What About Defense?

arthurracoon

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As Bob Kemp on AM 1060 has said, the Suns have gotten much better offensively, but what about on defense?

The defense SUCKED last year. It SUCKED. Anyone could drive to the hole.


What has been done to improve that aspect of the game.


People seem to be wanting to trade JJ or Marion. JJ is the best defender on this team followed by Marion.


This team MUST get a decent defensive big man to have a shot.
 

Bada0Bing

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I think that they're working on that. We're going to be "shocked" any day now.
 

JCSunsfan

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We added depth. Players will be fresher, will not have to pace themselves. But the greatest advantage of depth is that there is competition for minutes. If MD really wants to improve the D, he can make game minutes dependent upon it.
 

scotsman13

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arthurracoon said:
This team MUST get a decent defensive big man to have a shot.



i am just wondering who the great defensive big man that the pistons had last year? ben wallace? no he is 6'9" and a power forward. oh then you mean rasheed wallace no he was a small forward or power forward. oh you mean okur? no while he is a center the pistons thought so much of him that he was let go for a little over the MLE.

so again where is the great big man that we have to have to be a championship team?

amare will keep getting better defensively in time it might be him. also vroman or lampe may reach that point. but the most successful defense isnt just one person it is the whole team focusing on the job.
 

Yuma

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Are you kidding? Ben Wallace. Hello, defensive player of the year! Shot blocker, tough rebounder, good help defender. He is worlds ahead of most centers in this league! He outplayed Shaq. He is definatly better than anyone we have on this team defensivly! Maybe I'm wrong. :shrug:
 

sunsfn

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To have a great defensive team, everyone needs to play defense. However, if you have a shot blocker in the middle, you can get by with the other players not being as good on defense, and he can make up for a mistake.

:)
 

Gaddabout

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sunsfn said:
To have a great defensive team, everyone needs to play defense. However, if you have a shot blocker in the middle, you can get by with the other players not being as good on defense, and he can make up for a mistake.
If you have a great shot-blocker, it's like having an eraser -- he erases others' mistakes. It doesn't make you a great defensive time by itself, but it goes along way to establishing a team identity. Lesser defenders tend to feed off that by cranking up their own defensive intensity a notch. Gambles tend to pay off more because they're less likely to get burned when a player blows by them to the basket.

The trick is finding a shot blocker who can stay out of foul trouble. Mark West might have the NBA career record for blocked shots if could have improved his reputation with the referees by one degree.
 
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Errntknght

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Oh, jeez, everyone forgot to remind BC that defense is part of the game! He let three of our better defending bigs (White, McDyess & Harvey) escape leaving us with three returning guys (Amare, Jake & Lampe) who haven't attained defensive mediocrity and a second round pick, Vroman - who will, hopefully, adequately replace Harvey. We added Nash, who as a defender fit right in with Dallas and Q, who was not known as a good defender on another weak defensive team. To top it off we added a new assistant coach who has no history of defensive accomplishments.

Adding Dampier wouldn't have transformed us into a good defensive team but we might have inched up a bit from last year. As it is we figure to suck even more. Possibly, a good deal more as coach Mikey has a training camp to thoroughly infuse the team with the principles of Euro-defense.
 

thegrahamcrackr

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Ok, what reality are you living in?

White wasn't a defensive beast, he simply pushed people out of the way. 6 million is a little to much to play for a guy that was used to guard 2 players....

Dice played well for a couple weeks. Detroit paid a lot mroe than we wanted to. If BC had thrown that money at Dice, this board would be in an uproar. Not to mention he didn't have the lateral quickness to guard faster players, not the strength to keep people from backing him down.

Harvey played all of like 30 minutes this past season. Most of which in garbage time. How can you call him one of our better defensive bigs?


I agree it would have been nice to add a defensive minded big. However, none of the guys we had were near adequate (which is why we sucked), and the market was way to high for someone who would have MAYBE been adequate.
 

George O'Brien

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I sortof agree with Graham. The Sun can have Harvey back anytime they want, but it looks like his minutes will go to Vroman. I really liked White, but he was extremely foul prone and inconsistent. Dice played very well, but there is no way the Suns could risk a four year deal on a guy with four leg surgeries.

At the same time, I've been one who has been pushing for a big man for months, so I am disappointed the Suns decided not to get someone. I hope they know what they are doing or else the Suns are going to lose a lot of 120-115 games. :shrug:
 

F-Dog

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The Suns aren't going to get better at defense until their core players get better at defense. (Where have I heard that before? :confused: ) I don't think anybody believes that the Suns are going to compete for a championship in the next couple of years, and that's one of the reasons why.

