Mike Woodson: We Use D'Antoni's Offense But We Focus On D

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=8740998

Maybe the Lakers should do the same thing. D'Antoni only having the team practicing team defense for a half hour isn't enough.

30min. is better than 0 minutes under Phil... j/k

They also use off-ball movement with multiple screens to confuse defenses and get quality shots off instead of running down the court and having 3 guys camp by the 3 point line while 2 guys high screen-roll at the top 99% of the time.

Knicks are literally ranked 17th in defense and we're now 18th, if the Knicks are focusing on defense and we aren't then that's pretty sad. We were top 10 for half the season but this recent stretch of games killed our rating.

well I can agree with Woodson thought process, they win the same way we do at times, crazy 3pt shooting from all over the place, except I have notice NY is able to come back from larger deficits than this Laker team has ever come from, like their most recent come back against BK, down 16 or so early in the 1st half. If that was us we would've just gotten within 4-6 and then get blown out again with defensive lapses over and over again.

If we had the shooters they have, we'd look just as good/better running D'antoni's system.. & the made shots on offense would limit the transition buckets we give up.

we'll focus on D in our own way. once guess get accustom to dwight and what they all need to do it'll be better. Missing Pau also doesnt help as well as missing Hill who in time will get it and help a lot on D

lakersin4 wrote:If we had the shooters they have, we'd look just as good/better running D'antoni's system.. & the made shots on offense would limit the transition buckets we give up.

Felton (0.406 / 1.8 made per game)
Carmela (0.455 / 2.6 made per game)
Brewer (0.346 / 0.8 made per game)
Kidd ( 0.483 / 2.2 per game)
Novak (0.447 / 2.4 per game)
Prigioni (0.346 / 0.4 per game)
JR Smith (0.352 / 1.4 per game)
Sheed (0.324 / 1.1 per game)

Kobe ( 0.380 / 2.2 per game)
Duhon (0.431 / 1.2 per game)
Meeks ( 0.390 / 1.7 per game (and rising))
Jamison (0.312 / 1.0 per game)
Morris (0.447 / 0.8 per game)
Artest (0.382 / 2.2 per game)
Blake (0.400 / 1.1 per game)
Nash (0.400(?) / 1.0 per game (?))

While the Knicks are better, the Lakers aren't THAT bad. D'Antoni wants them to run down the court and jack up 3's which often leads to transition opportunities for the other team. The Knicks limit turnovers and transition opportunities because they play a slower pace. They also have more energy to focus on defense since they're not running up and down the court 24/7 jacking up shots and trying to stop the other team in transition.

we focus on committing turnovers...take that, woodson!

Greatest of All Time wrote:

lakersin4 wrote:If we had the shooters they have, we'd look just as good/better running D'antoni's system.. & the made shots on offense would limit the transition buckets we give up.

Felton (0.406 / 1.8 made per game)
Carmela (0.455 / 2.6 made per game)
Brewer (0.346 / 0.8 made per game)
Kidd ( 0.483 / 2.2 per game)
Novak (0.447 / 2.4 per game)
Prigioni (0.346 / 0.4 per game)
JR Smith (0.352 / 1.4 per game)
Sheed (0.324 / 1.1 per game)

Kobe ( 0.380 / 2.2 per game)
Duhon (0.431 / 1.2 per game)
Meeks ( 0.390 / 1.7 per game (and rising))
Jamison (0.312 / 1.0 per game)
Morris (0.447 / 0.8 per game)
Artest (0.382 / 2.2 per game)
Blake (0.400 / 1.1 per game)
Nash (0.400(?) / 1.0 per game (?))

While the Knicks are better, the Lakers aren't THAT bad. D'Antoni wants them to run down the court and jack up 3's which often leads to transition opportunities for the other team. The Knicks limit turnovers and transition opportunities because they play a slower pace. They also have more energy to focus on defense since they're not running up and down the court 24/7 jacking up shots and trying to stop the other team in transition.

