teams would just set a quick screen, get a small guarding their big, and then go to work in the post. It was a lazy system and we got burned for it.

[Lord Eder]

DH brings in a great perspective. I'm sitting here thinking they'll continue to hedge on a regular basis while throwing in some ICE every now and then. But if you flip that around, and ICE as your primary defense versus the pick and roll all you're giving up is long twos as mentioned. Having Jonas drop back to contain the drive while the on-ball defender denies the screen will hide his inability to guard way up on the perimiter and recover. And I mean, even though the rest of the guys are able to hedge hard, I don't see why they can't easily drop back and contain either. Like i said though, a lot will depend on our ball handlers ability to reject the screen or fight through the screen. The reason why I like DH's perspective is because going with ICE and having bigs contain the drive is a good defensive strategy IMO. And then throwing hard hedging out there, is a great way to dictate tempo by creating a helter skelter type of defensive set where the offense might be taken aback and out of rhythm. It's an interesting way to dictate the tempo.

[kavan]

I think the team needs to keep the flow consistent. When we are transitioning we are winning. We cant let teams slow us down. Our ISO D was terrible. I think with Matt Carrol we improved a lot.

[Kabookalu]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this subject, on what our defensive identity was going to be for the upcoming season. It does seem weird that Masai said those comments about hiding Jonas, and yet the strengths of our big men defensively is still hedging. So what are we going to do? At first it sounds like we're just shuffling problems just to work our way around Jonas' deficiencies. However maybe we should frame this question a different way. Not will we be hedging more/less to address our problems from last season, but who will be the defensive catalyst?

For the past couple of seasons Amir was our defensive anchor. Last season he fell off hard, and so did our defense. This offseason Masai acquired a boatload of new talent that have a reputation for their defense. Most of them are perimeter players. So I think that the defense this upcoming season will have our perimeter players at most liable to executing rather than our big men.

I know that DeMarre Carroll's defensive numbers don't look so hot, but watching the games that's very shocking to me. To me he easily looked like Atlanta's best defensive player. It's not his man defense that impressed me most, but his team defense. He's just a very smart player that knows what needs to be done defensively. They were one of the best defensive teams last season when on paper they have a lot of nice defensive players, but nothing about their squad screams 6th best defense in the league, and yet that's where they finished. I firmly believe that DeMarre Carroll was the one anchoring their defense, even though the advanced numbers don't suggest that. He's really versatile, a high tier swiss army knife on defense. He can do a bit of everything at a high level.

So what about Jonas and hedging? We may still run the same system, or something similar that puts greater responsibility on our perimeter guys, but great catalysts can cover up for the deficiencies for their teammates. Unfortunately Amir's condition didn't allow him to do that anymore as he had done for us for so many seasons. Carroll is a fighter, he's smart, and he puts his all in on the defensive end. He'll know how to react accordingly to the situation in front of him to help compensate for Jonas. Not to mention we have Cory Joseph coming off the bench too. I'm not saying that Jonas is excused from improving his defense, but overall Carroll's defense may outshine his weakness there.

[Rapcity_11]

I know that DeMarre Carroll's defensive numbers don't look so hot, but watching the games that's very shocking to me. To me he easily looked like Atlanta's best defensive player. It's not his man defense that impressed me most, but his team defense. He's just a very smart player that knows what needs to be done defensively. They were one of the best defensive teams last season when on paper they have a lot of nice defensive players, but nothing about their squad screams 6th best defense in the league, and yet that's where they finished. I firmly believe that DeMarre Carroll was the one anchoring their defense, even though the advanced numbers don't suggest that. He's really versatile, a high tier swiss army knife on defense. He can do a bit of everything at a high level.

FYI RAPM (not RPM) supports Carroll as a high impact defender.

http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/RAPM_2015.html
(partial season)

http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/2014.html

[Kabookalu]

I know that DeMarre Carroll's defensive numbers don't look so hot, but watching the games that's very shocking to me. To me he easily looked like Atlanta's best defensive player. It's not his man defense that impressed me most, but his team defense. He's just a very smart player that knows what needs to be done defensively. They were one of the best defensive teams last season when on paper they have a lot of nice defensive players, but nothing about their squad screams 6th best defense in the league, and yet that's where they finished. I firmly believe that DeMarre Carroll was the one anchoring their defense, even though the advanced numbers don't suggest that. He's really versatile, a high tier swiss army knife on defense. He can do a bit of everything at a high level.

FYI RAPM (not RPM) supports Carroll as a high impact defender.

http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/RAPM_2015.html
(partial season)

http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/2014.html

Been waiting for the RAPM numbers lol, didn't know they did half season numbers. Stats should never be judged in a vacuum, but if there's one stat you were forced to evaluate with in isolation, RAPM would be the one. Great to see that Carroll ranks pretty highly here.