Announcement

Collapse

The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
See more
See less

The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 1
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous template Next
  • #1

    The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

    Over the past few weeks, after several gut wrenching losses where our Pacers were particularly exposed on the defensive end of the floor, I took it upon myself to do a completely thorough and sometimes mind numbing examination of what I felt like our team defensive plan needed to be in order for us to improve into the future. As I stated in my last thread on the topic, this has been a difficult task to do it so in depth, and I've missed out on posting on other topics that have come up. But I wanted to be singularly focused until this project I gave myself was finished, so I could cover as much defensive ground as I could.

    I heard Mark Boyle on the radio be asked by a caller the other day when he was subbing on 1070 why our defense was so bad. Mark said something to the effect that he knew the fact that our defense was struggling, but that he didn't really know WHY it was struggling. This series of threads was designed to hopefully help us as a board answer that question, and to look at the game hopefully in a deeper way. I hope it has been successful, because it hasn't necessarily been a particular fun and exciting thing to write about. As a coach I love watching a great defense play, but I have found out that it isn't all that exciting to write about and do an in depth series of articles on!

    In case you missed them and wanted to catch up, here were the 6 ways I broke down the fundamentals of team defense individually. Like Count did in the last thread, hopefully someone will come along and provide a link to the articles....I've tried to but can't get it to work for some reason.

    The articles/topics were:

    I. "Defense at the point of attack"
    II. " Wing Defense"
    III. "Defending the low post"
    IV." Help side defense"
    V. "Defending the ball screen" (pick and roll)
    VI "Fighting over screens away from the ball"

    I'll summarize my findings here in this thread, and add some thoughts about our personnel, both current and future, on how they might fit into the adjustments I'm recommending.

    (I) Defense at the point of attack was my first topic. This basically was about TJ Ford and Jarrett Jack and their lack of ball pressure. I was deeply disappointed in these 2 players from a defensive standpoint, and have taken to really studying them in the time since I wrote the first article about them in this series.

    I wrote extensively about why applying ball pressure in an intense fashion can help you in all sorts of ways as a defensive team. It takes time off the shot clock, it sets a defensive mindset and tone, it wears your opponent down in the 4th quarter, hurts our opponents communication abilities, etc etc.

    It's obvious that we don't do these things, in fact, our staff emphasizes the opposite : retreat, play conservatively, over help, don't get beat off the dribble, keep your man in front of you at all costs, etc etc. So the question is WHY? Is it lack of talent that the staff is trying to coverup, or is it the system?

    This is an open question, and I have come to believe that the correct answer is in fact BOTH. Hours of watching tape have confirmed to me what I didn't know last summer: Jarrett Jack is slow laterally, and doesn't move his feet well. In fact, even though he is asked to back off people and give cushion, he still gets beat way too often off the dribble by quickness, and he lacks the athleticism to catch up and recover. I thought he was a tough, physical defender who could guard bigger point guards, but in reality he is an average to slightly below defensively smallish 2 guard.

    I think the staff fully believes that instead of creating a team to play 2 different ways depending on who was in the game at the point, that they instead decided to plan around Jack's shortcomings, and have Ford also play conservatively in the same way they want Jack to play. I understand that decision, but it goes against my own philosophy of teaching and coaching. I would have turned TJ Ford loose and forced Jack to improve in order to keep up and earn time, rather than plan around the worse of the two in this aspect.

    Whether Ford can be a big time pressure defensive point guard like I want still remains to be seen. He would seem to have the ABILITY, YOUTH, AND SKILLS to be able to do this, but it hasn't been demanded of him. Whether he has the toughness or the mentality to play a radically different way from a defensive perspective is the big question.

    I look for the Pacers to make this change next year, and I hope TJ is the defensive ace playing in a pressuring style that I still believe he could be. I don't believe Jarrett Jack will or should be re-signed due to his defensive limitations, although I know most of you disagree due to his somewhat blossoming offensive game.

    In summary, we can and must pressure the ball out front much more than we do already, I believe that failing to do so was a coaching error by Jim O'Brien trying to compensate for his (correct) awareness of Jack's shortcomings going into the season, and I believe will figure that out over the summer when he has time and energy to evaluate where he went wrong this season.

    II. From a wing defensive perspective, We discussed a bunch of things. I went over our lack of wing denial, and I analyzed our decision to try and force drivers to the baseline instead of to the middle.

    This was essentially meant to be a discussion of how our Pacers defend teams after the first pass is made early in the shot clock, and it was meant to tie in to the first topic above.

    I think we can conclude that, while forcing drivers to the baseline made some sense in a vacuum, that it was forcing other adjustments to compensate for too many weaknesses, such as our dreadfully slow bigs. Forcing teams to drive baseline made us overhelp in both effort, attention, and try to cover too much ground, which our slow guys can't do well.

