Are you watching Keith Smart?
by BritWarriorGSW on Nov 15, 2009 10:12 AM PST
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Ok.....so last night watched a pretty epic game, where we saw a rookie light up the court and now everyone has "Jennings Fever".....
Fair play to the guy, he saw an opportunity... and he took it. The question is, what was the opportunity? The opportunity as EVER, was the complete mindless, moronic lack of game head and defense after halftime where upon we venture into the dreaded "3rd Quarter"....I mean forget the twilight zone (Que Tony to do a great poster using the old black and white twilight zone images and make it the 3rd Quarter zone) we as a team have a SERIOUS issue when it comes to the 3rd quarter....nearly every game we lose, we lose or make extremely difficult for ourselves in the 3rd quarter!!!
So...back to mr Jennings....WHY? did he get away with that "stampede"? VERY simple.... DEFENSE!! The age old nugget for the GSW faithful.... we are stunning on the offensive end, but could be embarassed by high school teams in how badly the team currently plays defense. I am not kidding, the Golden State Warriors truly are that bad at defensive play.
So...who is to blame? and yes...there is blame to be had here and certain people must now put their hand in the air and say..."yes...I am guilty of doing a poor job" and that is predominantly Keith Smart. Let's not kid ourselves that Nellie will teach Defense...has never happened, WILL never happen and hence why Keith Smart was publicly made the "Defensive coach".
Now when they made the appointment, I thought..OK..lets see how this works. I am still waiting a season and a half later!!
How many times do we see players "reach in" to try and get the ball, which 9 times out of 10 results in a slap on the arm and a foul... the players seem to have forgotten the very basics of a defensive stance even... but I wont educate our players how to stand... I'll let his "airness" do that for me....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOaJHAhOnXM
Now...back to Keith... do you think it is at all possible he might take these guys and spend a whole day with them and do NOTHING but defensive stance... I dont have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times in a game where our players have ZERO defensive stance. They simply stand narrow, upright with no hand in the face of the opposing player.....we are talking BASICS HERE! How much do these fellas earn?
Now, I have no doubt, Mr Smart is doing all he can to get these guys to wake up and realise that "D" saves games..allowing you the "chance" to win the game with offense. However it is clear that much of this rests with the players getting lazy and selfish. Once they have been in the NBA a while, the great players understand the concept of hustle and D, the ones who dont...fade into the distant memories.
Our man on man defense is shocking...but again, its not for me to describe how best to do this, but a great perimeter defender, Mr Bruce Bowen...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2A9iGhatcc
In short... we have BONE IDLE players apart from a couple and kudos must go to Curry, Buike and even now Ellis, for aggresive hustle on D..everyone else....go to the back of the class. Except maybe Magette, who is also surprisingly uping his work ethic and hustle of late and it shows in his performances.
So...what do we do about this....
Unfortunately we cannot do what SHOULD happen with professional athletes (no not throttle them) ;) Which is..hit them where it hurts....the wallet! If you are marking a man and he gets past you and scores... that's $500 right there! If the player your marking then drops 50 points on you, thats $25,000 right there..it wont take many of those to get these guys to wake up and realise that their lack of effort is killing this team! When these players start to realise that their lack of hustle affects their paycheck... guess what... effort goes up...defese goes up...wins become more.... we have to chat about poor defense a great deal less...
As we saw with Monta...you start to take away some of their "Fat Pay Checks" for their own STUPID actions or lack of on court effort.... they dont like it.
Unfortunately..its never going to happen, so the next best thing is to bring in the men or man, who's sole purpose is to coach D. The Lakers have Pippen helping them, the Celtics have Thibodeau (brilliant defensive coach) and there are many great defensive minded players that can teach our young guys how to defend... our current coaching staff...not so much. Why? because they have not changed in the last 3-4 years and our defensive output is STILL diabolical, so it's not as if they have not had their fair chance to show what they can do.....
A classic example of how a key coach can have such an effect is Mr Sidney A. Moncrief ..... We are missing his shot coaching skills ENORMOUSLY.... can somone get on a damn plane and get that man back from the Chinese?????? Our free throws have dropped off, our jump shots are not what they used to be..the man was a great shooting coach and you could see the confidence in the players shots with him around... I have ZERO doubt... you place Curry with Moncrief.... and we suddenly see both Curry AND Morrow getting back to stunning shooting form...even Monta's jumper will come back (although his tre looked pretty nice last night).
As I mentioned in my coaching piece, it is not all about Nelson... there is a whole team of coaches behind Smart and Nelson... and they are simply NOT doing a good enough job in ensuring that our guys start playing better D...ESPECIALLY in the 3rd quarter.....
