Pelicans are dead last his season in 3PA in crunch time, and it’s not even close. Under Willie Green in the last 3 years pelicans are : 26th, 30th, 30th in this stat.
December 20, 2023
Pelicans are dead last his season in 3PA in crunch time, and it’s not even close. Under Willie Green in the last 3 years pelicans are : 26th, 30th, 30th in this stat.
6 comments
Stat is 3PA/100 btw.
Willie Green is an excellent defensive coach. We all know that. But this roster doesn’t hang its hat on its defense. Obviously I’m not advocating for an all-offense no-defense pacers-style gameplan, but the issue is Willie Green’s coaching style does NOT fit this roster. Our top end talent are decent to bad defenders, while our best defender is obviously Herb, but the rest of them are 8-9-10th man kind of players. So when you tunnel vision on defense the way Green does, you end up playing energy guys 20+ minutes a game. Surely I don’t have to spell out the problem here, right?
The second most frustrating thing as a fan is having a roster with no shooters (my other team is the raptors, trust me, i know).
The most frustrating? Having a team FULL of shooters and your coach still runs lineups with CJ as the only shooter in the clutch. We even run no shooter lineups. It’s exhausting. It’s 2023. You can’t win without spacing.
Another note: We’ve blown 7 double digit leads this year. That’s no coincidence. In modern NBA, when you go up considerably, you go all in on offense and keep the pressure on that end, and the other team won’t catch up. Willie, instead, being tunnel visioned on defense, goes to defensive lineups over and over and because this is the NBA and because it’s 2023, teams fight back into it.
I’m tired, y’all.
Willie needs to get ready to learn Chinese. Dude is the Dennis Allen of the NBA
For comparison we were 10th with Gentry and 25th with Stan.(source: shamit) If you’re Griff and you see the needs of this team so you go and draft shooters, then they are not being utilized properly what is the next step? And to me without a doubt we have 2 of the future best shooters in the league with Trey and Hawkins. all the other teams would kill to have Hawkins right now.
Bad offense and bad lineups. Trey and/or Hawkins should be in the whole 4th quarter along with Zion/BI/CJ.
Last year we failed on Willy for not closing with JV because we struggled with rebounds. Now we put rebounders in the game and we are mad because we don’t have shooters on the floor at crunch time. I get people wanting Trey to be out there more but he is not the right guy to be guarding Ja especially in the 4th quarter. Trey is a wing defender and is solid. Herb is EXCELLENT and is an All NBA defender. Down the stretch we also need stops and it just isn’t going to happen if Herb is on the bench.
Our issues with crunch time is first deciding what are we going to sacrifice. Do we want to sacrifice rebounds and play small, or sacrifice shooting and play big.
2nd issue is spacing when we play big in scenario 1. Down the stretch teams are doubling BI. He was making the right pass giving the team a 4 on 3. The problem is defenses will just collapse off of JV, Herb, or Zion at the 3 point line. Defenses will not close out hard if any of these 3 players receive a pass at the 3 point line. The defense can just clog the paint stay close to CJ and let the help defender recover.
So what’s the answer? With Zion having foul trouble and not having a good game just give him the ball at the top of the key and make BI a coroner 3 point shooter? Do we bench Zion for Trey(who also did not have a good game) to try and space the floor? Do we bench Herb for Trey and just realize we are not stopping Memphis period and give up layup after layup? Do we sit JV who was having a very good game for Trey and get pounded on the glass even more?
There really isn’t a good answer
Closing games with defense should be achievable as well honestly but the adjustment needs to be made when it’s failing.
The problem is the adjustments don’t come. Last night the Pels absolutely needed to go small and run Z and BI two man game with shooters on the floor. Once they started selling out to BI, that should have been game over.
What’s weirder to me is he went small with switchy defenders for the final possession as his “defensive” lineup.
So if the best plan for ja was to play small, run zone, and switch everything, why didn’t he go to it when Ja was getting wherever he wanted to go.
It feels like he doesn’t trust Zion to me at all. Really strange man
6 comments
Stat is 3PA/100 btw.
Willie Green is an excellent defensive coach. We all know that. But this roster doesn’t hang its hat on its defense. Obviously I’m not advocating for an all-offense no-defense pacers-style gameplan, but the issue is Willie Green’s coaching style does NOT fit this roster. Our top end talent are decent to bad defenders, while our best defender is obviously Herb, but the rest of them are 8-9-10th man kind of players. So when you tunnel vision on defense the way Green does, you end up playing energy guys 20+ minutes a game. Surely I don’t have to spell out the problem here, right?
The second most frustrating thing as a fan is having a roster with no shooters (my other team is the raptors, trust me, i know).
The most frustrating? Having a team FULL of shooters and your coach still runs lineups with CJ as the only shooter in the clutch. We even run no shooter lineups. It’s exhausting. It’s 2023. You can’t win without spacing.
Another note: We’ve blown 7 double digit leads this year. That’s no coincidence. In modern NBA, when you go up considerably, you go all in on offense and keep the pressure on that end, and the other team won’t catch up. Willie, instead, being tunnel visioned on defense, goes to defensive lineups over and over and because this is the NBA and because it’s 2023, teams fight back into it.
I’m tired, y’all.
Willie needs to get ready to learn Chinese. Dude is the Dennis Allen of the NBA
For comparison we were 10th with Gentry and 25th with Stan.(source: shamit) If you’re Griff and you see the needs of this team so you go and draft shooters, then they are not being utilized properly what is the next step? And to me without a doubt we have 2 of the future best shooters in the league with Trey and Hawkins. all the other teams would kill to have Hawkins right now.
Bad offense and bad lineups. Trey and/or Hawkins should be in the whole 4th quarter along with Zion/BI/CJ.
Last year we failed on Willy for not closing with JV because we struggled with rebounds. Now we put rebounders in the game and we are mad because we don’t have shooters on the floor at crunch time. I get people wanting Trey to be out there more but he is not the right guy to be guarding Ja especially in the 4th quarter. Trey is a wing defender and is solid. Herb is EXCELLENT and is an All NBA defender. Down the stretch we also need stops and it just isn’t going to happen if Herb is on the bench.
Our issues with crunch time is first deciding what are we going to sacrifice. Do we want to sacrifice rebounds and play small, or sacrifice shooting and play big.
2nd issue is spacing when we play big in scenario 1. Down the stretch teams are doubling BI. He was making the right pass giving the team a 4 on 3. The problem is defenses will just collapse off of JV, Herb, or Zion at the 3 point line. Defenses will not close out hard if any of these 3 players receive a pass at the 3 point line. The defense can just clog the paint stay close to CJ and let the help defender recover.
So what’s the answer? With Zion having foul trouble and not having a good game just give him the ball at the top of the key and make BI a coroner 3 point shooter? Do we bench Zion for Trey(who also did not have a good game) to try and space the floor? Do we bench Herb for Trey and just realize we are not stopping Memphis period and give up layup after layup? Do we sit JV who was having a very good game for Trey and get pounded on the glass even more?
There really isn’t a good answer
Closing games with defense should be achievable as well honestly but the adjustment needs to be made when it’s failing.
The problem is the adjustments don’t come. Last night the Pels absolutely needed to go small and run Z and BI two man game with shooters on the floor. Once they started selling out to BI, that should have been game over.
What’s weirder to me is he went small with switchy defenders for the final possession as his “defensive” lineup.
So if the best plan for ja was to play small, run zone, and switch everything, why didn’t he go to it when Ja was getting wherever he wanted to go.
It feels like he doesn’t trust Zion to me at all. Really strange man