02-11-2021, 01:08 PM
(02-11-2021, 12:39 PM)SleepingHero Wrote: KL, what are you expecting KP to be on defense? He just had a game with 6 blocks in it with insane rim protection. Is your belief coming from because he isn't a good perimeter defender? If so, why are you holding him to that standard since almost every big sans maybe AD isn't a good perimeter defender at all.
The Minnesota game was good for him, in terms of interior rim protection. He was guarding a smaller guy who didn't have much in his bag, and the opposing team didn't really do much to force KP away from the paint, meaning the journey involved with being in the paint at the same time as the ball was a really easy one, relative to other games. But, I'll give him credit for that one. You can only defend what the opponent is making you defend, after all, and he did his job that night.
In today's game, a center has to be able to COVER GROUND, going from the paint all the way out to show hard on a ball-handler coming off a screen, and then to recover to the screener who could be rolling, popping, whatever, and then if the screener is rolling, the 5 will sometimes have to get all the way out to the corner to contest a shot once he has taken the lob away. He MIGHT even have to make it back to the paint again after that.
OR, he can play in drop coverage, which is essentially creating a sort of one man zone in the paint. This puts a ton of pressure on the guard to be almost superhuman with their recovery time against certain players, and it STILL requires lightning fast reflexes from the 5, as he now has to face (possibly) a ball-handler AND a screener, both going downhill, and possibly even a back-door cutter. Not knowing which of those scenarios to prepare for, the guy whose quickness you're trying to hide by choosing this approach ends up even more screwed by a good offense, imo.
OR, you can just switch everything, which will result in Chris Paul going 1-on-1 in an iso situation against KP. We saw how that worked in the last PHX game (which was KP's best defensive effort of the season, imo). Not really an option with Porzingis.
This is why guys like DAJ and Drummond really shouldn't be in the league, and this is why teams are literally (this is not hyperbole) targeting Porzingis with their actions the entire time he's on the floor.
There are more 5's than Davis who can move well enough to be a force on defense. We just saw one last night in Capella. Gobert, Bam, Embiid (when he's playing hard, like this season). I'm not going to list them all, but there are plenty more. For KP to be a viable option as a foundational building block with his defensive shortcomings, he'd have to be as big of a deal on offense as Jokic, in my opinion. Is there ANY chance he ever reaches that level? I think not.