Tonight against the Jazz Parsons got absolutely abused by Gordon Hayward. Don't get me wrong, I know that Hayward is a fantastic scorer but Parsons was exposed. He struggles to fight over screens, he often gives shooters too much slack, he gets mixed up on rotations (to be fair this is also a team fault) but remember the Dallas Mavericks game where they went to OJ - Dirk PNR and exposed the Parsons and Harden defense? They both had no idea what they were doing together. He can't compete in the interior either, he gets abused by physical wings and often doesn't even contest unless the opposing player's name is Marcus Morris - Anyone catch the Jazz walking it inside when he was switched there in the 4th? We can have one defensive sieve in Harden given that he's our designated scorer but it's been an issue year round that our team has awful defense. The Parsons - Harden duo is a huge part of that. Lin stinks in B2Bs and can't guard quicker PGs (who can guard quicker PGs one-on-one?) and our PFs are confused as always, but the PFs don't account for how absolutely defensively inept our team is. McHale needs to call our Parsons for his lackadaisical interior defense, gambling and losing assignments - like Monta who shot a game winning three after Parsons was caught ball-hawking. He's fantastic at cutting off the ball and offensively he complements Harden and particularly Lin exceptionally well but man, his defense looks to actually be regressing as the season goes on.
Now people are going to comment about his salary, or that I'm a LOF, or that he guards Dirk and Deron, or that he's our best two-way player without providing evidence.
I do miss the Parsons of last year in terms of his defense. But as long as Parsons is going to be the 2nd/3rd scorer on the team, his defense is going to suffer somewhat.
He's assigned the other team's best offensive wing, plays way too many minutes, and always runs on the fastbreak to catch passes. He's gassed out there. He's shown he can defend at a high level but this style of basketball is not conducive to playing good defense.
I think if our second superstar is going to be any power forward not named Josh Smith we'll eventually trade Parsons for an elite defender at the SF position. Someone like Sefalosha I think. Either that or you have to trade Lin because with Lin/Harden/Parsons you have three average/below average defenders starting and unless our max power forward is an elite defender (only Josh Smith is from the available FAs), our defense becomes way too weak. Lin won't be traded I think due to his upside + the China money.
I think we all agree that his defense this season has really fallen off. I think he's a good isolation defender but below average when it comes to rotating and closing out on shooter because he ball-watches and/or gambles (like most of our wing players) too much.
They both did. That's the problem, Harden and Parsons both cannot play defense worth a damn. Sometimes they'll 'lock-down' and play decent defense, in Parsons case he shows glimpses of great defense, but over the course of the season they've both been bad. Individually I don't think it'd be a big deal, but our defensive ineptitude is more pronounced because of them both together. That and our youth, mid-season trade, McHale doesn't seem to place as much emphasis on defense, super small-ball line-ups etc. Next season will be interesting to see but a lock-down wing defender or at least Parsons improving into becoming a net positive would do wonders.
I completely disagree, why would he need to bulk up? He will be better next year he was very good on D last year and I'm sure it will come around again. I don't think he is a bad as the thread is making him out to be anyway.
During the 4th, when Utah made their run, Harden guarded Hayward and Parsons guarded Marvin Williams who went 1-3. I would say Parsons did okay on D tonight.
