Thibs says he has only installed the base of his defense

[60WinTim]

GDT?

So that's why our defense is so piss poor?

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Weird. No one can stop a KAT post-up. I bet we abandon it. Ugh.

[WildWolf2813]

Dunn and Bjelica are killing me.

[WildWolf2813]

GET TYUS IN THERE NOW!

[TAFKASP]

Dunn and Bjelica are killing me.

With the candlestick in the study?

[BloopOracle]

Rubio and Dunn making us play 4 on 5 in catch and shoot situations the majority of every game is so hard to watch

[TeamRicky [enjin:6648771]]

GDT?

So that's why our defense is so piss poor?

GDT? Made one now.

[Monster]

We don't know who is most to blame for this horribly disappointing start to what we all thought was a promising season, but I have to agree with Lip's post above: that the same starting team performing so much worse under Thibs seems to be an indictment of the coach. The local media has certainly started questioning Thibs' fit in the past week. I'm still curious if someone can answer my question about how Thibs' "defensive system" differs from Sam's. So much about Thibs is clear, it's surprising to me that nobody has posted about significant differences in our defensive approach. Here's what we know about Thibs as a coach after watching him for 17 games, good and bad:

1) He spends more time reviewing film than perhaps any coach in the league (good)
2) He has perhaps the craziest sideline behavior of any coach in the league (bad)
3) He never seems to give his players positive reinforcement during games (bad)
4) He handles the media much better than Mitchell did (good)
5) He has a tendency to deemphasize the PG in the 4th quarter in favor of wings handling the ball (bad)
6) He seems to prefer KAT operating from the top of the key than around the basket (bad)

Those things are all quite evident, but I can't point to one tangible difference on the defensive side of the court. Somebody with a keener defensive eye help me with this please.

Again which of Sam's defense are we comparing these games so far in this season? Look up the Wolves defensive rankings once they went young last year I bet you will find some really woeful defense statistically.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

We don't know who is most to blame for this horribly disappointing start to what we all thought was a promising season, but I have to agree with Lip's post above: that the same starting team performing so much worse under Thibs seems to be an indictment of the coach. The local media has certainly started questioning Thibs' fit in the past week. I'm still curious if someone can answer my question about how Thibs' "defensive system" differs from Sam's. So much about Thibs is clear, it's surprising to me that nobody has posted about significant differences in our defensive approach. Here's what we know about Thibs as a coach after watching him for 17 games, good and bad:

1) He spends more time reviewing film than perhaps any coach in the league (good)
2) He has perhaps the craziest sideline behavior of any coach in the league (bad)
3) He never seems to give his players positive reinforcement during games (bad)
4) He handles the media much better than Mitchell did (good)
5) He has a tendency to deemphasize the PG in the 4th quarter in favor of wings handling the ball (bad)
6) He seems to prefer KAT operating from the top of the key than around the basket (bad)

Those things are all quite evident, but I can't point to one tangible difference on the defensive side of the court. Somebody with a keener defensive eye help me with this please.

Again which of Sam's defense are we comparing these games so far in this season? Look up the Wolves defensive rankings once they went young last year I bet you will find some really woeful defense statistically.

I'm comparing the thibs-led defense to the atrocious Sam-led defense at the end of last season, and I'm not finding much difference between them...either in system or degree of success. Our defense at the beginning of last year was terrific (our offense...not so much), but I give Sam very little credit for that...that was all about KG and Prince. But similarly I think we're finding out that Thibs' defensive reputation has much more to do with KG et al in Boston and Noah et al in Chicago than it has to do with the brilliance of his systems...as I've said a number of times in this thread, we have some great basketball minds in this forum who easily identify significant differences between the Thibs offense and Sam's...some of them good, some of them not so good. But nobody has been able to articulate any real difference between the defensive coaching styles of the two coaches...and unfortunately also between the results. I think Glen bought into a narrative about Thibs' defensive genius that simply isn't true. He didn't turn KG or Noah into defensive studs...they already were, and his reputation benefited from it. And similarly he's having very little impact on the Wolves' defense...it's still the same shitstorm it always was.

[Monster]

We don't know who is most to blame for this horribly disappointing start to what we all thought was a promising season, but I have to agree with Lip's post above: that the same starting team performing so much worse under Thibs seems to be an indictment of the coach. The local media has certainly started questioning Thibs' fit in the past week. I'm still curious if someone can answer my question about how Thibs' "defensive system" differs from Sam's. So much about Thibs is clear, it's surprising to me that nobody has posted about significant differences in our defensive approach. Here's what we know about Thibs as a coach after watching him for 17 games, good and bad:

1) He spends more time reviewing film than perhaps any coach in the league (good)
2) He has perhaps the craziest sideline behavior of any coach in the league (bad)
3) He never seems to give his players positive reinforcement during games (bad)
4) He handles the media much better than Mitchell did (good)
5) He has a tendency to deemphasize the PG in the 4th quarter in favor of wings handling the ball (bad)
6) He seems to prefer KAT operating from the top of the key than around the basket (bad)

Those things are all quite evident, but I can't point to one tangible difference on the defensive side of the court. Somebody with a keener defensive eye help me with this please.