    Next season, we will either need to get much more athletic bigger guys (not easy, but in comparison to what we have now upgrades should be pretty easy) or we need to force teams to drive to the middle, where the help is closer and easier to rotate and plan for.

    The obvious solutions are we need to do BOTH those things, and we also could big time use someone on the perimeter who could force a player to the middle and THEN CUT HIM OFF HIMSELF, OR PLAY HIM STRAIGHT UP BY HIMSELF WITH LITTLE HELP NEEDED!

    Actually, I think we have some hope on our roster and in our thinking. Larry Bird drafted a good to great (potentially) defender last season in Brandon Rush, and his teams in Boston while playing and while coaching the Pacers forced teams to the middle from the wings primarily. Again, I think this is an adjustment JOB sees he needs to make, and will make next season I believe.

    We have pretty good personnel defensively in place in this spot. Brandon Rush as I said above has potential to be extremely good, and Granger when focused and coached up better can be reasonably good at this method of defending the wings. Marquis Daniels is an underrated defender as well, although he is unreliable and too expensive in my judgment. Only Dunleavy would be considered weak in my judgment, and playing fewer minutes and being asked to defend in this new system instead of our current one would help him be better I believe.

    My idea, still, would be to let Jarrett Jack and Marquis Daniels move on, and to sign the Lakers Trevor Ariza to a contract and make him a starter alongside Granger. Since we will probably have to keep Dunleavy instead of move him on (as I would prefer), I'd let him play off the bench next to Rush, so in effect Dunleavy would play some minutes against a team's bench wings, which should mitigate his defensive shortcomings and save some wear and tear on his knees.

    Signing a big time and young athletic wing like Ariza would also let you play Granger slightly fewer minutes if you wanted, and would essentially solve your wing positions for the next few years. The way I see it, you have 96 minutes combined for the two wing positions, and you could divide them something like :Granger (32), Ariza (28), Dunleavy (24), Rush (12), with plenty of depth built in in case of injuries. If his addiction to small ball can't be overcome, JOB could play 3 of these players together, as long as one of them was Danny Granger, who might be able to get away with playing the 4 on a rare occasion.....very rare in my book, but you get the drift.

    III. Defending the low post was a nice topic. We are weak in this area, and basically just need an upgrade in personnel here. I value post defense in my "4 man" like most of you do, so that in my judgment makes it critical that we, if we ever seriously want to be a team with a tough defensive mindset, need to move Murphy along, or at least reduce his role. Murphy isn't a bad player at all, he is just limited and doesn't fit with how I would like to build a team. If he does stay (which is likely), I think he will require double team help in our scheme when he is forced to guard the low post. Of course, theoretically we've made our team defense much better on the perimeter now with the above moves, so attacking Murphy isn't quite as easy as it is now.

    I believe Bird, like me, values bigs who can play their man in the low post on the block with no help. Hibbert has proven to me he will be able to do that on most nights. However, Hibbert has never been and likely will never be a high minute volume guy, so we will need at least one more (maybe two of them) athletic big man who can do the same things Hibbert can do defensively to share time with big Roy. In other words, we need someone to play BEHIND Hibbert, and someone to play ALONGSIDE Hibbert. Not going to be easy to do in just one off season without some major lotto luck.

    But at least this season has proven I think that Roy can be a very nice backup center, and probably even better than that. In fact, I think he projects to be our long term starting center solution.

    IV. My favorite article in this series was the one on help side defense. It took a bunch of film work, and some high quality study and research and discussion with people I trust.

    In short, I theorized that the Pacers help both too far OVER and 1 step TOO LOW on the floor. I am completely and totally positive that I am right, and wrote a long and boring manifesto on the subject, and how we should align our players defensively much differently when they are in help position. Again, this can't be judged in a vacuum, you need to marry it up with all the other suggestions.

    Coach K at Duke is a big proponent this year of doing the things I recommend in this thread. His teams are playing one step above the help line, and aren't overhelping all that often. Occasionally, Duke gets beaten off the dribble when trying to apply big time ball pressure (as I also suggested), but that is offset by all the positives that playing this scheme gives you. Duke pressure takes you out of your offense, you can't run plays against them! You struggle to reverse the ball, you get turned over, and fatigue becomes an issue. They have a tough defensive mindset, and take it personally when you score on them.

    The only thing I might change to what Duke does is to be slightly more sensitive to who my opponent was. Sometimes, they'd be better served in some instances to back off the pressure slightly and play safer, but by and large they do things the right way. The inability of teams to reverse the ball against Duke is a direct reflection of playing help defense the EXACT way I recommended in this thread. Rick Pitino's Louisville Cardinals are also I believe are playing one step or so above the help line, but I need to see more film of them to make sure.

