I thought our defense would suffer with Kemba and Fournier in place of Elf & Bullocks.
But we were lucky to pick up Kemba, otherwise we would have been just Rose & IQ (and for whatever reason Burks) at PG. Just as we were lucky to nab Rose in the first place. Of course, Rose has worked out grandly, and Kemba was the fall guy for this year's crappy defense. Though we still play iffy D and lose without him.
I'm just watching a replay of the 4Q (earlier I only saw the last 5 mins of the 4Q earlier.
9 minutes to go and down 9. Knix have a good defensive sequence, scrambling while GSW sprays the ball all around. Grimes does a terrific job stifling a Damion Lee drive, so Lee has to flail and throw the ball awkwardly back out. Iggy dumps it to Toscano posting up Knox on the left block with 4 then ... 3 ticks left. Burks, maybe thinking Knox is a weak defender or the shot clock is soon to go off, does a weak double. He's pseudo-doubling but not getting close enough to bother the offender or get a hand in. So Professor Iguodala, Burk's man, screens McBrideofFrankenstein, whose man then cuts to the rim and gets a lays up just before the shot clock. Either hard double and disrupt the ballhandler or defend your man. Burks was too distracted to process/notice the screen. Hell, he's jumping left as the pass goes right, right to the rim. Bottom line: halfway no man's land defense is deadly.
Very next play, Randle doubles Scurry high up to get the ball out of his hands. Knox comes over to cover the rolling Bjelica until Julius can recover. But Burks retreats into the paint for no reason and leaves Iggy about 15' open. Sure Iggy isn't the best 3-pointer, but is wide open, and could also quickly kick to Toscano in the left corner before Knox recovers from the right block. B2B no-man land defensive plays from Burks. Sure he's probably been out there 40 minutes already. Maybe he doesn't trust Knox, who did his job well on both those defensive possessions. But you can't just drift and get caught guarding noone.
This was actually a Burks speciality last year, where his man would be parked usually in the right corner, Burks would drift too far, venturing into the paint, and sometimes an alert Big would slide down from the elbow and set a baseline pick, so Burks would have zero ability to recover. Burks would never be aware of the screen until far too late. Burks loves to drift into the paint for no reason.
Very next play, Quix drifts far into the paint, his man passes up a wide open elbow 3, then relocates. When Damion Lee gets the ball in the corner, Quix is so lost amidst the paint Big I'm not even sure he could see his man with the ball in the corner.
Plenty of defensive flaws in the 4Q when the Knix were trying to stay connected. There's 3 staright bad defensive plays by our G's during one minute of play. GSW presents minimal threat inside, so I have no idea why the Knix guards were drifting so far away from 3 point shooters. Is this what Thibs wants?
When the game was close or tied early 4Q, Azubuike had a harsh assessment, bluntly stating that the Knix were garbage in crunch time and weren't going to win a close game in the last 5 mins. At least not v. GSW.
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