Lakers Defense - Fixable?

JGC wrote:

Pig Miller wrote:^i'm not saying eliminate it, not sure why you want to make that assumption that I was referring to the team stopping all opponents offense.

but okay, assume away if that's what you want.

No, I wasn't. I was just saying expecting this team to prevent any sort of dribble penetration is expecting way, way too much.

i'm not saying you prevent any sort of it, but it's the basis of most of our defensive issues.

guess you must think i just watched my first game tonight.

Lets Go Lakers wrote:

Balance&Options24 wrote:We were decent last year, what the hell happened?

My guess is primarily the coach and system. Brown stressed d but he also gave our d a chance for success by slowing the game down and limiting opportunities for teams to run on us.

It's what I call the Zoloft defense.

Instead of actually implementing defensive habits and changing the defensive culture. He just slowed down the game to a crawl.

Actually, we have D12, Kobe, MWP and Hill. We definitely have a chance. But our coach is MDA. Then I doubt.

The Suns won 61 games. And they played absolutely no defense. They still allowed fewer points than we do.

JGC wrote:The Suns won 61 games. And they played absolutely no defense. They still allowed fewer points than we do.

They had a few individual defenders in Bell and Marion who did a solid job. And they weren't old like we are. Also, other teams would try to play at their pace and ended up turning the ball over, so controlling the tempo in a way was their defense.

We don't have the personnel to play that style.

JGC wrote:The Suns won 61 games. And they played absolutely no defense. They still allowed fewer points than we do.

Their offensive plays are sharing evenly. Everyone gets the opportunity to score and their leader is pass first.

I think their 19 more FGA's is telling.

It's been mentioned, but we need to BOX OUT & focus on slowing down the PACE. That will result in less possessions.

Relying on the 3 is hurting us. When they don't fall it's transition buckets for the opponents.

We really need to slow the game, get easy buckets on layups and get offense from Dwight consistently. 25 ppg.

KareemTheGreat33 wrote:

dj vitus wrote:Is the Middle East fixable?

More fixable than our team at this point.

Bring Hilary in, scare the crap out of them.

We need to replace Pau with a good quick defender & get a good defender in the backcourt off the bench.. Someone that doesn't force us to put Kobe or Ron on Nash's man when we're getting lit up. Those 2 things would go a long way.

Some notable defensive stats. http://www.teamrankings.com/nba/team-st ... ng-defense

1. Opp Pts in the paint per game = 42.7 (our rank 22nd of 30)
2. Opp Fastbreak ppg = 15.9 (our rank 29th)
3. Opp Ast to TO ratio = 1.748 (our rank 28th)

Teams score at around 42% of their ppg on us in the paint. Around 15% ppg on fastbreak. Teams are great against us in getting assists versus turning it over.

In sum, we are making it real easy for teams to score on us. From what I've seen, penetration by opp guards and forwards is the biggest problem, which leads to the high amount of pts in the paint allowed. Also in the ast/to ratio.

All those 3's we shoot and high TO's lead to the pathetic fastbreak PPG allowed.

Now lets look at the same #'s from last year:

1. Opp Pts in the paint per game = 41.5 (our rank 19th of 30)
2. Opp Fastbreak ppg = 15.8 (our rank 28th)
3. Opp Ast to TO ratio = 1.931 (our rank 30)

We sucked last year too in the same categories. Leaves me to believe, that it's not a system problem. It's the personnel.

borri wrote:We sucked last year too in the same categories. Leaves me to believe, that it's not a system problem. It's the personnel.

Nah...It was the slow lazy center's fault.

Stop turning over the ball and creating long jumpers for a team that is not a perimeter oriented team.....

that would be a huge start

TO + long rebounds = a neutralization of their size advantage = This Lakers vet roster's worse nightmare really.

Run a proper offense that has you balanced within the timing of the shots so that you can have a small chance to defend the transitional opportunities by your opponent.

This is why MDA style runs right into our weaknesses.............

The half court D has been so so........... when they have a lot of issues is when guys just try and do too much....Bryant roaming, MWP roaming........ this has got to stop......Play the guys straight up and allow D12 to be the difference. Bryant is known for taking his eyes off his man...... he's got to stop that..PERIOD.

The rotations are slow but they could help themselves by not giving up the middle of the lane all the time..... they need to aggressively force things baseline and into their size instead of asking their size to go to the ball handler if you know what I mean.

How about trying a sort of match up zone where you can control the space your bigs must cover, especially when they other team is a P&R dominant team...........

I hear there are things you can do defensively to adjust to the size but we don't have a coach that does defense so the points are pointless................

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Borri -

all those #s tell me is that for 2 years now we've been running a stretch offense when we are not designed to do so. Turnovers and transition defense has gotten worse since Brown and MDA.......... it's the systems.... the systems that want a big team to play small ball within the chess pieces of any one offensive set. Slightly different systems but the same Philosophy of thought........ that philosophy is what's glaringly wrong for this roster. No weak-side player movement..... always 2 to 3 guys just standing still......... both Brown his first year and MDA now have this glaring weakness within their systems..... it's asinine really. This team is designed to work off of player movement, screens, staggered screens..... you know things that are in the Triangle and Princeton but not in the simpleton ball small teams try to do. This team is built and designed to run a totally different philosophy and to try and be defensive orientated...... we are getting farther away from that philosophy wise yet have created a roster with vets and no real perimeter shooters..... just freak'n genius.../....

