Battier and...Wafer should rotate on Roy

I like Wafer chasing Fernandez. He has make-up speed for those picks and curls Fernandez takes waltzing through the lane

 

You know what really chaps my ass?

How Ron and Shane can lockdown arguably the best baller in the world (LeBron) as we beat the title contending cavs who have the best record in the NBA, yet Roy lights them up for 50 points and hits all sorts of miracle shots from everywhere on the floor.

 

i think ron was more interested in hoisting up jumpers in the second game than really committing himself to playing defense. i thought he played terrible on man defense and help defense. also, roy was just hitting his shots. but i thought ron could have done better. i really think the rockets didn't help each other that well in the second game. the help was often late. the lane was never sealed in the middle. the rockets were shooting 50% while all this is happening and for the whole time, the team thought they can beat portland with offense.

 

I don't know where you people get this. Here's newsflash, when the Blazers set a screen and roll with a super fast player and the worst P&R defender in the entire league is standing in your way, it's very hard to get past both the screen and the slow-moving unintentional screen set by Yao no matter if you're ron Ron Artest, Shane Battier (who, btw is slower than Ron) or Von Wafer.

One-on-one, Ron does a fine job on Roy, as said yesterday, the killer 3 pointer from Roy was 1-on-1vs. Ron, where he forced him to pull up and take an off balance three a few feet outside the line - that's a shot that the Rockets will live with 10 times out of 10. If it goes in then it goes in.

if you are honestly arguing that Wafer is not a substantial drop off from Artest on defense, you really need to watch some games.

 

This doesn't seem to make sense. Artest and Battier are elite perimeter defenders in the league. These are guys who regularly harass Kobe and LeBron etc and are sometimes successful at it (mind you they don't always win, for reasons explained below) - however Brandon Roy is beyond their capacities and requires the services of a mediocre to poor defender like Wafer because Wafer has a quicker first step while driving to the basket?

Defense is more about anticipation and intelligence - it is not about having a quick first step. If that were the case, Aaron Brooks would be a lockdown defender when in reality he is a sieve. By contrast, slow-footed plodders like Bruce Bowen would not have racked up tons of all-defensive team nominations.

The reason for this is that, in the end, a player moving forward will, ceteris paribas, beat a player moving backwards where they are both moving the same distance, especially at the NBA level. Accordingly smart defenders like Battier and Artest try to make up for this disadvantage by using anticipation and intelligence to limit their inherent disadvantages. Wafer's extra quickness is nice, but ultimately it's not going to be enough, especially against the likes of Roy. So you don't gain anything there, which is why the Rockets defense suffers noticeably when he is in the game.

 

^^^ Bruce Bowen was not a slow-footed plodder in his prime. He's not even a slow-footed plodder in the twilight of his career. His lateral quickness was twice that of Battier or Artest on a good day and he had more than enough footspeed to stick to his man like glue. Artest and Battier have difficulty staying with quicker perimeter players, especially if they get slowed down by picks. Both Artest and Battier have slow stop and start speed and change of direction speed. Bowen had excellent stop and start speed and change of direction speed in addition to his superior lateral quickness. Simply put, Bowen was physically quicker than Artest or Battier in every conceivable way.

 

I think when Channing Frye blew by Wafer on the perimeter, and he used his catch up speed to foul him, it pretty much illustrated what is wrong with this idea.

Uhh...I think you might be overestimating Bruce Bowen's relative athleticism just a tad insofar as you are basically arguing he is one of the greatest athletes in NBA history...why was he so inept offensively then if he was so good? If he was as fast as you say, he'd have no trouble crossing over defenders left and right.....

 

One of the most brilliant things Adelman did tonight was yank Wafer after several stupid plays by the goofus. Love the guy most of the time, but goddam, he practically put Portland back in the game by himself.

 

Battier 2 steals, 4 blocks and 1 clutch three.

 

VON HAD 3 TURN OVERS.