dougthonus wrote:
Your view of Lauri's defense just seems completely disconnected from reality to me. He gets beat easily off the dribble, doesn't generally use his length effectively, is slow to rotate, doesn't provide great help when he does rotate, he's just not a good defender in my view and doesn't particularly do anything well.
This is an honest question to Dougthonus and Coldfish as both of you guys seem to put thought on your posts and judging from the post count as well as join date, you both have followed Bulls a long time. I actually went back and looked at every possession of this Hawks game particularly watching what Lauri did or could have done different to help the team. Tried to use every bit off experience I have gathered as a coach and player myself. I did this because I saw the game so entirely different than you did and you clearly have experience as well.
I did not watch 4th quarter because Lauri did not play on that one. Here are the played which I can come up with in the order of appearance:
1. Lauri got badly beat by Gallo driving left from the top of the key. Purely Lauri to blame on this as you cannot get blown by so clearly to even allow rotation to happen. 2 easy points for Hawks.
2. Lauri ended up with Trae because of bad transition from Zach forced him to take away open three from Trae. He then ended up fouling Trae on a drive. He actually stayed with Trae but had left hand holding Trae which was an obvious foul. 1 point from Trae Free throws.
3. ended up with Huerter on a switch. Stayed on front of him on isolation but - And this is by far the biggest fault I see in Lauris defense - Did not challenge the shot hard enough-. He kind of challenged the shot but not seriously. 2 points to hawks.
4. The complete defensive **** Coldfish brought up. Perimeter defender once again gets completely blown by and three Bulls players just watch on the side. Looked like miscommunication to me as you need one of the three to go and challenge the drive but not all of them. 2 easy points given.
5. TO when trying to make extra pass for Zach. I actually liked the idea of that pass but obviously not the execution. This lead to fast break by Reddish where again, Lauri stayed with it but did not really challenge the shot. 2 points for hawks.
6. TO on a skip pass which was bad idea all the way.
7. Slow and soft close out after a pick and pop from Gallo. Gallo missed the shot but that had nothing to do with good defense.
8. Ended up with Trae on a switch and got promptly blown by letting him get uncontested to the paint. 2 points to hawks.
These eight plays are literally the only ones where I can find he could have done better to help the team win.
On the plus side he hit 4 threes none of which was a wide open catch and shoot. Two corner threes had very little space and a really quick release was needed. The one assisted by Wendell he had to catch the ball from his ankles and create the shot and the fourth one he used the off ball screen and created space himself very nicely.
Out of the 4 assists, 3 led to the easiest buckets Bulls got all night. One each for Porter, Wendell and Gafford.
Additionally he passed 3 wide open threes none of which was converted. If I recall right they were for Porter, PWill and Coby.
He did not force any shots and even the flat floater was a good decision, only the shot itself was terrible.
On the defensive end:
His own assignment scored 2 or 5 points in this game. Depending on how you count one corner three.
He had two very good rotations to stop and properly challenge a Gallo drive, one from the top of the key which ended up in a stop for bulls and the other on baseline which ended up in a corner three because the next rotation did not happen.
I would actually go as far as saying he was bulls best defender in this game together with Pwill who also had one very nice stop and generally did not get blown by everybody all the time.
I do not want to blindly defend any player but this is my honest interpretation of the Hawks disaster looking from Lauris performance perspective as a coach.
I did not direct this to you Dougthonus and Coldfish to try to challenge your views. But I would really like to know where you see this different than I do as we clearly are on very opposite ends of the spectrum
. The way I see this game, Lauri with perfect execution on every situation would have been able affect 11 Hawks points 5 of which came from pg or sg he ended up with.
I know it is a lot to ask to go and watch that agonizing piece of crap again but if you happen to have time and absolutely nothing else to do, feedback is very much appreciated. Oh, and I only analyzed this one game in detail so I would not need comments on how Lauri is in general or has performed earlier.
/TSS
You've been misreading his stats. Lauri getting more shots is the most logical thing to do. You think his last year was bad, right? Yet, in the games where he had 19 or more FGA he EXCELLED! 
