We Need Change

        whether at the NBA level or the local Y.
I loved getting the young hoppity kid who would
throw up shots on O and not get correct position
or communicate on defense. Easy buckets !

but probably not this year.

I happen to trust KP’s evaluation of the coaching staff and the team’s progress—and I suspect that Pritchard is more happy than glad. His Master Plan isn’t about this year, even if we have to watch the occasional travesty.

it’s the pick and roll defense that cheeses me off. Switching is something you should do only to make sure that no one is uncovered. You should fight as hard as you can through the screen/pick to stay on your original dude.

The Blazers’ philosophy is to accept the switch as inevitable even on the perimeter. Are you telling me that Bayless isn’t fast enough to go around the screen to guard his man? Is 3 s of a free man worse than Oden picking up a cheap foul trying to stop a fast dude from getting to the hoop?

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really know that much about basketball. I never played organized ball and don’t play as much recreationally as I’d like. However, I do know that the goal is to put the ball in the hoop and the easiest way to do that is to get a good shot and the best way to do that is to exploit a mismatch. It seems that you want to create/exploit mismatches on the offensive end and minimize mismatches on the defensive end. The Blazers seem to welcome mismatches on the defensive end.

…I voted for Obama

We would change immediately for the short run and long run with him. I don’t know why Paul Allen just doesn’t shell out the cash and bring him in. Bring him and Jamario Moon in for RLEC+Sergio+Outlaw and this team might actually have a 3 year championship window rather than the current 50 year window with the current squad.

and I doubt there’s some magical formula coach X is going to implement that will solve our woes. We’re playing rookies. Lots of rookies. Therefore there will be mistakes. Lots of mistakes.

For me, I’m looking at the postives and enjoying things like our reeediculous rebounding rate and stuff like that. Who cares if they shoot a couple percent points higher than they should if we don’t give ’em any second chance points.

It all balances out.

With that said I think is a great coach but he doesnt seem to be able to get these guys to defend the pick and roll. Was at my sons high school basketball game and they did a better job on the pick and roll then the blazers. I think that a few players with more experience (other coaches) would be a major advantage to this team. This team needs a vocal leader

Anyone know the over/under on how long people will be spouting this until reality catches up with us and shatters that notion? Anyone see the game last night? Anyone see the previous 10? Bayless is not a defensive presence. For Bayless fans, I’ll say ‘Not yet a presence’ but really since the above quote addresses the ‘right now,’ where potential is irrelevant.

How much would a different coaching staff change the defensive performance of the Blazers? It’s a hard question to evaluate. We don’t get to compare the Blazers with this coaching staff and another coaching staff playing the same teams over and over.

What do we know:

-The Blazers are not a good defensive team. Any way you slice it, they are below average. About the only thing they do well is get offensive rebounds.
 
-In general, teams that are good at rebounding are good at defense. For example, the Celtics are the best rebounding team and the best defensive team. More generally, the correlation between rebound % and defensive efficiency is .55 (pretty good). This makes sense directly because you need the ball to be able to score. It also makes sense because usually teams with big, strong interiors rebound well and are hard to score on. The Blazers, however, are the largest “bad” outlier of this relationship; they are much worse defensively than one would expect from how they rebound. What this says to me is that the Blazers have the athletes to defend, but aren’t able to do it.

-In general, teams that are good at rebounding are good at defense. For example, the Celtics are the best rebounding team and the best defensive team. More generally, the correlation between rebound % and defensive efficiency is .55 (pretty good). This makes sense directly because you need the ball to be able to score. It also makes sense because usually teams with big, strong interiors rebound well and are hard to score on. The Blazers, however, are the largest “bad” outlier of this relationship; they are much worse defensively than one would expect from how they rebound. What this says to me is that the Blazers have the athletes to defend, but aren’t able to do it.

-I could write pretty much the same thing about the relationship between offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency. Again, the Blazers are bad outliers. Better offensive teams tend to be better defensive teams. Better athletes and coaching are better on O and D. The Blazers, however, are a good offensive team, a good rebounding team, but a terrible defensive team. They are the only team like that.

-Of course, younger teams are worse at defense than older teams. The Blazers are young, so there’s nothing that can be done about that. On the other hand, in general, younger teams are worse at offense AND defense. In fact, age IS NOT more strongly correlated with defensive efficiency than offensive efficiency. And, offensive efficiency and rebound are better predictors of defensive efficiency than age. So age might be part of the problem, but it’s not the whole problem.

-Beyond that, what can we say? Does the team have athletes that are better suited to offense than defense? There isn’t any definitely evidence one way or another, since just about everyone on the team has been a Blazer their entire careers. So, we don’t know if the current roster is full of “soft”, finesse guys or if the coaching system produces soft looking defense. The available comparisons DO NOT suggest that playing for the Blazers under Nate significantly improves a player’s deffensive ratings:

According to 82games.com, the player Blake defends this season is giving up a PER of 15.3
http://www.82games.com/0809/08POR1.HTM#bypos

And Blake on the Denver nuggets gave up a PER of 14.8.
http://www.82games.com/0607/06DEN3C.HTM

When guarding PGs, Jack yield about the same PER last year for the Blazers as this year for the Indiana pacers, 16.8 and 16.9. Jack did a bit better defending SG for the Blazers (13.5) than defending them for Indiana (15.3).
http://www.82games.com/0809/08IND3.HTM#bypos
http://www.82games.com/0708/07POR3C.HTM

My gut tells me that combining the current roster with a different defensive system could improve their numbers. There’s no iron clad evidence that that’s true, but I think when you break things down and look at the roster and what it does well and what it does poorly, scheme and coaching are the biggest culprits.

What should be done? Schematically, I’d like to see more traps of pick and rolls. I’d like to see more double teaming of hot players.

More important than changing schemes/tactics, however, is how defense is coached to the players. I’d suggest that Allen and KP go out and do everything they can to hire the most talented defensive coach in the association. Be as aggressive and creative in finding coaching as they are in acquiring talent on the floor. In reality, KP and Allen should have a bigger advantage in acquiring coaching talent than acquiring playing talent because there are fewer constraints in the coaching ranks. Get it done, KP!