Does Anyone in the NBA Play Defense Anymore?

[mbewane]

Defense isn't getting much worse. Players now just take far better quality shots on average, take more threes and play with a faster pace.

This. You can play all the defense you want, but when brehs are running up and down the court and making threes (hell even shooting 3s on the fast break instead of driving to the hoop), the score is gonna go up regardless. A big reason why those 90s scores were so low is also the pace, I remember one of those years Cleveland had the "best" defense but it was really that they were walking up the court all the time.

Also in some games I watch you have like 43-40 first quarters but then 3rd and 4th quarters have less scoring

But it's also true that in general refs make it harder to play defense and also I think players are more outscoring you than stopping you from scoring. We all know the Warriors can play great defense but some games they seem to be like "We gonna make more 3s than you anyway".

 

[NYC Rebel]

Today's game is much more beautiful. If I want to see grind it out tough ball, I'll watch football. You couldn't pay me to watch the Alonzo Mourning struggle offense led Heat or the Patrick Ewing and old man company of the Knicks iso ball offenses. That shyt was ugly as fukk and is only lauded because of some tough guy aura. That aura is there to cover the scent of stinky struggleball.

 

[High quality poster]

Today's game is much more beautiful. If I want to see grind it out tough ball, I'll watch football. You couldn't pay me to watch the Alonzo Mourning struggle offense led Heat or the Patrick Ewing and old man company of the Knicks iso ball offenses. That shyt was ugly as fukk and is only lauded because of some tough guy aura. That aura is there to cover the scent of stinky struggleball.

Funny how the era you wouldn’t watch is the last era the Knicks were relevant

 

[NYC Rebel]

Funny how the era you wouldn’t watch is the last era the Knicks were relevant

I've....hated.....the...Knicks....since...they.....traded....Rod.....Strickland.

So what's your point other than wrongly thinking I was a Knicks fan?

 

[FaTaL]

Today's game is much more beautiful. If I want to see grind it out tough ball, I'll watch football. You couldn't pay me to watch the Alonzo Mourning struggle offense led Heat or the Patrick Ewing and old man company of the Knicks iso ball offenses. That shyt was ugly as fukk and is only lauded because of some tough guy aura. That aura is there to cover the scent of stinky struggleball.

I think this is why ratings are up, late 90s basketball was like trying to watch soccer players score. Let’s be honest I love watching nikkas drain 3 pointers 5 feet behind the line, I’m always

 

[NYC Rebel]

I think this is why ratings are up, late 90s basketball was like trying to watch soccer players score. Let’s be honest I love watching nikkas drain 3 pointers 5 feet behind the line, I’m always

Misread your post.

 

[High quality poster]

I think the game is more fluid. I don’t necessarily think players got better.

They practice and take more threes. Players from any era would eat now.

That GS vs POR game was amazing tho.

 

[Armchair Militant]

Bosh seems to agree

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Nba doesn't allow you to play defense. They outlawed it. All these leagues want more scoring because casual fans bring in money. It is a business at the end of the day.

u really cant play D in today's game

So when did this happen? When was it specifically outlawed?

Teams are going up and down the court faster, shooting more threes, and shooting them much better. What is the defense against that?

I remember Magic saying that in his era they didn't even guard the three until the final 5 minutes of games. You look at those Blazer-Bull Finals lines where the Blazers only made 1.6 threes a game over a six-game series, and that was in the relatively high-scoring early 1990s.

The last 10 years or so has also seen a much deeper proliferation of complex halfcourt sets than at any point in NBA history. And the defenses have to get more complicated to match. In the 1980s and 1990s you had Stockton/Malone run the pick-and-roll 20 times a game for 15 straight years, and teams defended it in maybe 2-3 ways tops...now there are 10+ ways to defend the pick-and-roll. Hell, in the 1980s there were players who didn't even know how to switch on picks, they were so used to isolation-dominate play focused on man-to-man defense.

It's way easier to play "good defense" when you have everyone packed within 16 feet of the rim and all the plays are iso.

 

[010101]

they were convinced people don't want to see defense they wanted that euroball shyte

they wanted to limit dominant individual players from monopolizing so they made it easier for everyone to get buckets

they didn't like the physicality so they made all contact a whistle basically

they made nba basketball a product distinctly different from the game played naturally the way folks play when all these orchestrated changes aren't in affect



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[Loose]

You should look at scores by possessions and not raw numbers

 

[hashmander]

it's not even just being spaced out to the 3 point line. with the rockets eric gordon and ryan anderson are a lot of times 5 feet behind the 3 pt line and no big in the paint. lots of space for an elite ball handler and scorer to work with.

the heat play great defense and last week when the rockets played them there was a play where harden was iso'd on winslow and the heat big man so desperately wanted to be in the paint to protect the rim from what he knew was coming, but nene was out of the paint and to avoid an illegal defense call he had to keep making contact with nene and you could sense how helpless he felt. anyway james shook winslow and drove to the basket for an easy uncontested dunk.

 

[Kaypain]

Are you not entertained?

 

[GunRanger]

In 1982 every team averaged over 101, and the nuggets avg 126 ppg

 

[LebronsHairline]

same shyt in the nfl, nba scoring started to dip along with an influx of unmolded 18 year old prospects, Stern has to switch that up quick now u see all these gilbert arenas ass nikkas