Again which of Sam's defense are we comparing these games so far in this season? Look up the Wolves defensive rankings once they went young last year I bet you will find some really woeful defense statistically.

I'm comparing the thibs-led defense to the atrocious Sam-led defense at the end of last season, and I'm not finding much difference between them...either in system or degree of success. Our defense at the beginning of last year was terrific (our offense...not so much), but I give Sam very little credit for that...that was all about KG and Prince. But similarly I think we're finding out that Thibs' defensive reputation has much more to do with KG et al in Boston and Noah et al in Chicago than it has to do with the brilliance of his systems...as I've said a number of times in this thread, we have some great basketball minds in this forum who easily identify significant differences between the Thibs offense and Sam's...some of them good, some of them not so good. But nobody has been able to articulate any real difference between the defensive coaching styles of the two coaches...and unfortunately also between the results. I think Glen bought into a narrative about Thibs' defensive genius that simply isn't true. He didn't turn KG or Noah into defensive studs...they already were, and his reputation benefited from it. And similarly he's having very little impact on the Wolves' defense...it's still the same shitstorm it always was.

Well I guess I'll have to do the work of looking up the stats...

Wolves defensive rating after the all star break last year was 108.8 (28th) and that season they finished 107.1 (27th) compare that to the tanktastic injury d-league roster they threw out there the previosu season that ended up dead last at 109.6. in other words no matter how you slice it the Wolves have been terrible defensively the last few years. after a strong start their defensive rating dropped every month excpt April where they jumped up one spot. yay!!!! Where are they this year? 106.1 (23). thats not a huge improvement but its something. They haven't been too good lately, but we are looking at a fairly small sample. They also played a third of their games without the starting PG who in the past has been a positive defensively especially over the guys behind him. So you can make a somewhat weak case the team has been a bit better overall defensively so far but its what we have to go on.

As for the eye test I feel like I see different things than other people do. I've consistently thought this season Bazz has been solid as a defensive player relative to this team. Good? Hell no but people keep saying he is completely awful. He is still 4th best in defensive rating on the team only behind guys that don't play much. What do I see that's different than what we saw this team do under Sam the 2nd half of the season? I think the team rotations look mor like the guys know what they are supposed ot go. They are late too often obviously, but I feel like the idea is there. the real problem to me is more how this team plays when it comes to screens. last year they were not good at it either but this year its largely abysmal. Sam helped that late last year by just flat out switching everything. it obviously worked quite often and just about anything was better than what was happening before. This year I think its obvious Thibs is asking them to do something differently and thy don't know what to do. Dieng was much better last year and this year...he hasn't been as good. This year's team forces a lot of turnovers. Last year that was a relative strength also. its 18 games in lets see if December we see the Wolves stay where they are or climb in the defensive rankings. its not where you start but where you finish.

Also its not like Thibs has some magical additions to this roster defensively over last year. Aldrich, Rush and even Dunn might be upgrades from last year, but Prince was a really effective defender down the stretch as a rotation player for the Wolves last season. Do the Wolves have the players to be good defensively? We will see and I think they will eventually but they are young and don't have a vet to lean on. People give Zimmer a ton of credit for rebuilding a terrible defense quickly and he should get credit for it, but it wasn't like the cupboard was bare either and I said so at the end of that season. Harrison Smith missed over half the games. There were some other good players on that defense they just had bigtime holes at key positions. Spielman hired Zimmer and then they went out and got some impact players on that side of the ball. They were very weak up the middle so they added Joseph and Brinkley. those guys helped the other players be more effective and Joseph wasn't even super awesome the first year. They needed CB help so they added Captain who didn't play well his first year, but was probably still a bit of an upgrade over what they had before but obviously had flourished in his role since. They added Barr who was an impact player right away. Its a different situation, but I do see some parallels. Captain is obviously a pretty good player, but he didn't play well his first year in a new system. Is it possible some of these Wolves players might not figure out Thibs system for a while before clicking both young players and vet players as well? It's almost like Thibs is building all this from scratch. Dunn hasn't exactly been Anthony Barr. I just think we need to keep watching and have more patience.