    It is in this article that I do not believe that JOB will change or adopt what I am writing about. I think he is committed to his "sinking" and overhelping philosophy, and while he may tweak it slightly I doubt he will adopt playing one step above the help line like I recommend.

    This "sinking" really hurts us on defending cutters flashing in front of us, and I called out Murphy pretty harshly on this topic. We have to get our guys to play defense before their man gets the ball, not afterwards. Defending cutters in front of our face is a big weakness, and it is part mental, part schematic, and part physical lack of talent and toughness.

    Above, I wrote about me wanting us to sign Trevor Ariza. I know the financial limitations, so let's say that doesn't happen. Preliminarily, I can tell you that I would not at all be surprised or disappointed if the Pacers select Duke's Gerald Henderson, who has a spark, intelligence, character, and defensive prowess that would help replace Marquis Daniels for half the cost. I'll have in depth draft profiles after the lottery, but early on I think Henderson makes alot of sense for us, considering the landscape might change a bunch before late June.

    V. Defending the ball/screen was a nice topic too, although I had written about it before a year or so ago. I expressed my deep desire to have us TRAP THE BALLSCREEN EVERYTIME, HARD AND WITH FORCE.

    Of course, this years team cannot do that, not even close. I don't think we have a single big man on our roster who can do that, although I have confidence than even big Roy Hibbert can do it if he is coached up and taught well. Getting more athletic bigs is an absolute must, no matter what we do in the future with our perimeter guys or with our scheme. Luckily, while all of them have question marks and flaws, there are alot of bigger athletic skinny guys (tweeners) in the draft this year who if they pan out can give you bigs who can trap the screen/roll.

    As it is, JOB is fairly conventional in how we play the screen/roll, and that is appropriate for who we have to work with. I do believe he will incorporate some screen/roll trapping next year depending on who we add to the roster. I also think next year he will play the situation differently depending on who the personnel is, rather than having every combination of players play it the same way. That potential decision would actually be a neat thing to discuss with him if I ever had the chance.

    VI. Fighting over screens away from the ball was one thing I thought we did fairly well, although like I said, I believe playing one step above the help line instead of one step below it would make us more difficult to screen to start with. As was talked about, our help side defense is so bad most teams just space the floor, and have NO NEED to screen us much.


    Overall, those were the topics and the conclusions I reached in the articles about them. Dry as a topic as it turned out to be at times, I actually felt like I learned alot as I wrote them, and I hope you guys did too.

    Now, I get to post on things a little more topical and less dull and time consuming, and I have plenty of things saved up to write about now that I have the "defense examinations" all completed. I'm looking forward to doing that on what is still in my mind a great board full of intelligent fans, great debate and intelligent and funny discussion of the game and the team we all hold so dear.

    As always, the above is just my opinion.

    Tbird
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

    Tbird, I don't post here often because I don't typically get to see Pacers games unless they make the playoffs. But I just have to reiterate what others have stated in the sister threads to this one: thanks for putting together such a thought provoking series of observations!

    Since I don't post often, I'll just briefly summarize my (less informed) thoughts on your entire series here. I wholeheartedly agree with your opinions in parts I, II, and III. No need to say more, you said it better already.

    Part IV I disagree on, viewing the "one step ABOVE the sight line help position" as a vulnerable defensive position. I love your aggressive defensive style, but I think it would be exploited by the savvy NBA passers and cutters. My qualification for my disagreement is this: it's based mainly on my own experience playing, which as much as I hate to admit it, is a far cry from NBA-level competition. Perhaps it could work for the Pacers, I just don't know. What's my alternative? More of the Knight school of thought, as you described it.

    Part V I disagree with for the same reason: I love the aggressive style of trapping the ball screen hard, but I don't see how this could work if we did it almost every time, especially against teams with above-average point guards (I personally think it would even lead to easy baskets too often even against below-average point guards, but maybe not). Still, I'd love to see us trap the ball screen FREQUENTLY (just not so frequently that they know its coming almost every time).

    Overall, I agree especially enthusiastically with your opinions about on-the-ball pressure and the importance of good communication on defense. One last thought I had: I know these are some of the best athletes in the world. Reading your ideas, I occasionally wondered if these athletes would have the energy to put into effect all of your aggressive defensive ideas. Upon reflection, I believe they could, but I just thought I'd throw it out there as another potential objection.

    Thanks again for your hard work on this series! If only you could fit some of these thoughts on a giant poster board (preferable blue letters on a gold background) and bring them to a game!

    The above is just the truth...umm...I mean my opinion.

