Our Defense Has Fallen Off a Cliff

[Airball Salmons]

Other teams have a big enough sample set to scout us in addition to injuries/players getting back to speed.

Let's wait another 5-10 games when everyone's back to see how this team fairs. After all, Masai says this is a development year.

[sbsat]

On the first three games of the West Coast trip all 3 shot 54% or better against our D. That is f*cked.

[Duffman100]

While I don't blame Pascal for the entire collapse, his rotations have been utterly terrible.

[Mikistan]

On the first three games of the West Coast trip all 3 shot 54% or better against our D. That is f*cked.

ThE sHoTs OpPoNeNtS gOt WeReNt AnY mOrE oPeN tHaN uSuAl

SOmEtImEs TeAmS jUsT gEt HoT

[Indeed]

One thing that hasn’t helped is Pascals condition. He said on open gym that he hasn’t played much 5 on 5 since before the surgery so his legs felt heavy out there. It definitely showed early on

People were saying he was playing lazy defense but I think he just couldn’t physically do it

I don't think we are blaming this on Siakam, but if this is the case, Nurse should make an adjustment, no?
Some how he is not in full condition, but we are playing him 35+ mins a game?

Siakam was playing better defensively the last few games, and I think our defensive system being aggressive without a paint present is part of the problem, as teams are just attacking through ball penetration, we collapse (instead of a single effective player rotates), and opposing team got wide open 3s when they passed out (neither we are cutting off their passing lane). We are also over helping (lack of communication? Lack of a single defensive present?).

[Wannabe MEP]

1. Siakam actually has been really bad at defense.
2. Siakam, OG, Birch, Achiuwa, Yuta, Boucher, and FVV have all missed games recently. Part of the problem is missing good defenders, but part of the problem is lack of continuity in who you're on the court with.
3. Playing a lot of youth/inexperience/guys who haven't played together much. The defense is aggressive and complex enough that if things get just a little bit out of whack, it quickly leads to a wide open shot.
4. We fly aggressively at shooters: ok, I get it. I'm not sure why we double as aggressively as we do. Seems like teams are shredding our doubles with ease.

[witnessraps]

Teams get wide open corner 3s against us like clockwork. This needs to be fixed, we are in a 3 point era, can't be allowing wide open 3s all game, they are like layups these days. Wiggins was just living in that corner last game.

[sbsat]

Teams get wide open corner 3s against us like clockwork. This needs to be fixed, we are in a 3 point era, can't be allowing wide open 3s all game, they are like layups these days. Wiggins was just living in that corner last game.

It reminds me of the game we had vs rockets a few years back were scrubs on the rockets torched us via corner Threes over and over again. Rivers jr mclamore etc. It's tough to watch sometimes

[Hero_Panda]

I take this as Nurse experimenting various lineups and situations for his players, to see what works or not.
It's pretty evident that this team is in no condition to be serious contenders so might as well evaluate who's a keeper and who's not, as well the effectiveness of various systems on various situations.

[Indeed]

I take this as Nurse experimenting various lineups and situations for his players, to see what works or not.
It's pretty evident that this team is in no condition to be serious contenders so might as well evaluate who's a keeper and who's not, as well the effectiveness of various systems on various situations.

I am not sure playing 10 mins of the bench could give you enough sample size, and many are 1 or 2 mins 5-men lineup, does that really conclude anything?

[ruckus]

A few stats from early season talking points:

Deflections
1st 10 games - 21.5
Last 8 games - 19.0

Steals
1st 10 games - 11.0
Last 8 games - 8.8

Fouls
1st 10 games - 19.2
Last 8 games - 18.9

Distance travelled on defense/speed on defense
1st 10 games - 8.36 / 3.92
Last 8 games - 8.55 / 3.86

Not that these stats are indicative of anything in particular but our deflections and steals have gone down while distance travelled has increased. Eye test says that yes we have guys scrambling around trying to close out on open shooters due to bad rotations and bad communication.

[mrdressup]

Some people had us pegged as being no better than an average defensive team and a bottom tier offensive team. Realistically, we are probably a bottom tier defensive team and a bottom of the barrel offensive team right now. We' ll see how that comes out in the wash after a full season. One thing for sure is our intensity has dropped off a cliff. The effort is not being sustained, and that may have to do with heavy minutes and guys trying to save themselves from exhaustion and playing at less than perfect health, leaving not a whole lot for a fast paced offense. Eye test shows us walking the ball up a lot, using slow paced hand offs and generally not having much motion off ball.

The way we play team defense is a lot about us scrambling around like chickens. The pass beats our defenders every time too...Teams are just not going to dribble much into traffic against us. We' ve hedged too much on stripping the ball, and the 1-5 rotating is tripping us up. We thought we had the personnel to do this with, but it turns out we aren't that good at it. We' ll look good only when teams shoot poorly from 3. Detroit burned us from 3, and that is how it works when you play to shooting variance. Bad teams will shoot well and beat you. Good teams will beat you even when they shoot at an average clip from 3.That should translate to less than a 0.500 record. I doesn't help we rarely shoot well from distance. It means we have to win the possession game, but there we lose out to low efficiency shooting on some nights.

