After giving up 119 points in two straight games.. it is apparent to me and everyone else that defense is a major problem with this year's squad, even more so than last year. When Asik was brought in over the summer, everyone was excited about having a big guy down low to defend and plug the "hole" in our defense from last year. But things have moved in the wrong direction. Is this a personnel problem, or a coaching problem? Parsons, Asik, sometimes Harden, and even Lin occasionally are capable of being good individual defenders. TJones coming off the bench has shown flashes of good defense, especially in the preseason. How do we get this team to play good team defense? Is this a cleverly disguised "fire McHale" thread??
our biggest concern is point guard play...Lin and Toney Douglas will never cut it as PG Depth...Maybe Machado will improve...
Watching Dauris morris destroy Lin and Douglas to supposed good defensive PG's was sad. Watching Harden lose defensive assignment off the ball was infurating but the team defensive was the worst of all. Patterson kept asking for help on Gasol, but none even botherd attempting fake any help defense. Miscommunication was killing us out there.
Agreed. Patterson is a lost cause I think on defense. He is very soft on defense and constantly leaves the PF open. It's infuriating. I'd rather give TJones a shot.
offense and defense are interdependent...Poor offense leads to poor defense...good defense can help facilitate better O.... Lin's Defense is AWFUL...off the ball and rotation wise... we NEED AN NBA STARTING PG...2-5 are good....we have a backup pg running a team with 4 starters...sheesh
Hey dumbass, most of the damage came from the paint or Kobe. Neither Lin or douglas were guarding them.
Reasonable point, but we gave up 70% shooting in the first half! I know they are good, but damn. And I really don't like the latest trend of players to have career games against us. Vasquez had a career night when we played the Hornets, and both Batum annd Lillard had career nights on Friday. And Dwight and Kobe had arguably their best game of the year so far tonight. Jeez it's frustrating!
PG is the anchor of your team...much like a QB in football...having a trickle down effect on all other 4 positions...you will see how much a real PG can help a team once we replace Lin...i think it is clear that we only had a 25 game sample on him...rolled the dice and gave him 8 mil per year, and it is a bust, i think Morey's fate is tied to Lin's...giving up on Lin will mean we must fire Morey...which i wont be adverse to.. not only is Lin backup pg at best...he does not show any area of improvement...he doesnt have any potential...
Young teams don't defend consistently well. It happens & the LAL were hot tonight. The coaching staff has this mentality of helping off to defend the paint & leaving guys wide open. It is frustrating to watch although I do understand the defend the paint premise.
By benching Lin and putting in Douglas for his better "looking" on the ball defence by waving his arms around like crazy scaring the crap out of opposing PGs so they freeze and drop the ball. On offense, Douglas can gain 1-2 seconds by bringing the ball up the court faster to give it to Harden. No seriously, Lakers were just red hot tonight, which isn't surprising when u have Howard, Bryant and Gasol on your team. We got outplayed by a strong championship contending team at their homecourt. Yes, few things to fix and learn, but I think some fans are really overreacting to this loss. Now if we got beat by say Washington tonight like this, then there might be more reasons to worry.
The Rox staff imply Patterson is playing over T Jones because of his defense but he cant rebound to save his life, which is a HUGE part of defense. I feel T Jones can do more (block shots, rebound, etc.) than PPat on the offensive and defensive end. The Rox are giving up offensive rebounds and put backs which is contributing to more points.