mrKnickShot wrote:nixluva wrote:It's not blind love!!! If you use LOGIC instead of just going with the cliche's the media talks about you know that MDA's teams in PHX were never bad defensively despite not have a Center and Nash and STAT playing major minutes and being awful defenders. You think a defensive coach is gonna make Nash a better defender? How good could those teams be with STAT in there and no Center? Despite that fact the Suns were never a bottom half of the league team defensively.Now here this year we actually have defensive players. MDA picked Shump. MDA wanted Jared. MDA clearly has no problem playing guys that are good defenders as some seem to think. Having Tyson has made a huge difference as MDA has never had a great defensive C. It's more about the players MDA has being better defensively than some major change in coaching. They run the same defense, but this year they have better players executing it. You really need a good defensive anchor at C and a guard or two that can defend on the perimeter for any team to have good D.
I don't use logic - its blinding if you use it wrong 
If he was so good defensively, why did Kerr want him to hire a defensive coach? Did Kerr think he was a good defensive coach? I trust Kerr's judgement more than mine or yours.
I don't really care what he did in PHX or what he did before. I don't care if he gets credit, woodson does, or anything else. I want them to win now and play good D now. He needs to figure out how to not be at the bottom of the NBA if opponents FG pct/allowed. Thats what I care about now.
You care too much about the politics / partisanship. Who cares? So people might think MDA is good or not good or decent - why do you care SO MUCH!!??
You are the one making a mistake. I don't like when people make statements that aren't true or that lack insight into the nuances of a given subject. Black or White judgments that ignore the large Grey areas in the middle bother me. So I often end up taking the position of defense only because there are so many making snap judgments without looking deeper.
So many fans jumped on him saying he was a beneficiary of Steve Nash and never really was a good coach. They ignore the facts of his tenure as coach in PHX. Then here in NY when he had decent PG's not named Nash the offense looks almost exactly the same in terms of it's efficiency. MDA came back to the US a Legend in Europe. He was a PG and his system is PG centric. However he never has been understood defensively.
Defending D'Antoni's D
June, 1, 2010By Tom Haberstroh
During Donnie Walsh's appearance on 1050's McDonald and Tierney show last Friday, he was asked whether coach Mike D’Antoni needs help on the bench. This brings up a provocative topic.
Brandon Tierney: "Are you thinking about, or moving in the direction of, hiring a defensive coach to supplement what Mike D’Antoni does very well [offensively]?"
Walsh: "If you’re judging it on the Knicks teams, we did not have a team that had the personnel to play good defense, so nine-tenths of the problem was right there. And it depends on how you judge defense. If you’re gonna talk about how many points the team gives up playing when it’s playing a fast-paced game, that’s not the proper way to judge a defense for a fast-paced team. And that is the way most of the NBA teams are ranked -- how many points you give up in a game. If you look at Mike’s differential, how many points he scored versus how many points he give up, it’s a completely different picture. And we have further stats for that ... We’re just not accepting that Mike’s not a good defensive coach because everybody’s writing it now."
Walsh isn’t spewing propaganda to stick up for his coach; he’s absolutely right. The Suns teams under D’Antoni had the right personnel for his system. They sure played fast, but they weren’t horrid defensive teams as they were generally labeled by the media. In fact, all four of his full-season Suns teams were better defensively than the one Alvin Gentry had in the Western Conference finals this year.
It all comes down to tempo. Critics were quick to point out that D’Antoni’s offenses weren’t that good because his fast-paced play skewed the outrageous per-game numbers, but those same critics conveniently ignored the flipside of that equation: his defense wasn’t that bad, either.
Faster pace leads to more scoring opportunities but to properly grade a defense, one should look at the rate at which the other teams scored. To do that, we call upon a statistic called Defensive Rating (DRtg) which adjusts for "pace" (a team's possessions per game) and measures how many points a team allows per 100 possessions.
PACING THEMSELVES
When the numbers are adjusted using Defensive Rating, D'Antoni's Phoenix teams don't look all that bad defensively.
Season Pace Rank D-Rtg Rank PPG Allowed Rank
2007-08 96.7 4th 108.1 16th 105.0 25th
2006-07 95.6 3rd 106.4 13th 102.9 23rd
2005-06 95.8 1st 105.8 16th 102.8 28th
2004-05 95.9 1st 107.1 17th 103.3 Last
If anything, D’Antoni’s defenses were no better or worse than average once you consider their affinity for stepping on the gas. And armed with a juggernaut offense, that’s all a team really needs. To be fair to D’Antoni, his time in New York has been marred by roster turnover and his personnel were never defensively motivated. It’s a hard task for any NBA coach to get his team to play defense, but it’s virtually impossible if that team employs defensive matadors like David Lee, Tracy McGrady, Larry Hughes, Nate Robinson and Eddie House. If Walsh can find the right ingredients this summer, D’Antoni could have a winning recipe for years to come.