2 guys in the corner to spread means to guys in no position to help against transition........ if they are not sharp shooters than you get disastrous results as an older vet team.

This some of the dumbest coaching adjustments I have ever seen given the rosters the coaches have had to work with. The only good one was Brown moving to the Princeton but of course he got fired over it lol.......

The Nuggets were trapping in the corner and at the baseline with 2-3 defenders. They forced several turnovers that way and generally disrupted our offense. That's an example of a defensive scheme they've practiced and implemented: "when the ball handler dribbles along the perimeter and tries to turn the corner, we're going to cut him off and harass him."

Are there any defensive schemes that the Lakers run? For the life of me I can't make out any, let alone an overall defensive strategy. Is there a reason we can't employ a method as simple as trapping when a player drives baseline, or are we trying and failing?

Admittedly this is a subject I don't know all that much about, but it makes sense to me that if we're this lost on defense, we need to start putting tools in the toolbox. I've seen no development in this regard, and it's getting very frustrating watching our opponents take whatever shots they want.

It's team defense that is the problem. I think individual defense hasn't been horrible but rotations, talking, etc seems non-existant.

borri wrote:Now lets look at the same #'s from last year:

1. Opp Pts in the paint per game = 41.5 (our rank 19th of 30)
2. Opp Fastbreak ppg = 15.8 (our rank 28th)
3. Opp Ast to TO ratio = 1.931 (our rank 30)

We sucked last year too in the same categories. Leaves me to believe, that it's not a system problem. It's the personnel.

Those are 3 stats out of dozens. What about other meaningful stats like PPG allowed, FG pct, etc? The 3 stats you mentioned are all somewhat related. If you can't stop penetration, you will have a lot of points in the paint and fast break points allowed, which in turn ups the assist/TO ratio. It all hints to our lack of athleticism. Not being able to stop penetration (Kobe and Nash). Not being able to get back (old legs). Not able to generate any turnovers (lacking the athleticism to jump passing lanes, disrupt passes, provide quick secondary help, move your feet).

Turnovers and consistency on defense. Done.

borri wrote:Now lets look at the same #'s from last year:

1. Opp Pts in the paint per game = 41.5 (our rank 19th of 30)
2. Opp Fastbreak ppg = 15.8 (our rank 28th)
3. Opp Ast to TO ratio = 1.931 (our rank 30)

We sucked last year too in the same categories. Leaves me to believe, that it's not a system problem. It's the personnel.

Well, there's two possible explanations, right.

1. They can't.
2. They don't want to or, aren't motivated to.

I mean, if the answer is #1, then there is no coach, system or any other variable that could improve these numbers.

NeeJee wrote:Turnovers and consistency on defense. Done.

You can't create turnovers without athleticism. At least it's much harder. Look at teams like Mia and the Clips and you see them cover so much ground and how disruptive they are at times when they decide to dig down deep.

I looked up a couple of stats from last year to this year.

This year, we are currently 26th in ppg allowed and 17th in FG% allowed.

Last year, we were 15th in ppg allowed and 9th in FG% allowed.

And this is with Dwight at C. So to me, the biggest culprit is the system. D'Antoni is simply putting our guys in the worst position possible. It's just actually unreal how a "professional" coach can do this. Completely playing against our strengths. I mean Gasol a stretch 4? Really? Run up and down the court with this old team? Really?

revgen wrote:Nah...It was the slow lazy center's fault.

so youwant that slow lazy center back?

khmrP wrote:

revgen wrote:Nah...It was the slow lazy center's fault.

so youwant that slow lazy center back?

He wasn't slow and lazy as much as his teammates were on help the helper situations. Same crap D12 deals with.

The fact that we are giving up more points per possession this season under the 3x DPOY center only further proves my point.

revgen wrote:

khmrP wrote:

revgen wrote:Nah...It was the slow lazy center's fault.

so youwant that slow lazy center back?

He wasn't slow and lazy as much as his teammates were on help the helper situations. Same crap D12 deals with.

The fact that we are giving up more points per possession this season under the 3x DPOY center only further proves my point.

just cause this team still struggles on D doesn't mean he wasn't slow or lazy, I dont know how anyone but you would suggest Bynum wasn't slow, as far as lazy Howard probably starting get there too thanks to his other slow teammates. The fact this team gives up more points isn't a direct correlation on the Center play, we have already confirmed its the increase tempo allowing other teams more possesion, some of the blocks howard gets and a few of those possesion where we see him disrupt the PnR are plays where you would NEVER see Bynum be able to do. If we still had that lazy bozo on this team and he was actually PLAYING, this team would be so much worse defensively and his knees would probably give out by the 2nd qtr of every gm.