Come ON, Smack.

You can only take plus/minus so far. Think about the sequence where McDyess got 3 offensive rebounds and a foul in one possession. In that possession Redick made Rip miss 3 straight jump shots! But yet what did Redick get from that trip down the floor thanks to Gortat's inability to rebound? A -2 on his plus/minus. Plus/minus needs to be taken in the context of the game, and the Magic's initial team defense in possessions was worthy of better plus/minuses, but we couldn't grab a **** rebound to save our lives. How is giving up a ton of second chance points our guards' faults?

I mean I really don't know what game some of you in the last two pages of this game thread watched. Lee played good defense in the first half, and was all over the floor in the first six minutes or so of the third quarter. I remember me and the rest of the chat room marveling at his play in the 3rd. Redick's play was better in the SECOND half than the first!

The best proof I can use that Hamilton was defended pretty well (not outstanding, but well) by Lee and Redick was that it took him 25 shots to get his 29 points. I will say he was fouled too much. His 14 assists were an indictment of our weak side defense much more than the on ball defender.

I agree with KITNO that JJ stayed closer to Rip off the screens (illegal or not) than Lee did overall.

Cunning, I was the one who said "I wish we could put J.J.'s guts into Shard's body." Which is really a statement that all that's holding Redick back is more athleticism, and Shard would prefer to take the easy way out on both ends of the floor. If he had J.J.'s "heart and hustle," Shard would at least be worth 75 million, if not 118.

But I also agree with Junkie that Redick passed up shots.. not as badly as Rashard did, but Redick could of been more aggressive with his shot-taking. However if his stupid teammates catch the great passes he delivered on a silver platter to them and finish, we'd be amazed today about him having somewhere between 6 and 9 assists or so.

Meanwhile, I'm in the camp that SVG played Redick faarrr too long with Redick playing the whole 4th quarter, and this after he played a ton of minutes in the first half, too.

Even if Lee had lapses that SVG didn't have the stomach for last night, why NOT use Pietrus in the last 5-7 minutes of the game? He can fight off screens and maybe bother Rip's shots AND passing with his length. Most importantly, he was fresh.

Methinks I've been too nice to SVG when it comes to not giving him Stock Downs, now that I think about the last few games.

Fantastic post Cali, and I think that we shouldn't judge SVG too harshly on him using Dwight and Gortat, because Hedo was hurt.

Okay, I'll give you some facts for those of you that believe in stats...more specifically, the PER stat...it stands for Player Efficiency Rating...it was created by Professor Hollinger.

J.J.'s PER is now in the 9's...9.93 to be specific...and yes that rating is the lowest on our team...even lower than Tyrone Lue and Anthony Johnson.

The PER stat doesn't take into account players that are performing for their respective teams for defensive purposes...for example, Bruce Bowen typically has a low PER because he's not out there to score...yet he gets minutes because he serves a purpose.

I'm sure Stan is not playing J.J. to be a defensive stopper...I hope I explained that so people can understand.

Anyway, it wouldn't have mattered whom was gaurding whom in the last quarter against the Pistons...even if that particular person forced a miss the Pistons would have just got another(of their many) offensive rebounds and kept shooting until they scored...As has been documented on just about every thread on the top of the Forum today.

For those of you that don't believe in the PER stat disregard this post...

quote:

Originally posted by CaliMagicFan:
The real problem with our perimeter defense is happening off the ball, and the problem is twofold.

First, Lee isn't good at getting around and through screens. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it's a learned skill in being able to read where they're coming from and have more awareness. The second is that the man who is guarding the screener is doing nothing to slow down the cutter. I took a couple screen grabs from the nba.com highlights, so they might not be great quality, but here's what I'm talking about. This is from Rip's basket with a minute left.



Here's the beginning of the play. You see JJ trailing Rip headed for the screen, Shard is playing behind the screener.



2nd in the sequence. The screen isn't all that great. JJ easily scoots around him. The thing to notice, though, is Shard. He's practically getting out of Rip's way to let him go by. And, he's actually vacating the area Rip's trying to get to! The thing the Celtics do a lot is get in the cutter's way to the guy getting screened has a chance to recover. Shard seems to be worried about his man getting a quick pass, but you'll notice Dwight is in great help position to cut that off.



