Re: Magic game

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

At 04:21 PM 10/25/00 -0400, Kestutis Kveraga wrote: 
>
> You've distilled the issue very nicely here. Still, I think we have a better
> shot playing a man-to-man defense (and double-teaming only when absolutely
> necessary), rather than "headless chicken".  The reason I say that is that,
> IMO, even physically average defenders can play pretty good man-to-man
> defense when motivated. Sure, it helps if you have the physical abilities of
> a Bo Outlaw or Theo Ratliff, but the difference is not that great, because
> man-to-man defense is mostly being motivated to work hard on D (and that's
> Pitino's specialty, no?). Whereas if a complicated defensive scheme is not
> executed to perfection (which it rarely if ever seems to be in our case),
> it's a complete breakdown. 
> With Brown, Griffin, Stith, even Herren and Pierce, we could have good
> conventional defense on the perimeter. The problem is the interior defense -
> some people can do some things well (Pot push people around, Battie and
Moiso
> block shots), but no Celtic big man has the complete defensive package.
> Blount may become that player, but he needs to figure out what's allowed in
> the NBA, and generally get his feet wet. 
> Kestas 


You make a good point. Basically, any sort of rotating defensive scheme has
both the benefits and drawbacks of group work. You can get synergy but it's
hard to separate individual accountability. And you also pinpoint our problem,
which is interior defense, especially now that Anderson isn't the only option
at point guard. Unfortunately, I think we need not just one  strong defensive
player, but two, for the 4 and 5 spots. Right now we have zero -- as you say,
Potapenko can bang inside but that doesn't make him a good defensive
player; it
just means that he doesn't get overpowered by the "sheer force" type players.
He still gets beat by the quicker guys and isn't quite long or athletic enough
for many of the others. He's basically one-dimensional on defense. But the
other guys get overpowered by the sheer force types. I think that if we ever
want to be a championship team we're going to have to acquire at least one of
these types either through the draft or trade because you can't double team
every play and be a great defensive team.

I guess the numbers that really made an impression on me was the 52 and 54 FG%
allowed that Pitino mentioned when talking about our PF and C's man-to-man
defense. Maybe he's made a mistake in aggregating those numbers because maybe
David Robinson shot 75% and run-of-the-mill-PF shot 40%, and we don't need to
double team the second guy. But ignoring that, those numbers seem to indicate
that a lot of double teaming would be necessary. 

Alex