As for next year, Joe J and Marion should play better defense because they'll play fewer minutes, so they won't have to play tired or pace themselves as much; Q will play better defense because he won't get his minutes otherwise; and Amare and Barbosa will play better defense because they're both a year older and better. Plus, I think the team will play better defense as a whole, because I believe that Mike D is smarter and a better coach than FJ, and he'll have an entire cycle to implement his philosophies.


Will that be enough to keep opposing teams under 120? We'll have to wait and see...
 

Errntknght

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Grahamcrackr, "White wasn't a defensive beast, he simply pushed people out of the way. 6 million is a little to much to play for a guy that was used to guard 2 players...."

White gave us some muscle when it was needed, and it was needed quite frequently. Now we have no defender with that capability and it will cost us at times.

"Dice played well for a couple weeks... Not to mention he didn't have the lateral quickness to guard faster players, not the strength to keep people from backing him down."

What couple of weeks did you watch? I didn't see anyone cruising around Dice nor him getting badly pushed around. I suppose Detroit went after him because they needed some poor defenders to balance out their team... sheesh.

"Harvey played all of like 30 minutes this past season. Most of which in garbage time. How can you call him one of our better defensive bigs?"

Harvey played 440 min, so you must have watched about one fifteenth of the time... your remarks sound like it.

I did not say the three guys we lost were great defenders - I said they were three of our better big defenders, which means in comparison to our other bigs - so it's not saying a lot. I have to admit it's a little exaggeration when it comes to Harvey, but he actually did defend quite well a lot of the time - he failed to compete on the boards, however, so wasn't that effective overall. Note that I did express hope that our rookie Vroman would adequately replace him, which was a clue to the astute reader that I didn't rate him as a major loss.

I could have been much harsher on BC because the direction he's going with the team is absolutely pointless. Our guys are not great individual defenders so they need the best defensive coach possible for them to have any hope of competing in the playoffs. But BC is hanging on to perhaps the worst defensive coach in the league and our esteemed Iavaroni hasn't shown jack sh*t as far as getting Voskuhl or Amare to become solid individual defenders with two years to do it. Our GM is well on his way to creating another mess to rival his Kidd-Skiles fiasco and his Marbury-FJ debacle. How he keeps his job, even with Daddy as his boss, is beyond me.
 

thegrahamcrackr

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White wasn't played most of the time he was needed, so what is the point anyways? He was only played when we absolutely needed the extra mucsle. If we want someone to push people around, I am pretty sure Alton Ford would come back for a min deal....


Obviously I was exagerating about how underused Harvey was. I thought it was fitting because he was somehow lumped into one of the better defending bigs. I agree that Vroman should more than replace his contributions, which is why I didn't touch on him much.


About Dice, until the very end of the season, he was to slow to move laterally against quicker forwards. Once he came back at the end, he was a little healthier, but I doubt it will keep. However, I will give you the fact he started to heal.

Dice was pushed around by any big center. If you think he wasn't, then why not just put Amare in the 5 spot? He is bigger and stronger than Dice. It isn't his fault, he shouldn't ever play center anyways. (And he wont in Detroit).

Detroit went after him because the possible reward is huge. If he can get healthy, he will help any team (including the Suns). The difference is Detroit already has their core, which won a ring, and they can afford to put their money on a gamble. The suns simply could not, especially in a year where they had cap space and not just the MLE.


Look, I wanted a defensive big man as well. However, I am at least willing to recognize that the there wasn't a realistic option that I would have liked. Instead of sitting and not spending the money on anyone, BC locked down the BPA. Doesn't really matter anyways, since the contract puts the suns over the cap, they can use the MLE next season (which will only be like a million less to play with had they just sat on their cap space)


which was a clue to the astute reader that I didn't rate him as a major loss.
Btw, there is absolutely no need to insult my intelligence. I posted my thoughts, there was no reason for petty **** like that.
 
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Errntknght

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GrahamCrackr>>

Quote:
which was a clue to the astute reader that I didn't rate him as a major loss.

Btw, there is absolutely no need to insult my intelligence. I posted my thoughts, there was no reason for petty **** like that.
<<

Next time you're thinking of questioning some one's grasp on reality you might consider that a verbal slap on the wrist could ensue...
 

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