Fire Mike Longabardi !!!

[Cavatt]

Someone who knows X's and O's can speak to this better, but I think our defense would be much better if we just fundamentally stopped having our bigs trap on the perimeter so aggressively on P&R and stopped having them constantly switch onto guards. Like why the hell is Zizic ever switching out onto guards or trapping them at half-court?

Think of it this way, if I was to ask what is our defense designed to take away - can you really answer that question? We don't pack the paint to protect the rim, and we give up open 3's all the time by over-helping on dribble penetration.

We need an identity on D and need to make use of guys like Zizic/Nance who are great at verticality to funnel stuff to vs all the switching and trapping.

I guess I would say it is supposed to take away 3's above the key, one of the lowest percentage 3's, but ones that Curry and Thompson like to take.

Giving them up in the corner and looks at the rim sucks so bad though. Those are the highest percentage plays in the NBA.

I think the basis of our defense is fine if you mix it in here or there, but it can easily be beat by some simple passing. So, when you use it over and over again, you give it up to the roll man consistently and kicking it to the corner is pretty easy. It should be a wrinkle, not the foundation on which the defense is built.

The pother thing is that every damn player in the NBA is getting good at shooting long 3's, so I am not even sure switching gives you much advantage over a more traditional scheme anymore. Guy just backs out another couple of feet and can shoot it within that very small amount of time it takes to switch.

 

[Cavatt]

What gets me isn't just the scheme it's the TOTAL FAILURE TO ADJUST OR ADAPT even as we put up some of the worst defensive stats in NBA history and our personnel change radically. Late last year, awful defense heading into the playoffs -- NO CHANGE. First half of this year, even worse, more awful defense leading to serious concern about Lebron leaving and total collapse of the team -- NO CHANGE. After trade deadline, total redo our personnel and have much more athletic and better defenders -- NO CHANGE OBSERVABLE. Is this person a member of some obscure NBA defensive cult where you sign in blood for your sacred "scheme"?

A good coach is judged not by their "theory" or scheme but by how they adapt to changing circumstances and achieve their goals consistently. One thing I always liked about Blatt is you could tell he would try to adjust intelligently as situations changed.

1M times this

 

[Benedict_Boozer]

What gets me isn't just the scheme it's the TOTAL FAILURE TO ADJUST OR ADAPT even as we put up some of the worst defensive stats in NBA history and our personnel change radically. Late last year, awful defense heading into the playoffs -- NO CHANGE. First half of this year, even worse, more awful defense leading to serious concern about Lebron leaving and total collapse of the team -- NO CHANGE. After trade deadline, total redo our personnel and have much more athletic and better defenders -- NO CHANGE OBSERVABLE. Is this person a member of some obscure NBA defensive cult where you sign in blood for your sacred "scheme"?

A good coach is judged not by their "theory" or scheme but by how they adapt to changing circumstances and achieve their goals consistently. One thing I always liked about Blatt is you could tell he would try to adjust intelligently as situations changed.

Yeah this is very well said. 1000% agreed.

 

[23LBJ]

not just him, fire the whole damn coaching staff, every one of them is just terrible

i have pain watching us trying to play defense, even though we have the personnel to be more than decent defensively

lebron is one unlucky guy to get coached by that many looser coaches during his 15 nba years. just imagine he would have been picked by a team coached by pop or phil jackson - that is at least 8 rings we are potentially looking at. fucking unlucky.

 

[JMoneyYourHoney]

ot just him, fire the whole damn coaching staff, every one of them is just terrible

I'm hoping that after this season if LeBron is willing to commit, we're able to charter a clear direction for the franchise moving forward...which would involve the wholesale firing of our coaching staff and the hiring of somebody like Fizdale who can bring in his own guys and devote an entire offseason/training camp to implementing a more effective defensive strategy.

Even with lazy LeBron there is zero reason why we can't be a high-50s win team that plays at worst average defense.

 

[jvpertz]

Lebron sets the entire tone defensively...

Greg popovich would be frustrated coaching Lebron because at the end of the day all Lebron James teams go as Lebron goes.

If the Cavs want better regular season defense then Lebron has to commit to that. Obviously he won’t and he plays an offense heavy style of ball during the regular season.

