How do we fix our defense?

[Lupe]

Yes they are the Champs but neither Love or Irving have been big game players in their career. Only LeBron is a given in any series and they won last year because Irving and Love played better than normal in the playoffs.

No.

Those are about the 2 biggest games you can play in, game 5 and game 7 of the NBA finals against the best regular season team in the history of the game on the brink of elimination (he had 23 points in game 6, so not like he didn't show up there either). 41 points and a 26 point performance including the game winner. Somehow not a big game player? He's hardly gotten to play any big games in his career because he's only been in the playoffs twice and the east was a cakewalk for Cleveland, but when he got his chance he stepped up and punished Golden State while also playing very good defense on Steph Curry I might add.

Love also looked great in the playoffs up until the finals, and he, like Kyrie hasn't gotten a chance to play many big playoff games because he spent most of his career with Minnesota.

That assessment is just way off.

[lewro]

Didn't Kyrie look amazing vs gsw in the finals!? He's not a big game player? What game is bigger!? Demar and Kyle haven't looked big game in many of our series. They got swept twice. I still think they can be big game players. You don't Kyrie is that?
The cavs look even better this yr.

[Axel]

Love was hurt when they lost the yr prior.

It's not about one year it's about the entire career to date. This isn't the like the Heat where you had Wade and LeBron. Irving and Love were both perennial losers with good stats until LeBron. Cavs aren't unbeatable. If you think they are, trade Lowry now and build around JV cause Lowry's Prime years are not going to outlast LeBrons. Trading for Noel won't change that. He's a decent player and might be worth the gamble, but he isn't the cure to our defensive problems and he isn't going to make us beat the Cavs. Trade for him to add an asset but fix the problems if you want to win.

[Barolt]

Love was hurt when they lost the yr prior.

And Bogut was hurt when they won last year, and Curry wasn't 100%. Injuries happen.

[lewro]

Channing Frye just fried us for 21 pts in like 2 mins

[lewro]

Yes they are the Champs but neither Love or Irving have been big game players in their career. Only LeBron is a given in any series and they won last year because Irving and Love played better than normal in the playoffs.

Love was hurt when they lost the yr prior.

[lewro]

Raptors were 40-20 with JV playing. So unless you think they would go 2-20 or worse with a worse centre than Biyombo to step in, no, they did not need Biyombo to get into the playoffs.

They did indeed need him to get the final 2 wins against the Heat to get into the conference finals, though he wasn't much use in the playoffs before then.

PS - no such game has occurred this year where both Poeltl and Nogueira had 5 fouls. We never went to Siakam out of necessity at C - we have however used him as a small C in some lineups regardless of foul trouble depending on matchups. Making stuff up to help your argument won't get you too far.

First, you think biyombo is better than noel?

Second, if we don't have biyombo last yr who plays centre when jv got hurt? Bebe? Who backs him up? How good is that team? Jv could get hurt for more than 20 games and the east is tougher this yr. We could end up the 8th seed or worse. You forget that we got swept the previous two years? Nothing is assured.

You're right 5 was off the top of my head, I should have said foul trouble. Vs sac jp fouled out, siakam had 4, pat had 5, bebe had 3 (second game back from injury - which is a problem for him). That's not solid at all. We have 3 rookies, one is injury prone, how many times do we hear Devlin say "rookie foul", and Pat is a career backup. I'm not putting any faith into Sully until I see him play. This doesn't look like a contending front court. It looks like a rebuilding one.

[Axel]

You can't depend on the cavs in the playoffs!? They're the champs.

Yes they are the Champs but neither Love or Irving have been big game players in their career. Only LeBron is a given in any series and they won last year because Irving and Love played better than normal in the playoffs.

[lewro]

I disagree with the bold. The Raps do have a chance, in large part because other than LeBron, I don't see a roster full of guys that you can count on in the playoffs; but it means that Lowry is in peak form with Demar in peak form and JV in peak form - with great defensive contributions from everyone (especially Carroll, Ross, Powell and Patterson). That's why managing minutes and the schemes (both offence and defence) are more important to me than obscure trades.

