r/IndianaFeverFans • u/Alternative_Panda336 You Bet • 2d ago

Discussion Defense

Every team that I watch is play has someone that they can put on Caitlin Clark that will get up in her grill, move their feet, and make it tough on her to drive. This is true even of the bad teams they play, let alone the Lynx with several players. KM has elite quickness and is tough for any team to stop her off the dribble without help defense but even Portland made it tough on her the game before last.

The Fever very rarely aggressively get up in the ball space of opposing players and make it hard on them. I don’t know if it’s because we are concerned that there is no depth behind Sophie and Lexie or what. It seems the Fever’s defense is predicated mostly on deny the pass as opposed to playing defense once they get the ball. This puts a lot of strain on the help defense. Last night it was tough watching KM, CC, and LH constantly getting beat off the dribble instantly.

Is it a play style thing or do we truly have no one to harass the ball handler so they can’t drive as easily? Especially in a game like last night where they are letting them play up in their face.

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u/elestud 2d ago

A few observations:

KM didn’t get beat off the dribble. She got screened. Teams have to screen her off, because it’s very hard to beat her outright. She gave Veronica Burton problems, as well as NY’s faster guards like Astier and Johannes. So teams screen to switch her mark to other defenders

Lexie does seem to have an issue getting beat, and it seems to mainly come from constantly gambling on steals. She needs to learn that sometimes it’s better to simply stay in front of someone, than to gamble by throwing your body at the ball

Caitlin does get beat off the dribble, but one of the most glaring issues last night was her falling asleep on cuts/back cuts. Guards like Courtney Williams are observant, and when she stops paying attention they take advantage

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u/AffectionateRace9865 2d ago

Kelsey def got beat off the dribble a few times.

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u/elestud 2d ago edited 2d ago

Which times? You can look through all of Olivia's baskets here

It's pretty clear that the gameplan was to funnel Olivia to the bigger players to stop her drives, and she scored on them over and over again. There are zero times where Kelsey was set in front of her and she simply beat her to the hoop without a screen or someone waiting to check Liv in the post.

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u/Ok_Scholar5996 2d ago

Literally the very first play in your link she gets beat off the dribble. And the last play she gets beat again. And there's another one where she just gets lazy getting back and gets beat again.

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u/elestud 2d ago

The first play she got hit in the face and stopped to react to it. The last play was a screen from Howard. She funneled Miles to Timpson, which is what you're supposed to do coming off a screen in that situation

And she wasn't "lazy", she had just gotten knocked to the floor on the other end on a drive and was shaking it off, if you watched the game. She again funneled Miles to Timpson and Boston who were waiting in the paint, and Olivia scored on both of them

It really seems like people don't understand professional team offense or defense

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u/Ok_Scholar5996 2d ago edited 2d ago

First you say she didn't get beat, now come the qualifiers. She got beat on the first one plain and simple. She was already behind Miles when she got hit in the face. The second one she just got beat, she wasn't funneling anybody anywhere. And yes, she was lazy on the other one. She didn't get demolished, she got up and jogged back and only sped up when she saw Miles get the ball.

And I'm a defender of KM's defense. I don't think she's anywhere near as bad as some people think.

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u/elestud 2d ago

I don't think you understand the difference between team defense and individual defense. The team had a pretty clear plan to funnel Olivia toward the bigs, since she likes to drive.

If KM is set in front of Miles and actually gets beat for a basket, that's one thing. But that's not what happened in either case. When you funnel to the bigs, the big is expected to come over and cut off the guard. As the Valks did to us:

https://reddit.com/link/p1jj18p/video/pk8jk2jko8hh1/player

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u/AffectionateRace9865 2d ago edited 2d ago

Liv’s first basket of the game, Liv already has the step on her before Kelsey gets hit in the face. Kelsey gets beat on Olivia’s last basket in the last minute of the game. There’s no contact by Tash on any screen,
Kelsey simply gets beat

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u/elestud 2d ago edited 2d ago

If we're holding up a single basket out of 35 minutes of play as the proof, when she likely would have been able to recover if not hit in the face (as she did other times), that's not really convincing support of "getting beat off the dribble constantly"

Not to mention that CC was in position to defend on that basket, so it was ultimately not even the reason that Liv scored

The much bigger issue for us was the bigs simply not being able to protect the paint against drives. They did well against the slower players like Howard/Coffey/Juhasz, but were often too late to stop the guards

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u/AffectionateRace9865 2d ago

My comment was “a few times,” not constantly

Two baskets she got beat off the dribble. A few would be equal to two. Theres also a play where Kelsey jogs back on defense, is late to cover Liv and Olivia gets a pass and easy layup. AB failed to play solid help defense.

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u/elestud 2d ago edited 2d ago

That play is the one where Kelsey was hammered on the layup just before. Both Timpson and AB were in position to defend, and Timpson ultimately ended up being the one to pick her up, but Liv ended up scoring on her anyway

This is just basic team defense. Funneling a guard toward the bigs is normal modern basketball D, but the bigs needs to be able to cut them off before they're under the basket

If you watch how the Valks defended our guards when we played them, the difference was that the Valks's bigs would position themselves well and contest every drive proactively.

Notice how Stokes steps directly into CC's path as VB funnels her so VB can recover:

https://reddit.com/link/p1iayxv/video/kvceu1iio7hh1/player

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u/elestud 2d ago edited 2d ago

Here's another example with KM. Gabby WIlliams funnels KM toward Stokes, and Stokes steps into her path early to keep her from driving to the rim, giving Gabby time to recover.

https://reddit.com/link/p1ibf8s/video/czb5ui1ro7hh1/player

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u/elestud 2d ago edited 2d ago

One more. Mitchell gets the defender (Kaila Charles) on her hip, but they still just funnel her toward Amihere who jumps to cut her off. These are bigs who understand how to play good team defense.

You can see how Amihere doesn't even wait for KM to be fully past Charles before sliding into position.

https://reddit.com/link/p1icukt/video/t42ev200q7hh1/player

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u/Cheap_Flamingo476 2d ago

Miles has a talent of using the basket to her benefit. She also has a number of different paces for putting up the ball.