Invariably we revert to our starters at the beginning of the 3rd..... I personally would like to see a coaching style change here... and leave the guys to start the 3rd....as the ones who finished the 2nd... then five minutes in or so..start reintroducing the starters....MAYBE that will help us with our 3rd quarter problems?
Finally REBOUNDING..... we all know the basic principles...but again.. one of the best to describe this is Superman himself....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql69UVzed04
As a team, the Warriors have a great fondness of the zone defense...with the zone comes incredible responsibility to "BOX OUT"....something we are again shocking at..... yes we are missing key big men, but no matter what your size... you should be making the effort to box out and EVERY SINGLE GAME we have players making ZERO effort to box out aside from maybe young Randolph and Buike... THIS HAS to change...so again...who is to blame? The players...yes.. AND the coaching staff....
In short... we have a team with some truly superb talent on the court, but it is simply not getting chance to enjoy its offense, because its defense is so terrible..especially in the 3rd quarter.....
If the Warriors as a team can simply "CONCENTRATE" on pure ball busting explosive effort on D after the halftime break... WE WILL win more games especially if they then take this increased focus and effort through the rest of the game as well. Should the basketball gods shine on us and the FO does it's job properly, then MAYBE we will get a star quality PF to help as well.....
This team is in SERIOUS need of a new defensive coach and as I mentioned in another thread, if Keith Smart is due to take over from Don Nelson due to understanding how we play our style of game on the offensive end, then as much as I want to see us trade for a great PF...I would equally like to invite our slightly rudderless Front Office to make a large cash offer to get Tom Thibodeau in as the new Defensive coach...
Every season, loyal fans of the Golden State Warriors beat their heads against the wall when they watch simply diabolical defensive play....how much longer must we make our heads bleed, before SOMEONE in the organisation wakes up and says...."Ok...what we are doing currently on defensive play is simply not working".....
In the last few games we have certainly seen an increase in defensive hustle... but it's simply not enough... when a player like Brandon Jennings gets on fire, it seems we currently have ZERO idea what to do....well that my friends is the responsibility of Mr Keith Smart and why he is paid the money he is to be defensive coach. He must recognise a problem player and CHANGE the defense accordingly...to take his threat out of the game....had we done that last night... we would have won the game, it is really is as simple as that.
DEFENSE...DEFENSE....DEFENSE.....DEFENSE......DEFENSE.....
Without it...we should change the club name to "Golden Same'ole Warriors".... frustrating and sometimes entertaining to watch, but not a hope in hell of ever taking a championship ever again...
Larry Riley.... do your job as GM...MAKE CHANGES!!!!!!!!!
This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!
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RIGHT ON THE $
I COMPLETELY AGREE !!
Dr. Jeff
Yes sir
The GSW lack BASICS. I don’t claim to have great basketball knowledge, but I do know the basics. It’s sad when regular folks like me can point out the deficiencies so easily and so often.
Confident Marco Belinelli supporter
Excellent Post
What also gets me is that these players played defense in elementary school, high school, and college, so when they joined the NBA, what happened that made them think that they don’t have to play defense anymore?
Competition. You really think someone with the athleticism of an NBA player has to put effort into D to dominate at the high school level?
by Missing Barry on Nov 15, 2009 1:53 PM PST up reply actions
If only we could find a way to get Tayshaun Prince on this team… I feel like the FO has absolutely no desire to change any of the coaching positions, so the best thing to do would be to get a player that could probably coach this team given the chance.
by samuraaaaiiiiiii on Nov 15, 2009 1:49 PM PST reply actions
The offer was on the table until Rowell extended Jackson.
Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell? Oh no hide the children!
by Nuck Chorris on Nov 15, 2009 5:25 PM PST up reply actions
we as a team have a SERIOUS issue when it comes to the 3rd quarter….nearly every game we lose, we lose or make extremely difficult for ourselves in the 3rd quarter!!!
Our third quarter struggles are not merely defensive… we have been failing to adjust on other side of the ball, and our intelligent opponents have taken full advantage of that. To be fair, Nellie has been without a proper array of bigs for a good chunk of the year thus far, so there are some adjustments he wouldn’t be capable of making. But that doesn’t explain the whole problem away. Our opponents have made strategic adjustments at halftime and we haven’t. That’s on Nellie.
So…who is to blame? and yes…there is blame to be had here and certain people must now put their hand in the air and say…“yes…I am guilty of doing a poor job” and that is predominantly Keith Smart.
Keith Smart may or may not be a bad defensive coach, but the current setup isn’t illustrative of much. Offense and defense are symbiotic in basketball, unlike in football… it really, really doesn’t make sense to have a designated “coordinator” for one end, in practice and especially in games. There’s a reason why no other team has ever had two guys talking from the bench simultaneously.
Let’s not kid ourselves that Nellie will teach Defense…has never happened, WILL never happen and hence why Keith Smart was publicly made the “Defensive coach”.
