Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

It was always clear to me that Mozgov is not a good defender. He is glued to the floor and gets out-quicked by the statue of liberty.

With that said, Sirron I think you are right.

We suck so bad on defense that nothing is "good". A fat guy that weighs 300 pounds needs to stop eating fat pizzas, cheese cakes and coke before he tries to optimize his low carb salad with almonds and walnuts.

 

This is what I'm talking about, articulated much better than I could.

It's not that I think Moz is a great defender, but the problem really is a team problem because so many players allow their man to score easily. If Moz was a better rim protector (or a rim protector at all), things might be a bit better, but he's one guy, and we have maybe 2 players that are almost always solid defenders in Nick and Nance. Everyone else sucks in general, so pointing to Mozgov in particular as the scapegoat for this is misplaced.

 

I don't think that's what they were saying at all. I think they were saying the problem is a team issue more than anything else.

 

Literally a sentence pulled from the article:

I'm not a Soriano fan at all. Haven't read a lot of his stuff the last couple years because I find his style unpleasant, but he's right on in this article. Mozgov isn't necessarily helping the defense, but a lot of his problems can be attributed to poor perimeter defense as well. Outside of Nick Young I can't think of a player on this team who has shown good defense on even a semi-consistent level. I suppose Larry Nance Jr. is the closest second.

 

I think Nance has been better than Young, but I'd put Young up there.

 

haha

 

I think it's a toss up between Nance and Young for best team defender.

If you'll notice, Nick doesn't switch as much as the other perimeter players. He fights over or under screens depending on who he's guarding, and he fights hard. That's what Luke is asking the rest of the team to do in situations that merit it.

Nance is just smart as heck with angles court vision, and being in the right place defensively, and he communicates on the court.

 

Oh, and in the end, I expect Ingram to be a really good defender at least if not a lock down defender.

You can just see the development and potential for him, but he's still too young and slight to be effective all the time

 

Luke touched on this in his post game press conference but it was nice to see him play the hot hands and not just sub out the starters at the 5 min mark like he usually does.