FNG wrote:Well, I predicted a 12 point win, and instead it was 14. My apologies to any gambler here who made an exacto bet on 12... I think I didn't take into account those 2 points from Nathan Knight ;-) .
This was one we had to win with Zion and Graham out and Ingram clearly not even close to 100% with his injuries this season. But I take issue with Lip calling them a bad team...I think they are a good team missing 3 key players. Still, I saw a lot of nice ball movement from them tonight (albeit with eventual missed shots), and JoVal is a force. Zion is back practicing with the team, and if he can play 80% of the remaining games, they will be a playoff team. We were fortunate to get three games against them with Zion out.
I'm going to talk about DLo again, because I thought he played his best defensive game of the year. Sure PatBev, Vando and Jaden are the major disruptors on defense, but my award for most improved defensive player goes to DLo...with KAT being runner up. Despite now shooting 38% on the season (32% from beyond the arc), he remains far and away our best on/off performer this season. He was 3-16 last night, but I actually didn't think he was forcing anything...he just missed. And his stellar defense and 8 assists (with only one TO) made up for his shooting. As others have said, this is a Bizarro season for DLo, with everything backwards...poor shooting, but great D and ball protection. And it all leads to him being a positive contributor on the court for one of the few times in his career. Give me this version of DLo all day.
Nothing else to add because I agree with all the positive comments in this thread about Vando, KAT, PatBev and Jaden. Two blowout wins in a row has Wolves Nation feeling pretty good. And the Scheduling Gods are with us again and giving us at least a chance against a Heat team on the back end of a BTB.
Dlo - Great D? Let's not get carried away with this. He doesn't defend the opposing team's best player, in fact we hide him as best we can. I like his increased intensity on that end of the floor and it has made a difference. But lets pump the breaks a little bit.
Whoops, fair point :oops: . I did get a little carried away...blowout wins will do that to me! And his DRtg of 109 is still tied with Beas and Prince for worst on the team, albeit it better than any DRtg in his career. And I agree that Finch does a terrific job of consistently putting DLo on the weakest offensive player.
But all that said, I do think he is much improved this year, and thought he was very good last night. Cool, you and I would both get annoyed last year when DLo would be wildly pointing to where his teammate should be while his own man was backdooring for a layup. I'm not seeing that this year. He still points, but he also doesn't seem to lose track of his man. And being allowed to defend the worst player on the floor allows him to use his length to be disruptive in the passing lanes. He's not getting steals (actually his pace is the worst of his career), but he is getting deflections. And more important I don't see him foolishly gambling on D as much as he has in prior years. He'll never be our defensive leader, but I think the PatBev Effect has improved his D considerably. Let's see if he can keep it up when we start facing real competition.
FNG wrote:Well, I predicted a 12 point win, and instead it was 14. My apologies to any gambler here who made an exacto bet on 12... I think I didn't take into account those 2 points from Nathan Knight ;-) .
This was one we had to win with Zion and Graham out and Ingram clearly not even close to 100% with his injuries this season. But I take issue with Lip calling them a bad team...I think they are a good team missing 3 key players. Still, I saw a lot of nice ball movement from them tonight (albeit with eventual missed shots), and JoVal is a force. Zion is back practicing with the team, and if he can play 80% of the remaining games, they will be a playoff team. We were fortunate to get three games against them with Zion out.
I'm going to talk about DLo again, because I thought he played his best defensive game of the year. Sure PatBev, Vando and Jaden are the major disruptors on defense, but my award for most improved defensive player goes to DLo...with KAT being runner up. Despite now shooting 38% on the season (32% from beyond the arc), he remains far and away our best on/off performer this season. He was 3-16 last night, but I actually didn't think he was forcing anything...he just missed. And his stellar defense and 8 assists (with only one TO) made up for his shooting. As others have said, this is a Bizarro season for DLo, with everything backwards...poor shooting, but great D and ball protection. And it all leads to him being a positive contributor on the court for one of the few times in his career. Give me this version of DLo all day.
Nothing else to add because I agree with all the positive comments in this thread about Vando, KAT, PatBev and Jaden. Two blowout wins in a row has Wolves Nation feeling pretty good. And the Scheduling Gods are with us again and giving us at least a chance against a Heat team on the back end of a BTB.
