Published: November 4, 2009
Yesterday morning while I was reading through the headlines I couldn’t help but chuckle at the suggestion of a beat writer that the team should change their starting point guard.
To me that’s comparable to dating someone for a month, having a great date that raises your expectations and then after having two mediocre dates ending things. It just defies logic.
Could the team get better on the defensive end? Sure, especially after allowing Orlando to shoot better than 50 per cent on Sunday and letting the Grizzlies shoot 51.2% from the floor.
Throw in the fact the team has allowed a combined 240 points over their past two games and it’s clear defense will be a point of emphasis this week in practice.
Which, as Michael Grange pointed out yesterday in his column, the team spent a lot of time fine-tuning the adjustments needed to be made when the ball handler does gain an advantage at the point of attack.
But you don’t scrap what you spent the past six weeks working on because of two frustrating losses. You regroup and tighten things up during practices. You continue to allow Antoine Wright and Hedo Turkoglu some time to get acquainted after missing most of October. You let Jose Calderon snap out of the early season funk he’s found himself trapped in.
All while you allow the team to feel comfortable using the defensive principles the coaching staff has been preaching for the past month.
Luckily new head coach Jay Triano is willing to show patience to see how things shake out rather than making a quick change to a philosophy the team has started to adopt.
“In year’s past we had a defensive philosophy and we’d get to this point and something would be hurting us and we’d abandon it,” Triano explained to the media earlier this week. “We’re not going to do that. We just have to do some things better, that’s what today was.”
And, as Chris Bosh astutely pointed out, three games into the season isn’t the time to panic.
“It’s three games,” the face of the franchise told the media. “We’ll look at this and I’m going to forget this day by January and February and March when we’re doing well on down the road, no one is going to remember we were 1-2. We win one more game and we’re .500.”
While the results from the past two games aren’t what the players, coaching staff or fans want, this isn’t the time to be hitting the panic button. There’s plenty of basketball to be played and now is the time to rally together instead of pointing fingers.
Instead, as Wright so eloquently told the media, it’s time to dig in their heels and make a stand on the defensive end.
“It’s all about hitting first,” Wright explained to the media on Monday. “We have to hit teams first and not be on our heels.”
Clearly this point in the season isn’t the time to start yanking key players in and out of the teams starting five. It’s about getting an attitude on defense where you expect to make key stops.
They need to put a body on opponents and make life miserable for them in the paint and the entire team – not just their bigs – need to focus on taking away offensive rebounds and limiting teams to one possession each time down the court.
Basically, it’s about getting a nasty streak which doesn’t lend itself to being pushed around on the defensive end.
And, if the team wants to show a bit of an edge and hits Detroit early and often, all the better.