Never would have guessed the numbers are that close. You can't tell it by the spacing, that's for sure. Knicks have a ton of it we have none.

right now our horrendous offense has big a big contributor to our weak defense and defensive numbers. That alone should be really clean up when Nash gets back. If we play with the defense energy we did yesterday, I think we're in much better shape then the Knicks.

Although they do have a more potent bench.

Pau coming back should also help us cut down on mistakes. D'antoni has went on record saying he won't bring Pau off the bench, so the starters will have to slow down a bit.

^Not only that, sin, but Pau is one of our best passers. He's a guy who normally knows where to throw the ball for easy scoring opportunities.

Knicks defense sucks. Lol. What the heck are they talking about? It's not surprising either when you play Carmelo Anthony at PF. Lol. Bringing back Amare probably won't help. The Knicks are winning games because their offense has been so potent. What they're doing on offense is almost unsustainable.

The Knicks are shooting above 40 3P% as a team. That rarely happens. OKC, Miami, and NY are the top 3 teams in 3P%, but what the Knicks are doing in terms of shooting is more impressive because they're jacking up almost 30 three pointers a game. Imagine having the Lakers just throw up 30 three pointers every game and hit 12-13 of them. It's ridiculous. I'm expecting both these numbers to go down for them, especially when Amare gets back.

Unlike the Lakers, who are at the bottom of the league in turnovers, the Knicks are at the top.

When you combine great shooting with limited turnovers, you have the Knicks (a top 3 offensive team) in the league. The top 3 are Miami, OKC, and NY so far, and they're also the top 3 in terms of 3P%.

Another interesting stat is how many free throws OKC attempts. I bring this up every year, but they consistently lead the league in free throws per field goal attempts. This season, they're nearly attempting 1 free throw for every field goal attempt. They get more whistles than us when we actually have had teams fouling Dwight on purpose. I seriously hate how many calls they get.

We actually average the most FTA per game (30.3). OKC is at 27.7 FTA per game. In terms of FTA per FGA, we're at 0.38 and OKC's at 0.36.

So we actually are the best at getting to the line but what really kills us is our FT%. LA is virtually tied with Denver for last place with a FT% 68. If we made our FT at the league average, we'd jump from 102.1 PTS per game (6th) to 104.1 PTS per game (3rd).

Well when the only reason you're averaging that many is Dwight Howard then you're probably not going to make a whole lot of free throws

^^ While that's true, you also have to look at the fact that half of the guys in the regular rotation are shooting below their career FT%. Some well below.

For some reason this season, FT shooting has been a team wide issue.

I still believe the Knicks will come back to earth and so will Melo. He's shooting something like 45% from 3 which is going to regress to the mean without a doubt.

And sadly I think playing Amare back at 4 would actually improve their D, but I don't know what will happen to team chemistry once he comes back.

JoelMyersScrotalSack wrote:I still believe the Knicks will come back to earth and so will Melo. He's shooting something like 45% from 3 which is going to regress to the mean without a doubt.

And sadly I think playing Amare back at 4 would actually improve their D, but I don't know what will happen to team chemistry once he comes back.

This..... that team will not challenge unless the East teams have some significant injuries IMHO....

As for our team.... not sure there is enough in the tank for our vets to give top effort at both ends without some significant improvement in the bench and MDA actually playing them significant minutes. Since our emphasis will be on the offensive end it seems that we will have to outshoot/score our competition rather than challenge them on defense.

Getting Nash and Pau back will be interesting..... will it help or will we see the middle clog up with 2 more players out there than play best below the free throw line?

Jellincon wrote:^^ While that's true, you also have to look at the fact that half of the guys in the regular rotation are shooting below their career FT%. Some well below.

For some reason this season, FT shooting has been a team wide issue.

Oh no, I completely agree with you. Jamison, Artest, Duhon, and Hill are all as hard to watch from the line as Dwight. Maybe moreso because we all know they can do much better than they are.

I think Meeks, Kobe, and Nash are and will continue to be the only solid/consistent sources of good free throw shooting for us.