blkexec wrote:Believe it or not, but this team is not athletic enough to play lock down defense. We have the best offensive weapons at several positions, but lack the lateral quickness at almost all positions. And we are too quick to switch.

I've seen several times when STAT would help on the dribble drive, just to recover too slow back to his man for an open shot.

If you are not athletic enough to play help defense, and play defense on your man, you need to stop helping.

This team needs to play more zone defense.....Shump is the only athletic guard that can play multiple positions, so he can switch on those pick and rolls. Douglas needs to stop switching and just anticipate those picks. Fight over the pick and make the ref blow the whistle.

good defense doesn't require athleticism. oakley could barely jump 6 inches off the floor. amar'e and melo are two of the most athletic players in the league. tyson chandler is an all world defender in the right situation. iman shumpert is one of the most athletic nba players in the league right now.

it's not about athleticism, it's about the team concept and trust.

and it's hard to have trust when the head coach is throwing the defensive assistant who he didn't want to hire under the bus.

crzymdups wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:So MDA never said anything about Woodson but HATERZ have to invent crap so that there's some controversy. MDA has tried to make this Woodson thing a non issue by saying he's here for more than just coaching D. He was trying to take the pressure off of Woodson, not scapegoat him!!!

Before this game we had seen better defense from this team. One game doesn't make a trend. D'Antoni and the Staff have work to do, that's all. They need to keep working on it until the team gets it.

I agree Woodson is there to help with the D in practice but MDA is the voice of the team on the bench. He is the Head Coach. He is the one responsible for making in game defensive adjustments which he finally made during the last 2 minutes of a blowout. Like I said the whole defensive coordinator Mike Woodson thing is a joke and will never work

agree with the bolded part.

i take it as a VERY bad sign that he is already trying to pass the blame on to woodson for the D.

this is reminding me of larry brown's last (only) season in NY.

i think this is gonna get ugly.

Still don't understand your thinking here. What was D'Antoni supposed to say was wrong with the team tonight? it was clearly a lack of defense. So how do you turn this into a MDA dumping on Woodson thing?

He doesn't coach.

crzymdups wrote:

mrKnickShot wrote:The funny thing is: you never heard him really talking about defense in post games before. its allways about "shots" "flow" "run more" ...

Why now?

watch the video on MSG's website. he smiles like a cheshire cat when he says it. he's clearly saying "hey, it's the defense, which i supposedly don't coach. talk to woodson."

Well he might be trying to say that it does not matter who coaches these players - they won't play defense for anyone.

I give him 20 games to show that he is for this team.

NYKBocker wrote:Amare is a bad man-to-man defender. Melo defends when he feels like it. Solution? Do what Dallas did last year...Start playing some zone defense. We also did this before the Melo trade and it worked somewhat. Having Tyson and Amare protecting the basket should eliminate that stupid problem we have of switching every time there is a pick set. We have the 7 footers...use them.

I think they were reluctant to go to the zone early on cuz they want the players to learn and master the D as they've been practicing. Now tho they may start to use it since it's evident that these guys aren't able to defend straight up.

I think it's a matter of pride for the staff too cuz they've been working hard on the D. People have to realize that Woodson and the whole staff doesn't like looking bad. They know people will blame them, even tho it's really the players.

I was very encouraged by what we got out of Shump. He was fearless on D. It did kind of energize the team and the crowd, but it was already a bit too late. The Bobcats had already gained confidence.

NYKBocker wrote:Amare is a bad man-to-man defender. Melo defends when he feels like it. Solution? Do what Dallas did last year...Start playing some zone defense. We also did this before the Melo trade and it worked somewhat. Having Tyson and Amare protecting the basket should eliminate that stupid problem we have of switching every time there is a pick set. We have the 7 footers...use them.

Both are capable of blocking shots & rebouding. Im in favor of playing zone since our guards can't keep players in front of them and fight over picks. Especially Landry Fields who is a SF & is not quick enough to stay in front of any SG.