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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 3052422, member: 837"] So, bickering about what defense works aside, some interesting things in Donna's article and some valid and interesting points in these posts. What I think a lot of people are missing -- or at least isn't being pointed out -- are some of the changes in the game (offensively and defensively) the past few years and some of the changes in our roster makeup this season compared to ... I don't know when. It's a really unique roster. But, to me, a couple interesting factors here that may lead us to change a bit of how we play: [LIST] [*][B]Teams are putting more offensive threats on the floor today than even five years ago and certainly moreso than 15 or 20 years ago.[/B] The reason for the spike in three-pointers attempted (it is a rate that has gone up every year for five years) is because more kids can shoot the three. This doesn't mean the zone doesn't work as a primary or even sole defensive system, but it does mean everyone has to account for more threats and more outside shooting. In short, every team is trying to figure out how to cover more real estate on the court and, therefore, I would imagine most teams are looking to at least tweak how they play defense. [*][B]Man-to-man defense is now really heavy on zone principals.[/B] Teams switch everything and make every effort to play more positionless defense (I think the term 'positionless' is overblown since only the Giannises and Kawhis of the world can guard 5 positions, but the idea that guys can at least roughly defend more than one position is key). JB exploring playing some man today is different than it would have been 5 or 10 years ago. It's not that switches didn't happen, but teams routinely play man defenses that look far more like zones than true man. Buffalo is a great example -- they get after the ball and play tough man, but the hedging, cheating, early slides and slanting the defense to the ball side are all every bit as much zone principals as they are man. [*][B]Our roster is really weird.[/B] Not sure this is a great thing but I'm also not sure it's entirely by accident. Sure, we've had plenty of recruiting misses and I'd never argue we're intentionally avoiding signing top 50 players, but we went hard after Girard despite the fact that he doesn't really 'fit' what we do. We didn't really bother going after a 5th-year big (might come back to bite us) and instead took a couple bigs who seem to play more on the perimeter. We took Hughes as a traditional transfer despite the fact that he's not a 2 but really doesn't exactly fit as a 3. We took Girard and Goodine -- neither of whom is a blow-by type guard -- despite the fact that Carey is really our only quick twitch type guy. We have a ton of guards in general. It's just a strange roster that would lead me to believe that at least offensively we're looking to load up on shooting and are potentially looking to play smaller at times (maybe some three-guard lineups?). [*][B]Our offense has been downright brutal in four of the past five seasons.[/B] JB may be a dinosaur and maybe the game has passed him by -- I don't know -- but he knows as much as everyone else that we [I]have[/I] to be better offensively. Looking to expand what we do offensively is almost a given, IMO, particularly with Battle and Howard gone. [/LIST] So what do I make of the article? I think our offense will look a lot different this year. Think we'll see more pace and more ball movement. I could see us shooting a ton of threes (for better or for worse) and, as was noted in one of the posts above, I think drive and kick with Carey will be really important, particularly since we really will be likely to have five perimeter players on the floor at once most of the time. Defensively, I don't see us abandoning the zone or playing much man, but I don't think we can sit in our general zone and just hope teams miss the open corner threes they get. I think we're making an effort to try and get more athletic at center even if it costs us on the glass (which it will, and that could be the major issue). I also wouldn't be surprised at all to see [I]some[/I] man and, more likely, I wouldn't be surprised to see us playing a zone that looks a little funky. A little more pressure, a little more aggressive against the high ball-screen. The interesting thing is if we play a very zone-ish man-to-man, if we end up leaning on it a bit more as the season goes along. Should be a very interesting team to watch play. [/QUOTE]

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