CrushAlot wrote:nixluva wrote:Childs2Dudley wrote:nixluva wrote:Childs2Dudley wrote:Let me re-add this for the whole "we were tired" excuse: Mavericks were also playing their 4th game in 5 nights.
I don't think it's just some physical fatigue, but also a mental fatigue. They were flat when the game started and didn't match the intensity of the Mavs, who were spoiling for a chance to prove their coach wrong. We were ice cold to start the game and eventually they got things going on both ends and got back into the game. Still the Mavs are not only better, but they're deeper too, so it's real hard to come back against them. I won't say that it was just one thing, but a combination.
Still what's more important than overreacting to this one bad game is how they play in the next 5 games stretch, which has many winnable games. They need to get back to playing hard on D and get some wins in this stretch. Hopefully the extra day off will help them get some energy back and maybe we get healthy and get Billups back too.
I am not overreacting to one bad game. I am reacting to a career of a head coach who has not changed one iota since he's been here. He could be stressing defense but his defensive philosophy and execution suck.
The team had just won 3 games and had shown improvement on the defensive end. It's not perfect, but they have been playing a bit better. The Mavs game was the only one that they really stunk on D the entire 1st half. I'm more interested to see how they snap back from that. If they go on to again play D and win games, then it's just a blip on the screen.
D'Antoni really doesn't coach defense. He can kind of coach a zone and if guys on his team are good enough it might work to a certain degree. However, in the process of not coaching defense he doesn't prepare his team to defend their opponents. The mantra let them adjust to us might work on offense but it doesn't work when Shawne Williams is trying to defend Dwight Howard. This is the same sh@t he was pulling in Phoenix except that he had Marion, STat Nash and Johnson for part of the time. Even with Melo the Knicks don't have two mvp canidates like his Phoenix teams always did.
I don' think you or C2D are paying attention to the type of players MDA has been given when trying to implement defense.
So he did play Williams on Howard, and Williams actually did do a decent job. Who else was there? What's the alternative?
MDA just had about his 3rd roster turnover in 3 years making for ~6 different sets of guys (starters mostly) who have to learn to play together. And in each of those iterations, neither the C or PF has been stellar at defense. If you think otherwise, please help me be more informative.
And they just played a Dallas team who has been together for about 3-4 years.
Patience.
