cellar-door wrote:Fair warning this is going to be long.
1. DRPM is a black box so I don't use it much.
2. Even without DRPM though it's obvious that IT hurts his team's defense more than almost any other player in the league, just simple on/offs show that.
3. IT ISN'T GOING TO THE BENCH. It doesn't solve the problem, and if anything probably hurts the offense more, the only options with IT going forward are start him or trade him.
For the idea that it isn't IT's fault: C'mon, this is obviously wrong, we have the best defense in the league when he's on the bench and the worst when he's on the court. It's definitely his inability to defend that is causing our issues. The question becomes HOW do you scheme to bring his negative impact down some so that we can be at least average defensively when he's on the floor.
"BUT IT WAS ON THE TEAM LAST YEAR AND THE D WAS GOOD!" - Well.... kind of? Our defense was RIDICULOUS last year when IT was on the bench and pretty good when he was on the floor. Now we have to figure out what caused that vs. this year. This was also with a ton of guys having by far their best defensive seasons ever (IT, AB, KO, Jonas, Crowder, Smart, ET)
1. Kelly Olynyk and Jonas Jerebko This is one big one, last year KO graded out as one of the best defensive big men in the league, and Jonas had great on/offs too. This year, we are still better with them on than off, but that's more a bad vs terrible thing. I think KO is an above average defender and Jerebko is a situational defender, you can have great D with them, but they aren't going to consistently cover up bad guard play.
2. Step back from the wings? Bradley is not at the same level he was last year, he's still very good, but he isn't a DPOY candidate. Same for Crowder.
3. THE BIGGEST ONE to me.... teams are making much more of an effort to get IT in a switch and punish him every time down the floor. I think we've all noticed this, teams are much more committed to getting IT at the elbow or top of the key isolated against a scorer. Beyond guys blowing by him or shooting over him, it's also stretching the team D too thin. Often we see the same play, IT gets switched with a 2 or 3 at the elbow.... the big (Horford or Olynyk) has to cheat over to help, Crowder cheats off his man to prevent the big's man from rolling clean to the rim, Bradley shades towards Crowder's man. Guy backs down or blows by IT, Big traps, Crowder rotates, Bradley is stuck picking a shooter, whoever he leaves gets a good look.
4. IT has taken a step back- this is inevitable as a guy his size gets targeted, he wears down, dies on some screens, struggles to consistently body for position.
5. ET- yep, ET being gone is a reason for both our defensive decline and our offense not being trash anymore. It's less ET himself than his role, we replaced him with Brown and Green, Green just isn't much of a defender, and Brown is what you'd expect out of a rookie.
HOW DO WE FIX IT?
SHORT TERM- I'd like to see Brad tell the guys to just let IT get cooked. I'm of the opinion that letting one guy just get destroyed is probably better than having him get destroyed AND have guys cheating and helping leaving others wide open. The disadvantage is that players aren't robots, I have no idea how IT getting destroyed with no help every night effects the locker room, IT's confidence etc.
Also hopefully Brown keeps improving which helps when we go small.
The other option is to get a rim protector, I think it's overrated since a lot of what IT gives up is just easy jumpers because of his height, but maybe it also ties into helping rotations if nobody cheats because there is a rim protector back there to funnel IT's guy to.
LONG TERM-
The big decision looming is who gets the big contracts in 2018. I've said before I'm a proponent of drafting a PG with the Brooklyn pick and selling high on IT. I love his offense, but he really is tough to scheme around on D, and with so much of his value in his explosiveness and how quickly small guys tend to break down, I don't want to be the team paying him max money into his 30s.
Really good post.
It's hard to have conversations =on this board when people take things so far out of context. For example, nobody is saying it's IT and IT's fault alone. However, he's the biggest contributor to our defensive shortcomings. I don't see many people, if any, giving Brad Stevens or any other players props for our 4th quarter offense. But they heap the praise on IT. And that's because he's the biggest contributor to our offensive success. Especially in the 4th quarter. No denying that.
That said, if IT wants the glory for the offense even thought he only scores 20-25% of the points, than he should take some heat for being the worst defender in the league. Not ALL the heat but a majority of it.
That's 100% fair.
I agree with you 100%. Brad Stevens needs to tell his guys to stay with their guy or positioning and let IT get toasted. And especially tell Horford not to keep coming out so high on the PnR. I'd rather see guys shooting long 2's or 3's off Thomas than pulling Horford out of the paint consistently and leaving the rebounding to the likes of Bradley and Crowder.
I've also been thinking about whether the C's could handle playing more zone when IT is on the floor. Would rather make other teams secondary scorers take on more responsibility. Doesn't have to be a full game strategy but it a times during the game.
