It all started with this tweet.
It is hard for me to blame Edwards who is NBA rookie if he missed the switch in defense. But lack of communication in defense makes me sad. I think that has been an issue for years, we lacked communication in defense. We have capable defender such as Okogie, MCD, Vando but right now they are more high energy, high effort defenders. They use more physical tools than basketball IQ, they are not able to impact team defense yet. Hopefully Beverly can provide some guidance when he defends PoA. First priority should be communication as group.
Another thing is versatility in defense, i.e. our ability to execute different defensive schemes in order to defend different matchups with different personnel. Watch how 36 yo Gibson, and rookie Obi Toppin rotate.
Again, it is hard to execute many defensive schemes when our young players such as MCD, Vando, Reid lack experience, we need impactful veterans to be integral part of team defense. While I think that 1-3-1 idea should not be the main idea to build this roster, I still believe that Rosas failed to construct a roster to play 1-3-1. We had RoCo, but played Graham as second wing. Now we have MCD as 6'10 SF but we have complete void at PF. I believe that we still can play two comboforwards at SF/PF if second wing next to MCD is a big, tough, defensive minded wing. Prototype for such players is Jae Crowder who recently went in Finals with MIA, PHO, Torrey Craig. 6'6"-6'7, 220-235lbs, positive wingspan. There is no such player available for trade right now, and closest type of defender is Stanley Johnson, who had positive season in TOR, and maybe Finch worked with him in TOR and can find keys to make him an 8-9th player in rotation.
Last thing. Our defensive woes often have been aggravated with lack of shooting. We could not score efficiently, making opponent life easier in defense, we could adjust their tactic to our non shooting unit, going under screens, forcing TOs etc. This year might be different. We traded two horrible shooters (Rubio, Culver) and one horrible defender (Juancho). We basically have three players who make 40% 3pt shots (Prince, Beverly and Beasley who missed second part of the season). It should allow to use more often non shooters such as Okogie, Vando. Last season we saw lineups where two of Culver, Okogie, Vando, Rubio shared the floor together. Next season can put different lineups with two good defenders with only one non shooter. For instance, KAT-Prince-MCD-Edwards-Beverly, or KAT-MCD-Edwards-Okogie-DLo.