Dlo - Great D? Let's not get carried away with this. He doesn't defend the opposing team's best player, in fact we hide him as best we can. I like his increased intensity on that end of the floor and it has made a difference. But lets pump the breaks a little bit.
I'm not sure we should. Obviously I don't think Dlo is this lockdown defender but the Wolves are in the 97th percentile in defense in all Dlo lineups. The Wolves are 19.5 pts per 100 possession worse on defense when Dlo sits. Obviously there is noise to those stats but shocking dlo has been great on defense this year.
Also dlo lineups defensive numbers do not go down if Pat Bev or Vando or mcdaniels sits
I'm sorry Kek, DLO has not been great on defense this year. In fact he's not capable of being great on defense. I applaud his effort on that end, but just because you can find some stats that justify an argument, does not mean it's true. There are plenty of stats out there that can tell a different story and we have years of history behind us which say otherwise. Trust me as a long tenured coach, you don't go from being a terrible defender to a great one overnight. It just doesn't happen that way.
I'll probably regret asking this, but what's the argument against D'Angelo Russell's defense to this point? We're almost 20 games into the season and, statistically, the team is vastly better on defense when he's on the floor versus off the floor regardless of various lineup combinations. The eye test checks out as well with his timely rotations, deflected passes, and hustle plays. His man defense has been solid albeit unspectacular given his assignments. Russell is never going to be an effective point of attack defender or a wing stopper, but that also isn't being asked of him. His role is that of a helper/chaser and he's excelled in it for almost one-fourth of the season. Why can't we conclude that he's been a good defender thus far?
Camden wrote:I'll probably regret asking this, but what's the argument against D'Angelo Russell's defense to this point? We're almost 20 games into the season and, statistically, the team is vastly better on defense when he's on the floor versus off the floor regardless of various lineup combinations. The eye test checks out as well with his timely rotations, deflected passes, and hustle plays. His man defense has been solid albeit unspectacular given his assignments. Russell is never going to be an effective point of attack defender or a wing stopper, but that also isn't being asked of him. His role is that of a helper/chaser and he's excelled in it for almost one-fourth of the season. Why can't we conclude that he's been a good defender thus far?
Let's not do this. I know he's not a great defender, you know he isn't a great defender, and the league knows he's not a great defender. No reason to get into this whatsoever.
Camden wrote:I'll probably regret asking this, but what's the argument against D'Angelo Russell's defense to this point? We're almost 20 games into the season and, statistically, the team is vastly better on defense when he's on the floor versus off the floor regardless of various lineup combinations. The eye test checks out as well with his timely rotations, deflected passes, and hustle plays. His man defense has been solid albeit unspectacular given his assignments. Russell is never going to be an effective point of attack defender or a wing stopper, but that also isn't being asked of him. His role is that of a helper/chaser and he's excelled in it for almost one-fourth of the season. Why can't we conclude that he's been a good defender thus far?
Let's not do this. I know he's not a great defender, you know he isn't a great defender, and the league knows he's not a great defender. No reason to get into this whatsoever.
Would you care to present any sort of explanation or argument? Or can we conclude that you have no actual rebuttal? If it's the latter, then I'll rescind my questions and leave this here.
Again, we're just talking about roughly one-fourth of the season. Nobody's putting D'Angelo Russell on an All-Defensive Team, but the guy has performed well on that end of the floor to this point. For some reason, that conclusion is unacceptable to you. I'd like to know why.
FNG wrote:Well, I predicted a 12 point win, and instead it was 14. My apologies to any gambler here who made an exacto bet on 12... I think I didn't take into account those 2 points from Nathan Knight ;-) .
This was one we had to win with Zion and Graham out and Ingram clearly not even close to 100% with his injuries this season. But I take issue with Lip calling them a bad team...I think they are a good team missing 3 key players. Still, I saw a lot of nice ball movement from them tonight (albeit with eventual missed shots), and JoVal is a force. Zion is back practicing with the team, and if he can play 80% of the remaining games, they will be a playoff team. We were fortunate to get three games against them with Zion out.
I'm going to talk about DLo again, because I thought he played his best defensive game of the year. Sure PatBev, Vando and Jaden are the major disruptors on defense, but my award for most improved defensive player goes to DLo...with KAT being runner up. Despite now shooting 38% on the season (32% from beyond the arc), he remains far and away our best on/off performer this season. He was 3-16 last night, but I actually didn't think he was forcing anything...he just missed. And his stellar defense and 8 assists (with only one TO) made up for his shooting. As others have said, this is a Bizarro season for DLo, with everything backwards...poor shooting, but great D and ball protection. And it all leads to him being a positive contributor on the court for one of the few times in his career. Give me this version of DLo all day.