And here's the result. You can see Shard has already jumped back over to his man, ignoring Rip, even though he's got to see JJ is a good 5 feet behind him, and even though Dwight is in position to deal with any interior pass. Not only did he not bump the cutter, but he didn't even linger in the area to try and disrupt the pass or make Rip wait the half second for JJ to recover.

This isn't just an indictment on Shard, although he does it a lot. Watch the off the ball screens in our next game, the guy guarding the screener constantly does nothing but stand there. Yes, Detroit sets non stop moving screens that don't get called...but our bigs need to go ahead and slow down the cutters, which also isn't going to get called.

No way cali, it's all JJ's fault!

It's amazing what happens when you actually analyze plays. If your strategy is to trail RIP the whole game, it's essential for the man guarding the screener to disrupt his path. Whether it's Shard, Battie, or Gortat, Orlando usually does a poor job at that. The one time Shard did a good job at this was near the end of the game. Result? He got the steal.

It's very easy to just sit back and say it's all JJ's fault, or Lee's fault, or whatever. This is a prime example of the imprtance of good team defense.

Is JJ is a good defender? No. Is he decent enough? Yes. Trust me as anal as Stan is about defense, he obviously thought JJ was doing the best job last night.

of course Jeremy Richardson is really the lowest on the team in terms of PER at 1.7...and JJ's 9.9 is only .5 percent behind Lue and .6 percent behind AJ...not great anyways, just saying...

IMO, JJ shouldn't have run around the screen at the baseline (and out of bounds). It's never a good idea to trail on the heels of a cutter with the opposing team setting up a pinch screen. He should have cut through the paint (between Shard & Dwight) and cutoff Rip on the back end of the play. At the very least, if Rip still receives the pass, JJ can push him baseline toward a waiting Shard & Dwight in the interior.

it doesnt matter, Rip is arguably the best player in the league in terms of playing without the ball, his entire career revolves around using screens, it's what he does, he and Ray Allen, curl catch shoot...if you don't chase him through the screen, he knows it, so he will either stop and pop once you go over or he will switch the cut to come off the other side...happens all the time...

in reality, from that particular set, Rashard probably should have followed Rip out until JJ could come body up, Dwight had the paint sealed off from the entry pass, and had a feel on Dice and Kwame...we just don't get back on our assignments quick enough...

So anyway, let me put it simply.

Magic fans should be coming away from the game much more frustrated with Rashard Lewis and Marcin Gortat than... J.J. Redick or Courtney Lee.

This is the wrong game to be mad at our shooting guards, when we give up 15 offensive rebounds and get only 6 of them ourselves. Not to even mention all the weak side defensive mistakes (who's usually weak side in the paint? Think about it).

Any scorer who takes a high volume of shots is going to score. Designating JJ as the scapegoat yet again is pointless.

Does anybody know what Detroit coach means by this??

quote:

Rashard Lewis' 3-pointer gave Orlando an 85-83 lead four minutes later, but McDyess pulled down three key offensive rebounds to keep Detroit in it.

"He was just great, but a lot of it was because we were getting the shots we wanted,'' Curry said. "That meant we knew where the rebounds would probably be.''

http://www.nba.com/games/20090309/ORLDET/recap.html

quote:

Originally posted by ma:
Does anybody know what Detroit coach means by this??

quote:

Rashard Lewis' 3-pointer gave Orlando an 85-83 lead four minutes later, but McDyess pulled down three key offensive rebounds to keep Detroit in it.

"He was just great, but a lot of it was because we were getting the shots we wanted,'' Curry said. "That meant we knew where the rebounds would probably be.''

http://www.nba.com/games/20090309/ORLDET/recap.html

Probably that Rip was shooting from his hot spots, or at least close to them, and due to the team's familiarity with each other, they know where Rip's misses usually end up. Therefore, an inside track towards an offensive rebound.

That's my guess.