Defensive woes.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

A supposed defensive guru and we still suck. Even without butler, we shouldn't be this bad.

Why? Solutions?

Is it as simple as replacing thibs?
Moving kat to pf?

We can't trade the whole team, but we need to do something.

4 players with a drtg in the 120's so far. Not hard to guess who they are. Btw, Tyus has the lowest on the team so far.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I don't have the answer and just posted questions about Rose's defense in the GDT. I do have theories though and think it has a lot to do with Thibs. Someone posted an article late last season that documented in a very scholarly fashion how Thibs' defensive schemes were effective 5-6 years ago, but have not kept up with the changing offensive philosophy. Thibs' defensive scheme is designed to take away the shot that was the staple of NBA offenses during the Bulls' successful years...the mid-range shot. Unfortunately it appears Thibs hasn't noticed that the 3-point shot has become the focus of NBA offenses (heck, Dallas took 50 of them tonight!) and a defense designed to stop the mid-range game is naturally going to leave a lot of open looks beyond the arc. I agree with the writer of that article and see that as our main issue. Butler's defense is good enough to overcome Thibs' coaching, but the rest of the team is not.

[Monster]

One problem that's plagued the team both last year and really has been a problem this year is defensive rebounding. How many times did the Wolves play good defense last night and then didn't secure the rebound and gave up another shot? That happens sometimes but it's often been a killer. That's not the only problem obviously but being near the bottom of rebounding percentage isn't helping the cause.

It's 3 games in but one problem this team had last year was poor transition defense. That's been improved by the eye test. NBA.com the stats are...probably a little better than actuality. Lol

[Wolvesfan21]

Defensive rebounding, rebounding in general was a big problem last year. More so on the road. KAT just doesn't seem to either have the focus, or energy on the road. He isn't strong enough against the bigger centers to dominate the boards. Dieng is subpar at rebounding, Taj is OK.

When you get out rebounded by 10-15 you're not going to win many of those games.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

I don't have the answer and just posted questions about Rose's defense in the GDT. I do have theories though and think it has a lot to do with Thibs. Someone posted an article late last season that documented in a very scholarly fashion how Thibs' defensive schemes were effective 5-6 years ago, but have not kept up with the changing offensive philosophy. Thibs' defensive scheme is designed to take away the shot that was the staple of NBA offenses during the Bulls' successful years...the mid-range shot. Unfortunately it appears Thibs hasn't noticed that the 3-point shot has become the focus of NBA offenses (heck, Dallas took 50 of them tonight!) and a defense designed to stop the mid-range game is naturally going to leave a lot of open looks beyond the arc. I agree with the writer of that article and see that as our main issue. Butler's defense is good enough to overcome Thibs' coaching, but the rest of the team is not.

Regards to rose, the guy works hard on defense. Thibs just puts him in a bad spot trying to guard sg/sfs. He simply cant and we don't have the players around him to cover it up. Now, i don't think hed be too bad defending pgs, unfortunately thibs likes his 3 pgs.

Also, i think the refs jobbed rose on a couple of calls. Obviously the last play, but also a blocking charge he got called for which should probably have been a charge.

I do think he's a better defender than teague though.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I don't have the answer and just posted questions about Rose's defense in the GDT. I do have theories though and think it has a lot to do with Thibs. Someone posted an article late last season that documented in a very scholarly fashion how Thibs' defensive schemes were effective 5-6 years ago, but have not kept up with the changing offensive philosophy. Thibs' defensive scheme is designed to take away the shot that was the staple of NBA offenses during the Bulls' successful years...the mid-range shot. Unfortunately it appears Thibs hasn't noticed that the 3-point shot has become the focus of NBA offenses (heck, Dallas took 50 of them tonight!) and a defense designed to stop the mid-range game is naturally going to leave a lot of open looks beyond the arc. I agree with the writer of that article and see that as our main issue. Butler's defense is good enough to overcome Thibs' coaching, but the rest of the team is not.

Regards to rose, the guy works hard on defense. Thibs just puts him in a bad spot trying to guard sg/sfs. He simply cant and we don't have the players around him to cover it up. Now, i don't think hed be too bad defending pgs, unfortunately thibs likes his 3 pgs.

Also, i think the refs jobbed rose on a couple of calls. Obviously the last play, but also a blocking charge he got called for which should probably have been a charge.

I do think he's a better defender than teague though.

Some good points, c-c. Monster makes the same point in another thread about Rose not able to stop DeRozen, and my girlfriend asked how thibs expected Rose to be able to guard Doncik who is much taller. Those are tough matchups for Rose.

[Monster]

I don't have the answer and just posted questions about Rose's defense in the GDT. I do have theories though and think it has a lot to do with Thibs. Someone posted an article late last season that documented in a very scholarly fashion how Thibs' defensive schemes were effective 5-6 years ago, but have not kept up with the changing offensive philosophy. Thibs' defensive scheme is designed to take away the shot that was the staple of NBA offenses during the Bulls' successful years...the mid-range shot. Unfortunately it appears Thibs hasn't noticed that the 3-point shot has become the focus of NBA offenses (heck, Dallas took 50 of them tonight!) and a defense designed to stop the mid-range game is naturally going to leave a lot of open looks beyond the arc. I agree with the writer of that article and see that as our main issue. Butler's defense is good enough to overcome Thibs' coaching, but the rest of the team is not.

Regards to rose, the guy works hard on defense. Thibs just puts him in a bad spot trying to guard sg/sfs. He simply cant and we don't have the players around him to cover it up. Now, i don't think hed be too bad defending pgs, unfortunately thibs likes his 3 pgs.

Also, i think the refs jobbed rose on a couple of calls. Obviously the last play, but also a blocking charge he got called for which should probably have been a charge.

I do think he's a better defender than teague though.

Some good points, c-c. Monster makes the same point in another thread about Rose not able to stop DeRozen, and my girlfriend asked how thibs expected Rose to be able to guard Doncik who is much taller. Those are tough matchups for Rose.

I've honestly been pleasantly surprised with Rose. He stays in front of his guy a lot while also putting pressure on him. There have been times he moves quick laterally and cuts someone off that's impressive. That one stepback Doncic has on him on the baseline Rose was right with him Till Doncic did that step back which was pretty good. He did one of those on Wiggins later and Wiggins actually did a decent job of getting back and contesting (wasn't good enough be still) and basically it didn't matter.

Also Teague can still be better but his energy and effort has been there and he has gotten up into guys more this season.

[thedoper]

We need a defensive big. All of our bigs are average (Taj) to awful (Towns, G and Tolliver).

We just need a big who is better than average.

For the big picture, it seems like pace is up round the board. I suspect that the scoring is a common trend in these first few games.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

We need a defensive big. All of our bigs are average (Taj) to awful (Towns, G and Tolliver).

We just need a big who is better than average.

For the big picture, it seems like pace is up round the board. I suspect that the scoring is a common trend in these first few games.

Yeah, pace is certainly a factor as PPG seem to be way up around the league. And it would be great to have a superb defensive big. But I still see the main factor as Thibs' inabilty to coach a team without Butler. 3 games is an absurdly small sample size, but I will update this statistic throughout the season:

PPG given up with Butler: 117
PPG given up without Butler: 140


The differential won't be 23 points at the end of the season, but I'm fairly confident it will be at least 10. And that's a big difference between winning and losing.

[KG4Ever]

I hear a lot of complaints about rebounding. Guess who's available? One of the game's best rebounders. HW makes a lot of sense as the filler in the JR trade.