So our head coach — one of the highest-paid head coaches in the league, mind you — is so bad at and apathetic about teaching his team defense that he decides to put that responsibility on the shoulders of another guy. The other guy is then in charge of the team’s defense, except when he’s not, and occasionally the team overall, except when he’s not… at any given time, it’s not clear which one of them holds sway, as the head coach can trump the other guy but often lets him hold the floor when the head coach isn’t interested in, y’know, coaching. The result is a horribly muddling and confusing situation, to the point where we’ve had turnovers because the players were distracted by trying to figure out who they were supposed to be listening to. All this is happening because our highly paid head coach decided he didn’t feel like doing half of the requirements of his job description.
And after all that, we’re supposed to blame the other guy? Come on, guys. The problem isn’t that Keith Smart is a bad defensive coordinator. The problem is that THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR. This mess is of Nellie’s devising, and due to his laziness. If the axe is going to fall, Smart’s is not the neck it should hit.
by onlxn on Nov 15, 2009 2:58 PM PST reply actions 2 recs
right on
I still can’t get over how Nellie got away with tossing off the defensive coaching to Keith Smart — just because he can’t be bothered with it. It’s not like when the other team gets the ball a defensive lineup replaces the offensive lineup on the floor – the two go hand-in-hand. Separating the responsibilities only adds to the lack of chemistry for this team.
Smart is no more powerful than any other assistant coach in the league and unless he is the one making the descisions of who is playing and running practice, I don’t see how any of the blame falls on his shoulders.
except like Thibodeau (Celtics), Mike Malone (Cavs), Rambis (for last year’s Lakers’ squad), Tom Sterner (Magic), Del Harris (last year with Bulls), etc have all been labeled “defensive coordinators”. all you have to do is google it.
in fact, Smart has more power b/c he gets to lead timeouts when the dubs are on the defensive side (notice all the recent posts about Smart leading the huddle?)
Nellie needs to go, but Smart can’t fix the defense either. You need good defensive players to do that.
by homer simpson on Nov 16, 2009 8:56 AM PST up reply actions
actually, Smart could slow down the pace and give the illusion that the defense has improved (which is what Avery did – the Mavs actually got worse in defensive efficiency his 1st full season).
by homer simpson on Nov 16, 2009 8:59 AM PST up reply actions
Agree
That are players are the major reason that we will never be a good defensive team. Especially when you run four guards on the floor with one big man.
Don’t see where Smart has any more power than most asst. coaches. He gets to “lead” the huddle, which means Nelson doesn’t have anything to say, so he lets Smart remind everyone about what their defensive assignments are. Power is being able to control something and I don’t see where Smart has control over anything unless Nelson is away from the team.
Nope I disagree...
I dont think the defensive coach idea was all Nellies and yes pretty much every team in the league has a defensive focused coach. “Thib” at the Celtics is the classic example. They just dont have as much of a visual part of the coaching, but yes they are very much focused on the defensive coaching during the games.
The fact is, whether you want to see Smart as a “Defensive Coordinator” or a Defensive Coach, or a 2nd in command or anything else… HE is the guy that will be teaching the defensive drills etc in practice along with a couple of others. The fact that this just is not improving, says that clearly his coaching skills for defensive plays just are purely and simply not working.
Whatever your personal feelings may be toward Nellie and his personal work ethic, as head coach he DOES have to rely on support coaches to get things taught just as every other head coach in the league does and currently the Warriors supporting cast of coaches are NOT getting these guys to defend.
Unfortunately the organisation allowed Keith Smart to be painted as the Defensive coach and therefore if Nellie has to go, Keith has to go as well in my opinon, or as I said, you bring in an extremely good and PROVEN Basketball defensive coach in the likes of Tom Thibodeau.
GSOM Blog Beast!
by BritWarriorGSW on Nov 16, 2009 2:45 AM PST up reply actions
Thibodeau
You could also argue that by adding KG that Thibodeau ability to implement his style of defense was great improved. Maybe Al Jefferson would have be enough presence at the PF to get the job done, but defiantly not enough get them a championship. In fact KG, is probably one of the greatest defenders of all time and has an infectious energy on defense (again something that Thibodeau didn’t necessarily bring to the table for the team).
My point is that Smart is in a lose-lose situation here. First he has a roster of young players learning the game at the pro-level. Second, he’s got a coach who won’t necessarily play the best defensive lineup because he’s incredibility preoccupied by have 4 live options from the perimeter on the offensive end. He’s hoping the trade for Bell help us on Defense. Unfortunately we traded our best (and perhaps only) defender away in the deal.
