He's 100% correct on both counts, of course. Baze is a reliable defender and it doesn't matter how much he scores as long as people respect his 3pt shot, especially from the corner. Re: Russ - they need to help him get comfortable in the offense. What's the point of him grabbing the rebound and pushing the ball if there's no one to pass to early in the shot clock? It only makes him pull up for a random jumper.
Vogel said "whether the Lakers are facing an elite point guard or wing." Meaning 1s and 2s and occasionally 3s. Baze isn't gonna guard the normal to bigger 3s out there. We are hurting wth Ariza and THT out.
The good news is, there aren't a lot of those massive 3's we have to really worry about. PG and Butler this year? When Ariza gets back we have a great look, in the meantime just throw Lebron to the wolves a bit.
I think he is. Personally I’d be unhappy if he went Phil Jackson this early and already set in stone his starters and 9 man rotation or whatever and no one else typically got in the games except for garbage time. We have a lot of talent to still be tried in combinations. Who didn’t like that LeBron, AD, Russ, Monk and Reaves combo late? Playmakers, firepower and potential for great defense.
It was great seeing Vogel and Fizdale working together verbally on the sideline. I think our staff rocks.
Baze assumes the role of "point of attack defender", the one KCP used to have. KCP also used to pick up big 3's like Kawhi depending on how the minutes broke down. There are also moments where it seems like Vogel will ask guys to take a bad matchup until the next rotation comes in. It looks like Frank turns to Bradley as a last resort to stop a scorer too.
Our scheme doesn’t rely on perfect man defence. It just asks for effort, control and help. So Bazemore, Reaves and Bradley have all been good point of attack defenders so far.
when he gets back, this is where i wanted to see if THT could help. when teams try to just iso big wings on us, he may be someone who can slow them down.
It’s just such a no brainer that you shouldn’t be playing two non shooting PGs at the same time. Why is Vogel being stubborn about this? Granted when Nunn comes back I hope to see less of this. But Russ and Rondo together is bad offensively and defensively.
We have 9 players and Vogel doesn't want a 0/0/0/0 game from AB. They don't have many other options right now.
Rondo is a great third stringer. For all of the bad rep he gets, he is an intelligent player that can still contribute. He had a beautiful screen to free up Monk for that bomb 3 to tie the game up, you can't buy those kind of intangibles. He is better than Bradley and helps get a second playmaker on the floor when one of Lebron and Westbrook are resting while we are missing Nunn & THT.
Vogel needs to work on this team not only on defense, but also on offense. It was like watching last year in the playoffs during the 3rd quarter where the team looked clueless about how to score a basketball. Too many times AD was ignored. And he still loves to play Rondo and Westbrook together. The ending was great though. All he could muster up for the last play was having a minimum salary Monk do an iso to drain a 3 while AD/russ do nothing.
