This team is dead last in the league in defending the ballhandler, a situation they face 18% of the time on Defense. One of every 5.5 plays. Surprised this hasn't come up anywhere else
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everyone too complaisant I guess....
The good news is that dead last is only generating 0.95 PPP.
Being dead last in allowing spot up shooting (for instance) means giving up 1.13 PPP.
Anyone who watches the team should be well aware that our guards are not keeping their man in front of them, but the deep dive here would be whether it's partially by choice OR just something in transition as we expand our defense?
For instance, asking Kyrie to fight through screens is likely going to get him hurt. Asking him to switch every P&R is going to lead to a lot of mismatches. So if we can avoid that and keep the other team below our defensive rating (1.05 PPP - 15th in the league) ... it just might be a strategy.
Not being able to defend the ball handler isn't good, but we see almost everynight what happens if an opponent tries to sell out (send help) to try to defend our ball handlers (3's and alley oops).