Minnesota Sports Forum

LST, One thing to keep in mind is that the league as a whole has improved offensively this year. More points are being scored and eFG% is up. So while our defense is actually not improved on an absolute basis, it is improved on a relative basis.

To answer your first question - YES, the reserves are playing solid defense, especially Bazz and Bjelly. Both have improved. But it's with the caveat that I don't believe either one defends at a "starter-worthy" level, meaning that context matters. If these guys started and played 30+ minutes per game, I'm not so sure their defense would hold up against top notch competition.

To answer your second question - I disagree with the premise that the starters have regressed in light of the improved offense league-wide, as I mentioned above. However, the problem is they are starting from a baseline of being bad defenders to begin with. So slight improvement from horrible to just bad/mediocre isn't good enough.

I would also add that I do agree that Rubio has regressed a bit defensively. I think he helps more than he hurts because he's generally a very good team defender, but I do think he's taken a step back this year overall.

Q, some good points about offensive stats being up league-wide this year, and that being a factor in some of the negative defensive performance of our starters.

I didn't see tonight's big win because I was at the double overtime Gopher win, but the box score was heartening to me...and supports my theory that more use of the bench would go a long way toward solving the absurd end of game collapses that have been so prevalent this year. Tonight for one of the very few times this season, Thibs actually turned to his bench for more minutes than his opponent. And lo and behold, look what happened...rather than another second half collapse, this time we caused our opponent to collapse in the second half, and actually won the second half 59-46. It's amazing what good things can happen with this talented roster when they're not gassed at the end of games! I don't know that we played better defense in the 4th quarter (maybe Toronto was just missing shots), but holding a good team to 21 points in the 4th quarter tells me we must have been playing better defense than we generally have this season. Keep it up, Thibs!

Thibs overplays his starters and it leads to second half collapses. The starters were all nicely positive during the first half and by the end of the game they were all very negative. Given that the players are being asked to play hard on the both sides of the ball, its foolish to play them so many minutes when its clear their performance fades in the second half. It just baffles me that Thibs doesn't get it. It just seems easier for him to point the finger at the players rather than accept that he doesn't do a good job of managing minutes. I'm so sick of Thibs-in some ways our defense is actually worse than last year--and we haven't even gone through the toughest part of our schedule.