why is shot blocking so important--it effects the entire D

You can over play perimeter players, forcing them to put the ball on the basket and moving them into the shot blockers. Also shot blockers tend to have long arms and can show well over picks which breaks down a whole facet of offense.

A big problem with the Knicks is they dont identify their man, they are often caught helping down low, leaving wide open perimeter shots which creates more space for the offense. the worst thing you want to give to an offense is space. Our front guy dont move well laterally and we dont have shot blocking--all tremendous negatives.

Posted by martin:

of course the other side of that equation is that good man-to-man defenders would alleviate some of the ned for shot-blocking prowess.

The Riles Knicks did have Ewing, but Oak, LJ, Mason, Mase, Starks, Anthony, Childs, Ward, Doc, Harper all knew and understood team D and none were really shotblockers.

Good point Martin, though I often wonder how good would those Knick teams be with the new rules in place now. Like how effective would Harper's defense be, with a no hand checking rule. Hell the NBA put that rule into effect mainly because of him and that 94 Knicks team. And Harper was soon gone not too soon after.

Posted by BRIGGS:

teams that hold winning % 1-2-3-4-5-6 also hold the top 6 spots in shot blocking differential

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/stats/byteam?cat1=Total&cat2=diff&conference=NBA&year=season_2005


it shows how much lane intimidation means in the sport of basketball. I looked at every differntial, and nothing stood out like this--there was a direct correlation to winning and shot blocking

That's really interesting - I would not have thought that. I would have thought that once a team established it's shot blocking ability opponents would drive less and the number of blocks would go down. SO the teams with the best shot blockers would not definitely block the most shots.