sorting out the defense?

Douglar said:

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought Tyronn Lue was in charge of the defense.

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I think you are right

Lue gets the benefit of the doubt from me. He worked for a good defensive coach and is highly recommended. I doubt,"leave the 3 line unguarded" is one of his tenets. You can see players missing mostly their help assignments. Now it is up to them to execute.

LeBron is still the best defender in the NBA, which will bail them out of a lot of circumstances late in the season. Obvious he is pacing himself now, but I think we will see the dominant player extort himself in February

Jarred Squark said:

extort himself in February

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I'd like to see how that would work

David. said:

I'd like to see how that would work

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lol ... meant exert

I think this is the same debate we had last year, except last year MB focused on defense and not offense. I think Blatt is trying to split the focus, but the offense is getting more attention early. Lets let this team play, will we ever be a top 5 defense with this roster no, but do I think as the guys play together, learn where to help and learn the system they will be fine.

A few points, LJ, Marion, Andy, TT are all above average defense players. While we do not have a rim protector you can still design a system that will work, and if we get more offensive production out of that position then they give up it is ok.

I know we all want to be quick to make changes, but let this team develop for more then 6 games before we make any major moves.

We knew coming into this year we were going to have to outscore players to win. So why all the shock now? Big reason people were against giving up Wiggins and bringing in Love without adding another big who could protect the rim.

I'm still worried about the bigs showing so hard. Mike Brown ended up scrapping that last year and it seems like the league is going away from it. It's great at cutting off the drive, but bigs are so quick and are also such good shooters these days it can really backfire. I am hoping this is just one of the ways to defend the pick and roll and others will soon be implemented.

The team improved their defense site a bit once they changed the hard show.

Lazor said:

We knew coming into this year we were going to have to outscore players to win. So why all the shock now? Big reason people were against giving up Wiggins and bringing in Love without adding another big who could protect the rim.

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we are 29th in the defensive efficiency. If we want to win a championship, we have to do quite a bit better than that. The last time a team won a championship without a top 10 defense was the 2001 lakers at 21st, a significant drop from their defense the year before and the year after, also both championship seasons.

We've shown some signs of being able to play quite a bit better defense than our season average. I expect things to improve on both ends of the court the more time the team has to gel.

Merged two "defense" threads.

QuadrupleDouble said:

It'd help if Kevin love raised an arm here or there.

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What's odd is he does other stuff like one on one post defense surprisingly well (see his D on Davis in the NO game). He actually rotated hard on Anderson in the 4th and prevented him from getting off a 3 as well.

So he has potential to actually bring some positives on defense but on the other hand have no idea why he's so lackadaisical about trying to cut penetration (i.e. concentrating too much on the glass?)

KI4MVP said:

we are 29th in the defensive efficiency. If we want to win a championship, we have to do quite a bit better than that. The last time a team won a championship without a top 10 defense was the 2001 lakers at 21st, a significant drop from their defense the year before and the year after, also both championship seasons.

We've shown some signs of being able to play quite a bit better defense than our season average. I expect things to improve on both ends of the court the more time the team has to gel.

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I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm a defensive person and I know defense wins championships that's why it was hard for me to see Wiggins go with all his defensive potential. Our team does have the ability to play elite defense but it's only going to be in little spurts during games. I said before the season started we will give up more than 100 ppg and I still believe that. We just really need to focus on being more efficient and quit giving up easy shots at high percentages.

Not to be all positive on here, but I saw some great signs/flashes in the Pelicans game. Communication was pretty good and they closed out hard on shooters in the 2nd half especially. I saw Irving flying around and giving effort. Shawn Marion is still a very good defender, really happy we got him.

The thing that really helps this team is the rebounding. They're already a monster on the glass, and they'll only get better. We all know teams will get open looks against this team, but they'd better make the most of em, cuz they're not getting a 2nd possession. Plus they might be giving up an easy one on the other end with our ridiculous transition game. This team is explosive enough that they dont have to get stop after stop to win games.

I just keep reminding myself that a majority of these early season fears will be a distant memory by the All-Star break. This team only going to get better, and I really believe they can at least be top half of the league defensively by the end of the season. Just takes time.

Pioneer10 said:

What's odd is he does other stuff like one on one post defense surprisingly well (see his D on Davis in the NO game). He actually rotated hard on Anderson in the 4th and prevented him from getting off a 3 as well.

So he has potential to actually bring some positives on defense but on the other hand have no idea why he's so lackadaisical about trying to cut penetration (i.e. concentrating too much on the glass?)

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The argument has been that he is just dying waiting to get the rebound, so once the shot is up he is outta there. There is no such thing as a late contest from Love. He does do a good job in the post, I have seen this too, and he definitely is able to hold ground even against bigger guys. He boxes out well, but he boxes out almost to the detriment of his contest. Meaning he is boxing out as or even before the shot goes up.

Jarred Squark said:

LeBron is still the best defender in the NBA

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You might come to this conclusion if you haven't watched him play the past two years, but LeBron is by no means the best defender in the NBA right now. He barely played defense at all last year.