Juice wrote:nixluva wrote:Childs2Dudley wrote:The coach was just on his show on MSG and was talking about the 119 point Indiana game. He said it shouldn't have gotten down to the final shot with .3 seconds left if they had just held them to 100 and the Knicks won by 17. So his defensive goal is to keep teams at 100 or less. A true coach who is serious about that end should demand 90 points or less, regardless of the team executing it or not. Giving them that much freedom allows them to relax on plays like they do now.
With the pace they want to play I understand why he set the number higher. It doesn't matter how many points as much as the effort they put into getting stops. I don't think he's saying go ahead and let them score. This is just a warped interpretation of what he was saying. We avg 106 so keeping teams to 100 or less should always be the goal. that's not saying let them score 100. They had a 2 hour practice just on D alone and this isn't the only practice where they've been going over things defensively. They didn't lose this game due to schemes or lack of being prepared. They simply didn't bring the intensity and take it serious enough. And just so you know we all know the reputations of STAT and Melo on D, but that doesn't excuse them from giving an honest effort.
Also there were mistakes made on the offensive end tonight that had nothing to do with effort on D. Just bad play and decision making from guys that aren't supposed to do such things. Billups and Melo shouldn't be the cause of a loss due to bad offense.
Then why are the players confused as what to do on D if there's this much focus on it in downtime? Maybe he's spending time going over the wrong defensive principles per his personnel. Maybe the coach has a major problem identifying offensive and defensive matchups from game to game.
Melo openly admitted they didn't scout Hansbrough to prep for the Pacers. So while coaching involves teaching offense and defense and maybe just maybe in your wildest dream he's intensely focusing on both sides...Well he's dropping the ball elsewhere and it's obvious because he isn't maximizing what he's had here all year. Not even the previous 2 seasons considering.
We haven't OVERACHIEVED under his watch 3yrs here and we should have at least 1 of these seasons. This you can't deny and don't have a case for.
They weren't confused that often tonight. The biggest issue I saw was a lack of urgency to start the game. This allowed the Pistons to gain confidence. Weak teams know our reputation is that we play down to the competition. They've seen our games too. So it's the mental approach of our players that has to change. They think they're better than they are and that they can turn it on when they have to, but what they don't realize is that they let the other team gain a comfort level and confidence and then it's hard to close them out, cuz they can smell they have a chance to win. These teams give us their best effort and we aren't matching the intensity. They view the Knicks like the Heat now.
You're wrong about Melo saying we didn't scout Hansbrough. He was complaining about schemes not changing and then he contradicted himself and asked that they not make so many changes. He should keep his mouth shut and just play some D. I think you're paying too much attention to what's written and said around here by some with agendas. There were a few instances where the team was out of synch defensively, but that wasn't the main reason they lost. Watch the game again if you can and then break down what actually happened in the game, cuz it doesn't seem like you watched what was happening.
3/18/2011 10:34 PM
