Warriors lost 134 points on the Clippers. After the match, Steve Cole and Raymond Green all mentioned the fact that Warriors have retreated from defense this season.
Last season, Warriors lost the second lowest score in 100 rounds. This season, they became the team that lost more than 11 points in 100 rounds, changing from a top defensive team to a weak defensive team.
Warrior defense regression is caused by many reasons. Players such as Gary Peyton II and Otto PROTONIC left during the off-season, and injuries led to uneven lineup, the development of young players did not meet expectations and so on are all the reasons. But perhaps, chief assistant Mike Brown leaving the warrior is the starting point for the collapse of the warrior defense line.
The evidence is that last season, the warrior’s anti-blocking and demolition efficiency Alliance was the 1st, and this season the speed of light fell directly to the bottom position. Who built the top defense system last season?
Brown.
In April 2016, the Lakers poached Luke Walton, a teaching assistant from the Warriors, and the Warriors teaching assistant group left one seat. Cole called the Enshi Popovich baby important person, when Brown was playing the part-time consultant role Spurs. Cole reviewed the experience of that important person: “I asked Popovich baby if he wanted to hire Brown into the coaching staff. If not, I would take him away.”
During the finals Warriors Knight, Cole interviewed Brown at the THE RITZ-CARLTON Hotel in Cleveland. In May, Brown, who had suffered several burns in a terrible fire, came with a crutch. In the 2016-17 season, Brown officially joined the Warriors as a teaching assistant.
Although Brown has a good resume, he still focused on learning in the first five seasons of the Warriors, taking a small notebook to learn Cole’s coaching style every day. The Warrior’s defense system was built by another teaching assistant Jia long-Collins, and the meritorious defense assistant long-Adams helped.
In the summer of 2021, “the coach industry Whampoa Military Academy” was dug into the wall again, and the Pelican poached Collins. Brown’s opportunity came. Cole made Brown the chief defense assistant of the Warriors and was fully responsible for the construction of the defense system.
Brown found out the notes of the 2006-07 season when the Cavaliers built the defensive system, but he realized that with the rise of no-position basketball, the league entered the three-point era, many defensive tactics he used to be proud of have failed. In order to keep up with the pace of the times, Brown took a lot of time to study the video, thinking about how to mark the warrior’s defense system and let the warrior play top defense at the same time.
Brown made a comprehensive transformation of the warrior’s shield and split defense and the fengshui ball hand-handed defense. Under the rule of collins, the warrior had a large number of relieve a garrison when the shield and hand-handed defense, pushing the ball to the middle road. Although the Warriors still played the 5th defense of the league in the 2020-21 season, this kind of defense has a lot of defects. The Middle Road of defense is an important place for the soldiers. There are many choices for the players to take the ball in the middle road. Once the defense is coordinated, there will be many opportunities for opponents to cut hands empty. During the season, the brave field was hit by the opponent 8 times to copy the back door air cut league more than 7.
Brown’s defense system concept is to reduce by relieve a garrison, force the players to the sideline or even the bottom line, and stay away from the middle road. The defenders must complete the defense without foul, the station position is also very particular when preventing external shooters.
Brown explained his idea and said, “If you can force the bearer to the sideline or bottom line, you will be easier to defend. You must try your best to force the ball holder to the position of the defender, and you must not allow the opponent to hit the ball to the middle road, which is of great benefit to our overall defense.”
The process of Brown instilling defensive ideas was not achieved overnight. Warriors spent a lot of time training and communicating. When they fully trusted this defensive concept and established chemical reactions, the Warrior’s defense was upgraded to the first level of the league in the first half, and the advantage was huge. Even if Green missed more than half of the season due to injury, by the end of the season, the warrior’s defensive efficiency was still ranked second.
Specific details: Warriors give their opponents the lowest proportion of basketball shots in the League of 27%, with only 43.9 points lost in the average penalty area. The League is the fifth and the opponent is limited to hit the sixth place in the league in three points, the 7th place in the Alliance for creating the opponent’s error rate. What did not meet Brown’s expectation was the foul rate, and Warriors were the 8th team with the highest foul frequency.
The most critical data is that the Warriors lost 0.91 points per round, which is the best team in the league. In the playoffs, whether it was Morant, Luca-East Chech, Jason Tatum or Jay Brown, they didn’t take advantage of the Warriors.
“Brown has always been proud of defense. It is an easy decision for me to let him take full charge of defense.” Cole said, “he is always enthusiastic about defense. He is knowledgeable in this aspect. It is too understatement to say that he has done a great job. His performance is amazing.”
In the Warriors, Brown is also responsible for the arrangement of the rotation lineup. He has a color-coded spreadsheet that records the rotation of the team in detail, and it is very clear which time will be given to whom to choose, attack and defense.
So when the King poached Brown into a foregone conclusion, Cole said, “This is sweet bitterness for me, and Brown definitely deserves the post of manager. But, damn it, I will miss him.”
This season, when Cole either took the initiative or was forced to take out all kinds of chaotic rotation lineup (such as the three defenders), this kind of miss was especially deep when the warrior defense was hit again and again. Atkinson continued to serve as a teaching assistant, but he was better at attacking. Malalera replaced Brown’s position, but he did not have the excellent defensive coaching resume as Brown.
In addition, the defense configuration of the Warriors itself has declined to some extent, and the result is that the Warriors defense has seriously regressed. From the data to Cole’s remarks, it can be confirmed that the warrior’s defense retreat is related to Brown’s departure.
This season, the Warriors anti-block demolition league bottom, losing up to 1.02 points per round. In the last game of Clippers, the Warriors lost 1.28 points in each round. Ke Huai-Leonard and Paul-George hit the ball to the middle road again and again to attack the warrior’s hinterland. This season, the Warriors lost points in the penalty area to the 16th place in the 50.3-point league, the 8th place in the foul rate league, and the 2nd place in the league for the number of free throws given to opponents in the game. In the past, all those emphasized by Brown in the team declined obviously, and defense loopholes like Poole could no longer be hidden.
Cole said: “Our Middle Road defense is frequently broken through. When your middle road Defense is broken through, it is difficult for you to make a remedy. Then, we have too many fouls.”
The Athletic warriors accompanying reporter Marcus Thompson III explained this question when interacting with fans not long ago: “Warriors Miss Brown’s wisdom, passion and defensive concentration, last season, he could make the players take responsibility in the team, and the players also liked his coaching. He could improve the energy level of the team. But now you can’t let a new coach replace Brown when he came to this position. Brown also won the respect of the players by performance.”
Thompson III mentioned “the sense of defense responsibility” when talking about Brown, and said to green after playing the Clippers, “defense is only related to willingness and responsibility”.
Now, Brown is ranked third in the West with the King. Because he has been in office for a short time and the team configuration is not enough, Brown has not had time to reform the King’s defense, but he transplanted part of the warrior’s transmission system to the King. The King played the second most offensive efficiency in the league this season, second only to the Nuggets, while the Warriors only carried 29 wins and 29 losses, the 9th record in the West entered the All-Star intermittent period.
Brown can no longer play the role of warrior savior. Warriors can only save themselves after the All-Star game. The starting point of self-rescue is to improve defense. As Thompson said:
“If we can’t raise our defense to the top ten of the league, don’t try to compete for the championship.”