defending james

[tyrant]

this was a piece of the article that jeremy posted. i didnt want to redo the entire thread because im sure it was posted there for a reason. but i saw something that stood out to me.

Dethroning King James – As if defending LeBron James isn't reason enough to come to tipoff with a focused mind-set, Kings swingman John Salmons will be looking to bounce back from a tough defensive outing against Seattle on Tuesday.
The Sonics' duo of Wally Szczerbiak and Kevin Durant combined for 59 points on 23-of-38 shooting, much of it with Salmons defending.
"The best defensive players in the world get ate up," Salmons said. "That's the league. Wally got hot, Durant had it going. That's just the league. It's hard to stop that."
It's even harder to stop James, who had his 11th career triple double (32 points, 15 rebounds, 13 assists) in a loss at Utah on Wednesday


"the best defensive players in the world get ate up"?? not to my knowledge. strong defensive players like artest, bowen, hassell, prince, kobe etc, dont let players like Wally Szerbiak go off for 30. against dallas jj barrea dropped a season high. he only scored 4 against the rockets. we need artest DESPERATELY. salmons is not a great defender.

 

[piksi]

funny enough - all the scrubs get hot against us

 

[tyrant]

artest is the only physical player on the team. bibby can be when he wants to. bibby used to own nash. man, the good ol days when we gave a damn!

 

[BawLa]

We don't need to defend LBJ as much as we need to defend all the scrub-a-dubs around him. LeBron will go off on us no matter what we try to do, so as long as garbage players like Z, Gooden and Hughes don't go big on us, then we have a chance at winning. I think there is a chance that Kevin could match LeBron scoring-wise...and if that happens then it is even more important to shut down Cleveland's scrubs.

 

[tyrant]

just as i said in a separate post. we cant let role players go off for career highs. players like Z, damon jones and gibson cant drop 20 a piece. we cant afford it

 

[BawLa]

just as i said in a separate post. we cant let role players go off for career highs. players like Z, damon jones and gibson cant drop 20 a piece. we cant afford it

Word.

I'd like to see a little Watkins vs. Gooden, and/or Watkins vs. Varejao.

 

[tyrant]

you know what, we really dont have just crappy perimeter defenders. bibby can be ok, martin can be good, artest is great and salmons is nice. we just need a power forward or center that can intimidate shots. we can force baseline all day long.

 

[mac]

Also depends what kind of defense we're playing I suppose. If I'm not wrong we were playing quite a bit of zone so if the guy is knocking down shots there's not much you can do. But if the points in the paint are bad then yeah.

 

[tyrant]

we need a new defense. zone doesnt work for everyone. i think we should start playing man and collapsing (with 1 other defender) on whoever drives inside. there would be some rotations, but thats better than trying to chase players off the perimeter. which we're not good at. thus easy and open looks for teams like dallas.

 

[mac]

Ah Dallas is just. Stackhouse and Terry are seriously lame. No offense to any dallas fans. I think the defense has been pretty alright so far, other than outside the 3 pt line. If they rebounded the ball it wouldn't be as bad.

 

[VF21]

this was a piece of the article that jeremy posted. i didnt want to redo the entire thread because im sure it was posted there for a reason. but i saw something that stood out to me.

Articles are posted in the RSS Feed section automatically. If there's one that you're interested in discussing, it's perfectly acceptable to repost it in the main forum. That's why they're there...

 

[Heuge]

just as i said in a separate post. we cant let role players go off for career highs. players like Z, damon jones and gibson cant drop 20 a piece. we cant afford it

I'm not sure if Z is just a role player, he is averaging 17pts. 14 rbs. so far.

 

[mac]

Mainly because Varejao's been out

 

[Emma]

Doesn't matter who defends James, remember when Artest got lit up by James last year at Arco? James posted 30+ points pretty much all in his face. Mostly from the perimeter.

But, like at Utah, Cleveland needs more than just James. Excellent points by above posters. I think if you limit their point guard and Big Z, you can get a win.

 

[Packt]

I'm not sure if Z is just a role player, he is averaging 17pts. 14 rbs. so far.

The fourth leading rebounder in this young season. He is a role player, but not a scrub.

 

[fnordius]

Gibson hasn't been playing like a scrub, either, and Gooden isn't great, but he's better than our PF committee. Hughes is out, so we do have a favorable matchup with Martin-Pavlovic at SG, but at every other position it's going to be tough.

 

[Gary]

I think Salmons is an OK defender. He does well against smaller players.. We have to realize we are putting him against taller/bigger players most of the time.. Wally is only 6'7 but has the weight of a PF..

Can't imagine a guy like Salmons going up against Hedo.. Hedo is like a 6'10 guard lol.. Hedo woudl tear him up.

 

[Bricklayer]

I think Salmons is an OK defender. He does well against smaller players.. We have to realize we are putting him against taller/bigger players most of the time.. Wally is only 6'7 but has the weight of a PF..

Wally may have the heft of a PF, but he doesn't remotely use it. That certainly wasn't the problem.

Now of course against King James it absolutely will be. Ron is one of the few guys at that position in the league able to physically contend wiht him. And our current group of skinny little swingmen types might as well bring saddles, because they are going for a ride anytime LeBron wants to go inside. Think I'd try Cisco on him just for the extra length + competitiveness, but that's probably just going to lead to quick foul trouble for him.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

I'm really worried about James. We have nobody within 30 lbs of him in our wings. I'm expecting Theus to possible experiment with the defense, everything from the zone, to maybe even have Kenny guard him.