[Backcountry]

Maybe it's just my bad memory, but it didn't seem like we were scrambling around as much during our win streak earlier on. That could have been just the quality of opposition, or it could be something that needs adjustment. Like others have said, it appears that we are over-helping, resulting in open shooters. Maybe that's the plan, maybe it's poor execution of the plan. Either way, we've been getting burned by what were supposed to be poor-shooting teams suddenly becoming hot against us (I don't count GS in that category). It happens so regularly that it can't be simply a coincidence, can it?

[DelAbbot]

In the first 5 games, we looked like top 10 defensively - by the eye test it was due to Achiuwa being at centre.

I don't buy the argument that it's injuries and lack of lineup continuity that caused our defense to fall off a cliff. We had more injuries in 2019/2020 season before Covid and we had "next man up" and kept up the defense.

[nikster]

1. Siakam actually has been really bad at defense.
2. Siakam, OG, Birch, Achiuwa, Yuta, Boucher, and FVV have all missed games recently. Part of the problem is missing good defenders, but part of the problem is lack of continuity in who you're on the court with.
3. Playing a lot of youth/inexperience/guys who haven't played together much. The defense is aggressive and complex enough that if things get just a little bit out of whack, it quickly leads to a wide open shot.
4. We fly aggressively at shooters: ok, I get it. I'm not sure why we double as aggressively as we do. Seems like teams are shredding our doubles with ease.

I think the bolded is why Im still fine with Nurse continuing with this D (tho i agree doubles need to be cleaned up). Its a high risk, high potential style of D. Like you said we lack experience and continuity, and have been playing some players out of position. Think if we figure it out this D has the potential to be elite

[HiJiNX]

It’s mostly just lack of familiarity.

Also, the league has sort of figured out that Birch is awful in pnr coverage. And Siakam was really bad on defence until the Sacramento and GSW games.

Our defence is designed such that one mistake makes the whole house of cards fall. You literally have to be perfect on rotations in our scheme or we are giving up a high percentage look. When it’s perfect it looks really good. When there are any mistakes it looks really bad. And since Siakam has returned there have been lots of mistakes. It’ll even out. We took the paint away from GSW, we just kept losing Poole and ran into a hot Wiggins. It’ll even out. I’m not worried.

[Yeezus_]

Achiuwa's defense is a little under rated. A good defensive C anchors a defense and will cover mistakes. That's why Gobert is continuously wins DPOY. Achiuwa isn't even close to that level but he was still really good defensively when he started.

[Indeed]

A few stats from early season talking points:

Deflections
1st 10 games - 21.5
Last 8 games - 19.0

Steals
1st 10 games - 11.0
Last 8 games - 8.8

Fouls
1st 10 games - 19.2
Last 8 games - 18.9

Distance travelled on defense/speed on defense
1st 10 games - 8.36 / 3.92
Last 8 games - 8.55 / 3.86

Not that these stats are indicative of anything in particular but our deflections and steals have gone down while distance travelled has increased. Eye test says that yes we have guys scrambling around trying to close out on open shooters due to bad rotations and bad communication.

I think we are still among top 5 in deflections and steals.
My biggest concern has been wide open shots, where 1st 10 games - rank 18th? Last 8 games - rank 23th?

Reference:
First 10 games:
https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/opponent-shots-closest-defender/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&CloseDefDistRange=6%2B%20Feet%20-%20Wide%20Open&sort=FGA_FREQUENCY&dir=1&DateTo=11%2F06%2F2021

Last 10 games:
https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/opponent-shots-closest-defender/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&LastNGames=8&CloseDefDistRange=6%2B%20Feet%20-%20Wide%20Open&sort=FGA_FREQUENCY&dir=1

[Hero_Panda]

I take this as Nurse experimenting various lineups and situations for his players, to see what works or not.
It's pretty evident that this team is in no condition to be serious contenders so might as well evaluate who's a keeper and who's not, as well the effectiveness of various systems on various situations.

I am not sure playing 10 mins of the bench could give you enough sample size, and many are 1 or 2 mins 5-men lineup, does that really conclude anything?

Sure? You want to tell Nurse and co. how to properly experiment with the lineup?

[canz55]

The only entertainment value this team had to offer was the introduction of Scottie and the maximum effort team defence the Raps were showcasing to start the season.

Since the Cleveland loss, we're playing confused and slow. I don't know why - people have offered explanations in this thread and they all appear to be fair guesses but the eye-test definitely matches the numbers: opponents are shooting our lights out.

My expectations for this year was a low seed playoff appearance so Scottie/Precious/Banton could get some post-season experience under their belts but the way teams are playing us proves that Nurse's system has been exposed and if it continues like this we'll be lucky to make the play-in.

For the TwO crowd, this is probably the best-case scenario but until Fred/Pascal are shopped for long-term assets then this is a rebuild season in name only.