Everything Valanciunas

[golden]

Someone on the comments page pointed out that in all the clips, Lowry is making a move forward instead of keeping his back on the screener and using the proper footwork to negotiate around the screen. It's almost like he's going for a steal and then giving up on the play. That's a bad habit and looking closer, it seems like it is the biggest part of the problem. Poor fundamentals by Lowry. It creates effectively zero resistance on the ball-handler with Lowry putting himself completely out of position to do anything useful.

[tsc8]

I agree, its not only JV as most other bigs have the same issue.

What scares me is that Charlotte/Washington is certainly a matchup we may face in the playoffs.....We must get a better handle on our PnR defence or we're going to be disappointed come playoff time.

Agreed. I could live without seeing Paul George or Jimmy Buckets in the first round too. We're better than all those teams I think, but they all have some scary guys who could terrorize us in a playoff series.

[KHD]

lmao just checked out that article on the front page. pretty much reaffirms why i don't normally do that.

[KHD]

With the whistle JV gets from refs he cant be careless with fouls.

Also this is yet another article trying to criticize JV for something 80-90% of the Cs in the league would be bad at. I honestly don't know what people expect from a C anymore.

Sometimes i swear people don't watch other teams bigs well. Almost every big man struggles in space with a guard/wing coming at him. And most teams that utilize a true big and are successful defensively make it a point to try and avoid these situations by trying to force ballhandlers to certain lanes, zoning up to close up driving/passing lanes, having better secondary rotations to help helpers, etc... Our D is just bad and if people want to point a finger they should start with the coaching staff and then with our perimeter guys who regularly put up no fight.

The sad truth is that D is less about specific personnel than people like to think. There are gamechangers defensively, but so few of them. Biz was not one of those guys. You need all 5 players on the court committed to it, and a coaching staff that preaches the right principles. I don't know how anyone watching this team all these years can think Casey does the latter, and our players aren't all held accountable in a way to ensure the former. Ideally you want at least one or two guys who can defend their man with minimal help. And unfortunately the closest things we have to guys who require minimal help mostly play less minutes off the bench.

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that's not how the "Guards First" (or, rather, "Guards Only") hierarchy works.

[omgsomuchpotential]

I guess as a Lithuanian I can't be totally unbiased, but still. I admit that JV is not a great overall defender (the only place where he could be considered a good defender is in the interior on ISOs, but that's just a guess, I could be wrong). Even when he's locked in, he's probably just an above average overall defender. Therefore, the way he's being used on offense is all the more frustrating to me. The only offense he gets aside from his own offensive rebounds, are those shitty JV ISO attempts where a guard dumps him the ball and then everyone just stands and watches as JV goes for that awkward looking running hook shot (or gets stripped). This is infuriating because I know JV isn't a bad passer (he showed it too in the beginning of that Phoenix game a couple days ago). Why couldn't we involve JV more as a facilitator? It would open up his offensive game more as well, because everytime before passing the ball he could have an extra option to do a fake and attack himself. I think that would also make him more engaged and locked in on the defensive side too because he'd actually feel like an important cog out there.

I have a hunch that Dwane is of that philosophy 'You have to defend to earn your offense'... I get it as a motivational thing, but some bigs just aren't that good at defense. It's more important to maximize the value the player can provide (in JV's case the offense, and taking some offensive load off Kyle and DeMar so they could also spend some more energy on D) instead of trying to mold him into a player he simply doesn't have the tools to be. If you use an offensive minded center with very average defense as a defensive garbageman, then you can't really be surprised with the results. With this in mind, trading JV for a Chandler-type player actually makes sense.

/end of rant

[DanH]

Considering DeRozan's defensive record, I seriously doubt Casey is really of the "defence earns offence" mindset - or if so, only for specific players.

[KeonClark]

Considering DeRozan's defensive record, I seriously doubt Casey is really of the "defence earns offence" mindset - or if so, only for specific players.

His role cards. Jv is "screen setting rebounder, defensive anchor who can't defend so he makes me shake my head"
Demar is "scorer, what a worker, he's the son I never had (casey has a son) who can't defend so I shake my head at jv for not defending for him"

[Chr1s1anL]

I'd also mostly agree that JV lacks the overall BBIQ, but you have to be careful about definitive nature/nurture conclusions here based on pre-NBA.

Take a guy like Jared Sullinger, who averaged only 1.6 AST per 40 in college - same as JV in Euroleague (a higher level of competition, btw). He jumped all the way to 3.9 AST per 40, mainly because he was forced to do that under Brad Stevens ball movement system. There was no indication of that passing skill. Same thing with Serge Ibaka becoming a shooter. Yes, these are exceptions.

Brad Steven isn't the only coach that Sully has played for.

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[JamesNaismith]

We need to trade JV before he hits Monroe level value, if he hasn't already.

[KeonClark]

We need to trade JV before he hits Monroe level value, if he hasn't already.

What's funny is I thought jv was outstanding defending in the 4th quarter today, and lacked all confidence on offense. Complete reversal. Rebounded like a beast as usual tho

[KHD]

What's funny is I thought jv was outstanding defending in the 4th quarter today, and lacked all confidence on offense. Complete reversal. Rebounded like a beast as usual tho

yeah i thought the same. he did as well as possible against Marc in that quarter.

get his head on straight on O and i'll take that JV every night.

[DogeLover1234]

We need to trade JV before he hits Monroe level value, if he hasn't already.

Don't look now but Monroe is good this year. I believe i read hes a plus defender and closing games (don't quote me on that).

[Scraptor]

Don't look now but Monroe is good this year. I believe i read hes a plus defender and closing games (don't quote me on that).

Still, opposing GMs will say you don't trust him to start, so he can't be that great.

The cynic in me wonders if Masai/Casey are now closing games with JV in order to remove that stigma, to improve his trade value. Not sure why else the team would suddenly be a meritocracy when JV has had better first halves for which he sat in the fourth quarter.

[DanH]

Still, opposing GMs will say you don't trust him to start, so he can't be that great.

The cynic in me wonders if Masai/Casey are now closing games with JV in order to remove that stigma, to improve his trade value. Not sure why else the team would suddenly be a meritocracy when JV has had better first halves for which he sat in the fourth quarter.

Could just be figuring out that he's just fine closing games and doesn't need to be taken out.

[LJ2]

Or it could be that they are in the middle of a losing streak and are trying to get out of the current funk.