Nov 13, 2024
9:52:10pm
Mitty Intervention Needed
Here's what I'm seeing with the perimeter D, what about you?
I can't figure out what they are trying to do. I guess more correctly said I can't figure out why it's so sloppy, and whether the main problems are poor effort, poor scheme, or poor execution. Could be any of them or all I guess. I see evidences of all three. It's just absolutely pathetic.

1. Frequently you have two switch on to the same cutter going inside, leaving someone wide open outside.
2. No lateral quickness, flat feet, no attempt to stay in front of your man. Just matador defense, as if one of two things: Either they are being coached to let guys go (which to an idiot like me seems weird and encouraging laziness and risky even with a switch-heavy D) or they are just being poorly motivated and lazy and taking no pride in defensive fundamentals.
3. Often with the peel/switch you'll see us end up defending 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 at the elbow or top for a couple seconds, but more like half-defending without the pressure that SHOULD bring on the ball. We give the opponent tons of space to just dump off the ball to the open guy that has no defender around him, which is usually at the 3pt line. Look at the sequence 15:40 to 15:30 remaining second half of Queens game, but there are many examples of this.
4. Guys are really sagging down inside as a general rule and giving shooters tons of space.
5. Closeouts when they notice an open shooter are sometimes slow and lazy and not even close to on time, but sometimes over-aggressive and you end up with a fly-by that allows a sidestep three or some ball movement to an open guy in 5 on 4.
6. Help rotations down to their big rolling through the key when our big shows up top are late consistently, and this allows an easy entry pass that can collapse the D and leave shooters open outside for a second pass out.
7. There's a weird tendency to not play your man straight up at times but over-guard the passing lanes, which often are not even a valid passing lane because there's no one there and the defender can't see behind himself to register that. For an example of this, see 25s left in the first half of the Queens game, where Mag steps to the side to guard open space instead of sticking with his man, who takes an open three.
8. Just bad, bad, bad inexcusable positioning/rotations. Look how Knell and Keita get mixed up at 19:47 start of second half.

It feels a bit like a switching zone around the perimeter except without specific zone assignments, the players move all over the floor, but they leave tons of gaping holes because they are continually trying to over-compensate elsewhere. And then once the pass is made, the over-compensation looks ridiculous and out of position.

Mag was getting torched by their guards 1-on-1, his lateral quickness looks terrible. I wonder if he'll never recover from that knee injury.
This message has been modified
Originally posted on Nov 13, 2024 at 9:52:10pm
Message modified by Mitty on Nov 13, 2024 at 9:58:34pm
Message modified by Mitty on Nov 13, 2024 at 10:00:02pm
Mitty
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Mitty
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