Finally, BritWarriorGSW… get off your high horse on the whole Smart thing. We aren’t getting Thibodeau any time soon. Van Gundy is you’re best option, but I don’t see him leaving his TV gig to join the mess we have in the 510 (at least not until Cohan caves and sells the team). Hell, we’d be lucky to have Nelson leave without another law suit. As for Smart, I don’t think it’s a given he’s the next Warriors’ coach. I’ve posted this before… under Cohan’s ownership no interim coach has stayed on to be head coach next year. Also, he’s never hired an GSW assistant coach be head coach to start a season. Again look at the history:
Nelson (DAL HC hired in 2006),
Montgomery (Stanford HC hired in 2004),
Mussleman (MIN Ast Coach hired in 2002),
Winters (GSW Ast Coach replaced Cowens 2002 mid-season),
Cowens (FA/Former CHA HC hired in 2000),
St Jean (GSW GM replaced Carlesimo mid-season in 2000),
Carlesimo (POR HC hired in 1997)
Adelman (POR HC hired in 1995)
Bob Lainer (GSW Ast replaced Nelson mid-season in 1995)
Don Nelson – (MIL HC hired in 1988)
Smart isn’t going to be the next GSW coach. And I doubt he’s getting fired for his team’s poor defense. Should be… perhaps if your looking for a scape goat outside of Nellie.
A Sonics fan without a team... but after 6 seasons now of GS Warriors season tickets have convinced me to adopt the boys from Oakland.
Adjust yourself...
Why is it a high horse to raise an “opinion” based on performance of the team, that the guy labelled by the organisation as the “defensive coach” is doing a shocking job and has been for over a year?
How is that MY high horse? Or is it simply that you disagree and therefore its perfecly ok to start throwing the “insults” around for want of a better word.
GSOM Blog Beast!
by BritWarriorGSW on Nov 16, 2009 1:09 PM PST up reply actions
It's only a high horse
because you’ve been repeating the argument for over a week. You’re basically insulting Smart and I think ignoring the fact that Nellie is charge of rotation. Apologies for the insult.
A Sonics fan without a team... but after 6 seasons now of GS Warriors season tickets have convinced me to adopt the boys from Oakland.
appreciate the apology
But how am I insulting the guy? Because in just two pieces I have mentioned he has not done a very good job on the defense?
The results dont lie….. we lose games because of our poor defense.
Everyone was screaming for Nellie head, I have merely pointed out that he is not the only one doing the defensive coaching and therefore getting rid of Nellie may not solve our problem of poor BASIC defending…..
In all seriousness…where was the double team on Jenning when he stated to run hot in the 3rd quarter? It didnt happen…we simply did nothing to adjust our defensive play to counter a major threat.
I not insulting the guy, I just dont think he his getting the job done right now and the game against the Bucks highlighted this.
GSOM Blog Beast!
by BritWarriorGSW on Nov 16, 2009 4:50 PM PST up reply actions
Nellie isn’t doing ANY of the defensive coaching and that is why Smart is involved at all.
Bring in any other “Defensive Coordinator” and they are not going to have any impact on how the team is currently constructed. Nelson prefers to use smaller players meaning on the defensive end we give up too much size. The best we can hope for on the defensive end is that we get a steal or our big is in good position to get the rebound. So unless Nelson plays with a more conventional line up (when we are healthy of course) our defense is not going to improve. Deflecting blame on to smart is just ignoring the fact that Nelson will not budge from his obsession with small ball even though it has not worked but a few times in the last couple of seasons.
Great Rant.
Would be helpful if they didn’t knee-cap themselves by keeping Deadweight George on the roster when his contract is already paid in full (and then some). Another big man (any) would have been a step in the right direction too.
Totally agree with your comments on Moncrief. The players probably trusted him much more than Nellie.
Chris Cohan and Robert Rowell? Oh no hide the children!
Didn’t we go small ball in the third quarter? Isn’t that when we got torched?
You know I spit technique to the freshest freak
Gimme a call you will see results in just a week
With the soul of a LOST HAWK
Is there a heaven for a Rap Cat, let's talk
Well, extra-small ball I mean. (no big)
You know I spit technique to the freshest freak
Gimme a call you will see results in just a week
With the soul of a LOST HAWK
Is there a heaven for a Rap Cat, let's talk
nvm im wrong
we didn’t go ultra small till the 4th. The real problem was CJ watson got destroyed by Jennings and our coaches made no changes to have Jack or Ellis on him.
You know I spit technique to the freshest freak
Gimme a call you will see results in just a week
With the soul of a LOST HAWK
Is there a heaven for a Rap Cat, let's talk
If you are marking a man and he gets past you and scores… that’s $500 right there! If the player your marking then drops 50 points on you, thats $25,000 right there
Bye help defense, it was nice knowing you. I’m all for punishing bad defense but at the team level, not just the individual level.
An empty barrel makes the most noise.
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