Acquiring Noel doesn't change any of the above factors for beating the Cavs, so he's really a lateral risk with potential (and cost) raises. Noel's injuries scare me for the price tag. Also don't know if he's the type to be willing to come off the bench. Lots of risks for a guy who probably can't play PF and isn't necessarily a better (or cheaper) option than our existing starting C.

You can't depend on the cavs in the playoffs!? They're the champs.
Noel's played more games than jv and sully the last two seasons. There is a lot of speculation around his current "injury". Vorp and bpm suggest that he is better all around than jv, at a younger age. He is clearly better than siakam atm. He certainly seems to fit Casey's system more to me. Good news is that we would have both and actually know instead of speculate. It's not speculation to say that our defense is bad and noel is a very good defender. Our other weakness is front court experience and depth, noel helps that too. The cost? Noel is worth more than cory around the league and he might be worth more to our team imo. The only reason he is available at that price is bc of a historic blunder build in Philly. Resigned we could trade him for more than cory is worth by and possibly at a position of need. We have a lot of pgs/ball handlers and I am confident in all of them. I'm not at all confident in our front court.

[DanH]

First, jv got hurt last yr and we needed biz to even make the playoffs, same thing once we got in the playoffs and jv got hurt again. Not to mention home court advantage. It's no certainty that we beat Boston, Charlotte, Atlanta, even with jv.
Second, when jv was hurt this yr, our rookies struggled to stay on the court without fouling out. We had to rely on siakam by the end of one of the two games bc both of our centers had 5 fouls. We are already asking siakam to be starting pf. You think siakam is taking us to the ecf!?
Third, what I've stated more than once on this forum and earlier in this thread is that biz's defense on lebron in the ecf was crucial to us winning a single game vs. the cavs. If not for that we were a joke to the cavs. Biz putting lebron on his ass was the best thing we did in that series. That's the first time lebron even slightly took us seriously.
Go listen to end of Zach Lowe's latest pod. He talks about our strength of schedule and how the cavs don't take us seriously, even in "close" games. Feel free to say "wait what?" to him. Then go comp biz stats to noel. He's has mostly better stats, including playing out of position at pf. Better than siakam by a mile. If you look at vorp and bpm he is better than Jonas too. Jonas' career high vorp (last yr) is still lower than Noels' career low, playing out of position as a 21 yr old.

Raptors were 40-20 with JV playing. So unless you think they would go 2-20 or worse with a worse centre than Biyombo to step in, no, they did not need Biyombo to get into the playoffs.

They did indeed need him to get the final 2 wins against the Heat to get into the conference finals, though he wasn't much use in the playoffs before then.

PS - no such game has occurred this year where both Poeltl and Nogueira had 5 fouls. We never went to Siakam out of necessity at C - we have however used him as a small C in some lineups regardless of foul trouble depending on matchups. Making stuff up to help your argument won't get you too far.

[Axel]

Bc he is old? That's ageism. I haven't seen Pau play this yr but he looked better than jv to me last yr and more than a decade of data still supports that, including this yr.

Ageism? Are you even being serious?

Are you suggesting that older players do not lose a step or become slower? Or that Pau is somehow immune to it? Cause that's pretty ridiculous. All players get slower eventually and Pau is 36 years old. Maybe you should watch him and then try to say that he hasn't lost a step.

[lewro]

Pics or it didn't happen

Lol

[lewro]

It would be pretty hard to capture Gasol's role within a system that's different to our and JVs role in ours with a simple statement about how bad McDermott and some others are defensively.

Do you really believe that Pau has the quickness and skills, at this point in his career, to really perform better than JV on our team? I don't see it.

Bc he is old? That's ageism. I haven't seen Pau play this yr but he looked better than jv to me last yr and more than a decade of data still supports that, including this yr.

[lewro]

You somehow miss the part where we don't get close to the ECF without JV's dominance against Indiana and in the early parts of the Miami series?

JV was destroying Whiteside, Whiteside was destroying Biz.

You missed the part where I said trade jv for noel bc i didn't. We'd have both. Just like last yr.

[lewro]

Why isn't THAT the part of the story that bothers you?

Of course it is. Demar is a bad defender. He needs to play his best. Demarre being hurt made norm cover huge players. He needs to get healthy. The rest of our perimeter players are much better defensively. I said to you before, all our players need to try their best and we need as many good defenders as possible. Demar and jv are not good defenders.