RE: Defense?

[Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>]

At 02:29 AM 3/12/98 -0500 Ryan wrote:
>Wasn't there a lot of talk about learning The Pitino Press/Defense during 
>the preseason?  Kenny's supposed to pick this up in a few weeks during the 
>season, while others barely learned it in a couple of weeks of training 
>camp devoted to defense?

In response to Bentz's message:
>There may be a lot of factors that play into this, but I found this
>quote on the Boston Globe site.

>> While Kenny Anderson has provided an undeniable lift to the Boston
offense, >> the team is allowing 101.5 points a game since he came aboard.
In those eight >>games, five opponents, including the last three, have shot
50 percent or >>better ..
[quotation spacing edited by me, but none of the text]

Yeah, there was a lot of talk, but I don't think that's as relevant here as
you appear to be indicating.
To begin with, the ones who had to learn it preseason were mostly rookies or
guys with very little NBA experience. KA himself, in a radio interview on
WEEI around the time of the trade, said that because of his own baskerball
knowledge and esperience, he only expected it to take a few games for him to
catch on.

Forther, at the beginning of the season, EVERYONE was learning it, or
re-learning it, limiting the amount of help they could give each other in
understanding it or performing it. Theoretically at least, KA just had to
insert himself into a team that already understood what to do. Reality, of
course, isn't that simple, because they're still all learning to some
degree. But that's still not as much of a problem as at the beginning.

Billup's defense was underappreciated. It's a lot easier to play successful
defense of of size, athleticism, and effort than it is successful offense,
which requires more co-operative effort and fine tuning. Defense has long
been considered KA's weak spot, although I think he's been barely adequate,
rather than poor, on the Cs.

The problems come from a few things. The weak spot of the press comes when
teams get past it. The better one on one defender makes this more difficult
to begin with and is better able to keep applying pressure on the one who
ends up with the ball. You also need a solid paint presence to keep that
from turning into layup drills. We don't have one. So, breakdowns in the
team defense are going to lead to more hoops with KA on the court, because
he doesn't have the same ability to stop his guy one on one, and doesn't
have a safety net working the paint to cover up for his mistakes. He also
exposes the weaknesses in others' defensive play more, because HE'S less
able to cover up for them.

At the same time, in fairness to KA, his tendonitis is undoubtable making
the difference worse. And as the entire team improves, his own deficiencies
are likely to matter less, because others can pick up the slack. And I still
think the difference he makes to the offensive development of the other
players, so long as the knee problems don't become chronic, is worth the
trade off. 

-Kim
Kim Malo
kmalo19@idt.net