MAVS NEWS: Luka Is Hurt, But is Trudging On | DLive's Mom Passes Away| Maxi OUT

[sefant]

It's one of the consequences of starting DJJ over Green.  The defense would be better with DJJ playing next to Powell as he provides some rim protection and is a pretty good defender.  I also think Luka and Powell need to be paired more.  They work well together on offense and Luka's elite rebounding covers DP's below-average rebounding.  Coaching counts and I think it's an issue on this team.

well, starting 5 with Green have good net ratings.. Green instead of Kyrie (+17) and Green instead of DJJ (+33) have vastly superior net rating compared to the orginal starters (-5). Also his DefRtg seems fine, not playing with THJ/Powell.




In Exum and Powell's case its only 30 min. Otherwise thats the net ratings of players without THJ/Powell on the floor. In Tim's case without Powell. Its at least interesting that the defense is still bad with Lively. And its pretty much the only guy where the defense is bad. The next worst are Kyrie at 112 and Grant at 111, which is solid.


- Luka/Kyrie/Lively: 114 DefRtg
- Luka/THJ/Lively: 122 DefRtg
- Luka/Tim/Lively (plus Kyrie on bench): 20 DefRtg
- Luka/Kyrie/Lively (plus Tim on bench): 110 DefRtg

Now doing the same with just Kyrie:

- Kyrie/THJ/Lively: 125 DefRtg
- Kyrie/Lively (no THJ) : 112 DefRtg
- Tim/Lively (no Kyrie) : 121 DefRtg

Can't even put the blame on those all guard Luka/Kyrie/Tim lineups.


But yea as i said a few games Green should probably start. And try Exum/DJJ with Powell. Even if it didn't look too good vs. Kings either. But it was also a b2b. Thats the superior rotation based on numbers until Kleber is back.

Solution to improve the defense:

- start Green
- DJJ from the bench
- Experiment to give some of Tim minutes to Exum. And be more careful who is around Tim when you use him.

Even if the offense drops off too much with Exum, maybe you can live with a more scuffed bench offense. In the past the bench offense was also questionable, but the bench defense was always having elite DefRtg with Green/Kleber. If you get stops, you don't need a high powered offense to be positive.