[Slater] Huge individual scoring nights are up across the league. Six guys are averaging 30+ per game. Steve Kerr gives his thoughts on it. Believes NBA skill/shooting is better than ever, but defensive foundation has trended down. “Transition defense is at an all-time low.”
Huge individual scoring nights are up across the league. Six guys are averaging 30+ per game. Steve Kerr gives his thoughts on it. Believes NBA skill/shooting is better than ever, but defensive foundation has trended down. “Transition defense is at an all-time low.” pic.twitter.com/6yfZQj6j8E
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) January 5, 2023
by Michael_B_Lopez
12 Comments
Transition defense last year was grab the guy before he dunks lol
Refs are way too involved in today’s game. I’m tired of watching players run into defenders just to get a foul call
Wtf is transition defense? Lol
Transition offense is at an all time high because NBA skill is better.
People don’t wanna agree but the Spo/Heatles changed the game in a sense. We saw how dangerous 2 of the best athletes in the NBA can be in the open court.
On top of that, the even more controversial one, Russ changed it too. We have point guards that are rebounding at a crazy rate and initiating transition probably more than ever.
But what if teams could put 5 guys on the court that can initiate that type of transition offense?
I legitimately think everyone got used to just fouling the guy before the breaks starts and now that you can’t do that no one remembers how to actually play defense in transition.
Why does it feel like general discipline and fundamentals have declined as of late? No boxing out, careless turnovers, bad game and time management, poor shot selections, lazy screens, lazy passes, poor defensive awareness, distractions and lack of focus, etc. Offensive skill and shooting precision has gone considerably up, but it feels like everything else, the little things and details for winning, have become so haphazardly bad and a clusterfuck to witness. Just an optics and observation from this season.
What’s weird to me is individual scoring has went up but individual assist have basically remained the same.
The sixers play the worst transition defense I’ve ever seen in my life
Transition defense is definitely tougher now than it’s ever been. Not only can’t you commit a take foul anymore, but actually contesting a player flying at the hoop on a break takes a very strong contest and good timing, which often leads to an unintentionally hard foul to the arms/body or minor contact to the head leading to a flagrant. Toss in the fact that it’s definitely an offense-leaning league right now with calls trending to the offensive player, so a lot of star players don’t want to waste a foul. Lastly, we’re in the age of social media and some guys simply don’t want to risk getting put on a poster.
Refs make it impossible to play good defense
You can’t foul on transition or its a free throw, and that is why there is more scoring this year.
Without the ability to stop transition points with a take foul, the only options left to defend in transition are all extremely physically demanding. Noone is going to gamble hard on diving for a steal, leaping for a chase down block, or taking a charge in open space in a regular season game. All those things are just begging for injuries or significant wear and tear. The NBA regular season is just too damn long to expect guys to do that stuff, so they probably don’t even try that hard to get down the floor in the first place because they’ve already written off the play as a lost cause in their head.
The only solutions are to allow take fouls (which are lame), cut down significantly on regular season games (never going to happen to the extent that players will take a charge from Giannis on a fast break on a regular season game), changing the rules so teams take less threes to limit transition opportunities (only viable option but there hasn’t been any good proposals on how to accomplish this), or just accepting that there’s going to be a lot of extra points from transition offense in the RS.