Changing coaches in a Lebron James world always strikes me as odd. Haven’t you guys figured out by year 15 that everything goes as Lebron goes.

The one time that we had a good coach who wanted things his way-he got shit canned-and like all things Lebron we ended up winning the title that year.....

 

[Pioneer10]

Can anyone tell me WTF kind of defense this was against a Dipo/Sabonis PnR? I mean seriously are we trying to shave points by giving Sabonis a competent offensive player easy looks. He has fucking no one within 6 feet of him and he's all the way at the FT line

https://on.nba.com/2JuS9Wb

https://on.nba.com/2JvwXQe

We got damn lucky that Sabonis blew the bunny. I swear he was shocked how open he was. I don't think I've ever seen such shitty D at the end of a critical playoff game

 

[benchplayer]

What gets me isn't just the scheme it's the TOTAL FAILURE TO ADJUST OR ADAPT even as we put up some of the worst defensive stats in NBA history and our personnel change radically. Late last year, awful defense heading into the playoffs -- NO CHANGE. First half of this year, even worse, more awful defense leading to serious concern about Lebron leaving and total collapse of the team -- NO CHANGE. After trade deadline, total redo our personnel and have much more athletic and better defenders -- NO CHANGE OBSERVABLE. Is this person a member of some obscure NBA defensive cult where you sign in blood for your sacred "scheme"?

A good coach is judged not by their "theory" or scheme but by how they adapt to changing circumstances and achieve their goals consistently. One thing I always liked about Blatt is you could tell he would try to adjust intelligently as situations changed.

The only reason this coaching staff survived this long is that they had Lebron and kyrie, both can get you 40 points. That super high powered combination made up for the lack of defense and iso-heavy offense. Now that Kyrie is gone we are seeing the true coaching skills of this coaching staff, and these fools are getting exposed. It's like when Micky told rocky his fights were fixed

 

[FrontPageNews]

The only reason this coaching staff survived this long is that they had Lebron and kyrie, both can get you 40 points. That super high powered combination made up for the lack of defense and iso-heavy offense. Now that Kyrie is gone we are seeing the true coaching skills of this coaching staff, and these fools are getting exposed. It's like when Micky told rocky his fights were fixed

His fights were fixed??!??

 

[benchplayer]

His fights were fixed??!??

Spoiler Alert






Yeah, after he won the title they had him fight bums without his knowing...until he ran into Clubber. which is why Micky begged rocky not to fight him lol

 

[FrontPageNews]

Yeah, after he won the title they had him fight bums...until he ran into Clubber. which is why Micky begged rocky not to fight him lol

Spoiler alert.

 

[Cavatt]

I'm bumping this one back.

We were told Lebron was making the scheme fall apart, we were told a vet team doesn't try hard, we were told we would see the benefits later to the defensive scheme.

We were lied to! Get this guy out of here! He has never had a good defensive year with a team in his career. Every year the defense has gotten worse. It is time to call Lue's bluff and let him quit if he wants to keep this guy.

I just can't with a coach who tries to fit his players into a scheme rather than the other way around.

The Cavs cannot play the style they want to unless they get steals and stops. This isn't stopping anyone and is giving up 3s at an alarming rate.

 

[BRInQ]

I just liked 2 post discussing defense, thinking they were referring to the last 3 games. They were from March...

 

[Cavatt]

I just liked 2 post discussing defense, thinking they were referring to the last 3 games. They were from March...

Exactly. His defense has literally never worked and we have seen 2 years of "Lue took over the defense for the playoffs" and that hasn't raised any red flags? The media continues to call Lue a genius while we can't make heads nor tails of his rotations or defense. He is so far ahead of other teams, they don't realize they shouldn't be able to score on the Cavs.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Switching defensive concepts are absolutely the future of the NBA. Altman wisely spearheaded bringing in coaches who embrace this trend. It's also clear he prioritizes acquiring players who fit the concept. It's no coincidence that the first teams to embrace switching concepts were also amongst the teams with the best regular season records: GS, Houston, Boston, eventually the Cavs after the mid-season trades. Switching isolates the movement of the defense to two players rather than all five players rotating. Once many of Popovich's play concepts became mainstream and the corner three became a major weapon, defenses had to adapt. Switching is that adaptation, even if it is imperfect.