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

      Before I read this and your other threads, can I ask what type of "basketball resume" you have? If your just a casual fan, I'll leave my reading on the intricacies of defense to the experts.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

        T-Bird,

        Thanks for this extensive defensive overview. I would still be very open to acquiring Ariza, even if it meant not resigning Jack. However, how superior migth he be to Rush (best case), say, two years from now? My take on JJ is he's a solid back-up combo guard, not a starter. A perspective on TJ worth considering, at least for me, given my disppointment with him on the definsive end this year. Wish we had the cash to keep Quis. He's been flat out worth it this year.
        I'd rather die standing up than live on my knees.

        -Emiliano Zapata

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

          StlSteve: Thank you for the kind words. I don't remember seeing your name much on the board, so I hope you continue to post here, regardless of whether or not you may agree with yours truly.

          GrangerRanger: I'll send you a PM sometime this weekend telling you the answer to your question of my background. I still think you might learn something and have fun reading the threads, regardless. But, do what you feel is best.

          Tbird

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

            Thanx you for taking the extensive time creating these threads. Very informative. I know you keep saying the Pacers need Trevor Ariza, I just don't see how the Pacers could get him. So what about Q. Ross? Can you think of another player who could work that would be apt to be able to be attainable by the Pacers?

            Any thoughts on a BIG who is currently in the NBA that is athletic enough to play good "D", but reasonable enough to acquire?

            I've been thinking about possible players next year that could help the Pacers, but not costing a fortune to get in FA. Any thoughts on

            Chris Anderson- forget his past drug issues. I'm interested in his abilities.

            Quinton Ross

            Darius Miles- not sure his injury allows him to be that active now, but he'll be cheap with Portland paying his 9 mil salary next year.

            Damien Wilkins- not FA but has a 3mil expiring next year. I read he plays hard "D", it just caught my attention.

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

              Justin Tyme:

              As some of the more long term members of the board may remember, I spent a good deal of time touting Quinton Ross as a pickup I wanted us to acquire. Last offseason he was very available before signing with Memphis for a pretty small contract by NBA standards. He will likely be available again this offseason.

              I like Ariza better for many reasons however. First of all, he is bigger and stronger than Ross is or ever will be. Since I assume that for the Pacers to compete for championships a few years from now that we will have to have someone physically capable of guarding LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and other muscular players of that body type. I don't think Ross can handle that task from a strength standpoint, where I think Ariza can, although its far from a sure thing. Ariza is at least 2-3 inches bigger with more weight than the spindly Ross.

              Secondly, Ariza is 23 yrs old (24 in June), which puts him in the same age bracket roughly of Granger,Rush, Hibbert and Ford, four players who likely will be with us still the next time the Pacers are legitimate contenders. While not exactly old (Ross is 28 in April), Ross will be in his 30's before the Pacers are likely good again, when his skills are likely to be on the downward trend.

              Lastly, I just think Ariza has more room for improvement overall than Ross on the offensive end. While they both are going to be known for and be valuable because of their defensive skills, Ariza at least has the potential to become a decent NBA scoring threat. Other than possibly developing in the future a standstill 3 point set shot (similar to how Bruce Bowen did) I don't see Ross having much offensive value.

              Don't get me wrong though, I would be very happy to have either player signed this offseason by our Pacers as a cheaper alternative to Marquis Daniels, I just prefer Ariza to Ross currently.

              As far as athletic/cheaper bigs, every team in the NBA is looking for those. Acquiring a high quality one will take some clever manuevering, some astute drafting, and/or some lottery luck. I'd challenge you to look at players on each roster who have size, athleticism, and who are still on their rookie contracts if you want to see who might be available and possible to get.

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: The Sum Of All Exams: Defensive Scheme Threads Summary

                Originally posted by thunderbird1245 View Post

                This is an open question, and I have come to believe that the correct answer is in fact BOTH. Hours of watching tape have confirmed to me what I didn't know last summer: Jarrett Jack is slow laterally, and doesn't move his feet well. In fact, even though he is asked to back off people and give cushion, he still gets beat way too often off the dribble by quickness, and he lacks the athleticism to catch up and recover. I thought he was a tough, physical defender who could guard bigger point guards, but in reality he is an average to slightly below defensively smallish 2 guard.

                I think the staff fully believes that instead of creating a team to play 2 different ways depending on who was in the game at the point, that they instead decided to plan around Jack's shortcomings, and have Ford also play conservatively in the same way they want Jack to play.

                I don't believe Jarrett Jack will or should be re-signed due to his defensive limitations, although I know most of you disagree due to his somewhat blossoming offensive game.

                In summary, we can and must pressure the ball out front much more than we do already, I believe that failing to do so was a coaching error by Jim O'Brien trying to compensate for his (correct) awareness of Jack's shortcomings going into the season, and I believe will figure that out over the summer when he has time and energy to evaluate where he went wrong this season.
                Thank you so much for this.

                Comment

                Previous template Next
                Working...
                X