We had one of the best defenses in the league when the team was healthy. This assistant coaches work looked brilliant.
Our bad play starts at the top. (Coaching) staff. If you cant get guys to commit defensively your in trouble. Its one thing when shots dont fall. At some point they will. But defense any unskilled person should be able to to an extent. We dont have that. D'antoni isnt preaching defense and i feel the staff isnt on the same page. We having some sort of behind the scenes issue . There is no excuse for the losses to mediocre teams
Team defense is 100% coaching driven. You may or may not have good individual defenders, but a good team defensive scheme can be implemented by a defensive minded coaching staff. Our coaching staff has failed at doing that and has shown no improvement from last year. We have too many good individual defenders to be this mediocre on defense. It's a joke. Unless Moute really is the greatest defender ever.
I think with MDA’s soft approach and our star’s unwillingness to focus on defense first is why Bzdelik or whoever you bring in not going to be able to make your defense great. We have responsibility issues starting at the top. I personally hate our switch everything defense as small guys are in bigs, bigs on quick guards and wings constantly and we get burned from 3. Our personnel is also a problem of course, but not that much. Gordon is very decent, Ryan looked good before. CP3, Ariza, Tucker and Mbah are very good. You can work with Capela and Black, Harden too so shouldn’t be this bad. I like to believe it’s about effort more so than anything though.
I’m a huge Liggins fan. He’s a great perimeter defender. When we acquired him ever so briefly (before including him in the CP3 deal) this summer I thought Morey figured it out. He’d be a solid situational defender and secondary playmaker.
I'm going to give them another month and a half to work on it, but in general is has become obvious to me that we will not win a ring unless there are 4 competent defenders around James Harden when he's on the floor. Our bench has to defend too. So much of what we want to do requires our bench to be dominant on both ends, almost acting as a 3rd star on this team. But I'm starting to join the crowd that believes you cannot beat an elite team when 2 of your 5 defenders and starters are James Harden and Ryan Anderson.
harden's fault for spoiling this team with his mvp-level 30+ point scored/50+ point produced games coaching staff & roster need to learn how to win with putting max effort with their own D & O
What about James Harden elevates his D to championship level, is it harder than surrounding him with 4 Defenders like in the Old Pistons Days? Or even Marvel's Defenders.
WTF?! Zero defensive adjustments in a month and a half. Luc returning helped somewhat but it’s still a layup line to the rim. Wide open shots. Eric Gordon defending Blake Griffin. Paging @Codman hope that help is coming soon.
We had a top 5 defense in the league when we were healthy and playing one of the easiest schedules early in the season, who knew?
Help comes in many ways. There might be a bit of a sting depending on the help you receive though. The Rockets' record and shooters creates a great deal of chatter. Teams like many of our pieces. We like our pieces for the most part. Protection will come in the form of some sacrifice, as it always does. Luckily, there is no disgruntled bench guy this year. Only inexperience.
Tarik Black is such a liability I’d welcome the sting of Dwight Howard (off our bench) for Ryan Anderson.