Nothing else to add because I agree with all the positive comments in this thread about Vando, KAT, PatBev and Jaden. Two blowout wins in a row has Wolves Nation feeling pretty good. And the Scheduling Gods are with us again and giving us at least a chance against a Heat team on the back end of a BTB.
Dlo - Great D? Let's not get carried away with this. He doesn't defend the opposing team's best player, in fact we hide him as best we can. I like his increased intensity on that end of the floor and it has made a difference. But lets pump the breaks a little bit.
I'm not sure we should. Obviously I don't think Dlo is this lockdown defender but the Wolves are in the 97th percentile in defense in all Dlo lineups. The Wolves are 19.5 pts per 100 possession worse on defense when Dlo sits. Obviously there is noise to those stats but shocking dlo has been great on defense this year.
Also dlo lineups defensive numbers do not go down if Pat Bev or Vando or mcdaniels sits
I'm sorry Kek, DLO has not been great on defense this year. In fact he's not capable of being great on defense. I applaud his effort on that end, but just because you can find some stats that justify an argument, does not mean it's true. There are plenty of stats out there that can tell a different story and we have years of history behind us which say otherwise. Trust me as a long tenured coach, you don't go from being a terrible defender to a great one overnight. It just doesn't happen that way.
I'm with Cam on this one. In no way do I think Dlo is this elite shut down defender and should be on an All Defensive team but for his role on defense I think Dlo has been pretty great. Very similar to Vando role on offense. Both have liabilities on their respective sides of the ball but they both have played their roles to their abilities and have been above average in their roles.
What I think is funny. Dlo has pretty much played like a young Ricky Rubio this year. Playing good defense, taking care of the ball, running the offense effectively and in a net positive way but can't hit a shot to save their lives. One big difference is teams are still defending dlo like a really good shooter what opens things up.
Will this Dlo defense keep up? Is his effort on defense effecting his offense? Idk the answer to these questions. We need him to hit shots to more then likely beat better teams. But overall I believe Dlo has been a massive net positive this year and would give him a B for the season and that is crazy because his shot is not falling at all this year so far.
Let's not put words in each others mouths on this. The word that's been tossed around is that DLO has been great on defense. He simply hasn't. He has made an effort to be more responsible, and that's really all you can ask. But he still can't stay in front of quick guards and his team defense has been nothing more than adequate. I guess for his ability he has been good. But he benefits greatly from the ultra aggressiveness of Vando, Jaden, Okogie, and sometimes Ant. KAT is also playing harder on defense and that helps too.
And then there is his offense. His shooting has absolutely sucked this year. I know he is a good offensive player. So am I supposed to conclude after 20 games that he is no good on O? That would be silly. By the same token, I'm not going to buy into this false narrative that he's been great on D.
Since basketball is a team sport, it makes sense that when all 5 players are giving effort (some still more than others) and working with the same direction. I believe that having the coaches have implemented the right type of defense to fit the skillsets of the assembled team. This has made all the difference in how each player appears to the eye test and any stat tossed out there. Put Dlo on a shitty defensive team, he will look like a poor defensive player, put him on this team as constructed, he looks like a professional basketball player that is involved with making his team better. Jim Pete mentioned last night that all of the Wolves are connected and making the right adjustments on defense. If all the players can keep this up, the defensive ratings should continue to look good.
It would be great to have 5 ++rated defensive stars on one team that play every minute of every game, but that only works in NBA2k. Hopefully all of the players keep their eye on the prize!
I like Russells length and awareness on both sides of the ball. I think he is going to always suffer from the lack of explosiveness in his game. Hes so casual in body language and movement, even when hes playing well it looks slow. Like Sam Perkins but a point guard.
DLO is one of the better team defenders we have. Awareness, hips, shoulders, etc... He's also the biggest defensive coach we have on the floor.
We have 4 players that have the lateral quicks do defend M2M. DLO is definitely NOT one of those. His lateral is well below average. BUT, given that this team is buying in on team defense and even our M2M is "zonish" it's pretty clear that he IS a good defender (and yes the sample size is big enough and Finch's rotations pair DLO with 2nd and first teams.)
