Our defense is better than you think (and other thoughts)

[Kings4life23]

Honestly, I don't think its IT's fault. If you ask me, it is more MTs fault. Sure he can drop 20 on you, but he can easily give up 20 on the end. And he gambles instead of playing defense. Which is why I personally think if anyone of our 5 should be a role player off the bench, it would be him.

IT and Marcus should not be starting. Personally I would love to see this starting lineup.

Tyreke Evans
Terrence Williams
Donte Green
Jason Thompson
Demarcus Cousins

This lineup would vastly improve are defense and we would get that offensive power off the bench. Not to mention Tyreke has always worked well with Donte and Jason.Unfortunately this lineup will never happen in the Smart era.

 

[Gilles]

IT as a starter: home 6-6, road 1-8. Best teams beat were 27-21 Memphis (3rd game in 5 days), 29-23 Dallas that played...wait...7 games in 9 days before that game (no matter how difficult a schedule your team have nothing beats 9 games in 11 days, yes, after the Kings game they flew to Denver and played there the next day to finish their 3 straight-btb-3 straight) or you can take (4th game in 6 nights) Boston.
IT on the bench: home 7-5, road 3-14 and home 6-3, road 3-13 after Westfall. Best wins - 39-12 OKC (4th game in 5 days) and 35-14 SAS (4th game in 6 days).
In ten games before trip to Detroit (4-6 in both record and home-road games) Kings lost maximum by 15 points with -1.9 points differential. Since then -1.5 in 19 games (record 7-14, home/road - 12-9), biggest loss -26.

 

[Gary]

Do the last 10 games now with the 35% from the tonight. We should be about where we were in the first 7 games. But still last in the league.

If we're last in the league, then we're last in the league. The two defensive stats I care about most are opp fg% and pt diff. As long as we are last in the NBA then there will be a huge need for improvement. We were last at the start of the year with out supposedly better defensive team, and are last now. At least we couldn't sink any further than last. Only goes up from where we stand!


last last last last last.. Did i say it enough? We have been last all year. So this "so called" defensive team everyone wants to see that played earlier in the year was last as well. So who cares.

 

[Bricklayer]

Do the last 10 games now with the 35% from the tonight. We should be about where we were in the first 7 games. But still last in the league.

If we're last in the league, then we're last in the league. The two defensive stats I care about most are opp fg% and pt diff. As long as we are last in the NBA then there will be a huge need for improvement. We were last at the start of the year with out supposedly better defensive team, and are last now. At least we couldn't sink any further than last. Only goes up from where we stand!


last last last last last.. Did i say it enough? We have been last all year. So this "so called" defensive team everyone wants to see that played earlier in the year was last as well. So who cares.

No, actually it wasn't other than the hopeless fist few games under Westphal. But it was still bad. There are no good defense possibilities for htis roster. There are however choices to be made about whether you want to be bad, terrible, worst in the league, or worst in the league by a lot.

 

[Gary]

No, actually it wasn't other than the hopeless fist few games under Westphal. But it was still bad. There are no good defense possibilities for htis roster. There are however choices to be made about whether you want to be bad, terrible, worst in the league, or worst in the league by a lot.

I figured our options were;

1. Last in the league
2. Last in the league by a lot

With both being last in the league I figured as long as they were in each game then we could go from there and work on other aspects. At the start of the year we didn't have anything to start with really. We were near last in offense and last in defense so I will take the improvement on offense and let them have an offseason and a training camp to see where the team is headed with the players we have.

 

[Boogie-havoc]

IT is probably our best perimeter defender.

I just find it highly ammusing that people come and say he's the reason for why our defense is so bad - when he infact is prolly the best out of all our starters at defending, and maybe even the best on the entire team not named Chuck Hayes, atleast being right up there.

You guys just look at his size, see he's 5'9 and say " OH LOOK HE'S UNDERSIZED. OH NO SMALL BALL. HE IS A LIABILITY LOOK HOW SMALL HE IS"

When infact If you stopped obsessing about his size, and actually focused on the game instead - you would see he more then holds his own as a defender against just about everybody, and does a better job then just about anyone else on our team and is actually :

ranked 53rd in the league on Isolation Defense, holding his opponents to 33.9% FG

ranked 67th in the league on PNR Defense, holding his opponents to 36.7% FG

ranked 26th in the league on Post-up Defense, holding his opponents to 29.4% FG


To put the blaim to our defensive troubles on the best perimeter defender on our team has got to be the most absurd thing I have ever heard.

But hey, he's a 5'9 midget no? . Then he MUST be the reason why we suck defensively. To the bench at once.

 

[Gilles]

Care to post his Spot-Up because early in the season he was scored on at a whopping 1.58 PPP rate - you can shoot over him, surprise, surprise.
Also are there statistics on how many possessions guys get help defense on their man? Are there statistics what opponent's average production is - guarding Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha you definitely have different expectations.
Thomas is guarding opposing PGs so when he's beat and there's rotating I expect much better shot for opposing team to come out of that situation than if we are talking about swingmen.
But in the end this team plays really bad transition and team defense which you can never pin on certain players but rather on coaching staff.