Category Archives: Breaking It Down

I’ve always been skeptical about the NBA’s way of crediting players with rebounds.

People always stop me in the street and ask, “Arse, what does great defense look like?” This is what great defense looks like.

Yesterday I covered how the Raptors defended a pick ‘n roll sequence against the Sixers. In the ‘raps’ section, curseoftheswirsk suggested that to contrast things, we look at how a good defensive team like Boston might handle a similar situation. This is from last night’s Boston vs Portland game.

Here’s a play from last night’s game which shows both the learning process a big has to go through, and the low communication level in the Raptors 29th ranked defense.

Raps started out on an 8-0 run. GSW called a timeout, and that was the end of it. The run following GSW’s timeout put them in control of the game and they never looked back. Here are three plays from that run focusing on the Raptors’ defense (or lack thereof).

We’ll start the first segment of Breaking It Down with a defensive set, one in which Andrea Bargnani does some good and bad. This is taken from the Boston game where Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett are about to run a fairly routine pick ‘n roll on the right wing. On the play Bargnani has two main defensive responsibilities, one he does well and the other he blows.