who is a better defender

[borssog]

ak47,bruce bowen ,paul pierce or ray allen?

ok let rate them

1.ak47
2.bruce bowen
3.pierce
4 allen

correct? ok  who is going to guard kobe?  I think kb24 is foamin at yon gril at the prospect of these celtics trying to guard him!   can you say sweep me!

[Roy Hobbs]

Pierce has been very good defensively this season, as has Ray Allen.  The Celtics held opposing shooting guards to the lowest PER in the NBA, and Kobe shot horribly in both games against the Celts this year, going a combined 15-for-46.   

Also, historically, Ray has outproduced Kobe in head-to-head matchups, with Kobe scoring slightly more points, but Ray having more rebounds, assists, and steals.

The Celtics have by far the best team defense the Lakers have seen in the playoffs, and it's not going to be nearly as easy as you seem to think.

[wdleehi]

Since players of Kobe's talent are not taken out by one defender, the better question would be with team has the best team defense,



In order
Celtics
Spurs (who did a good job and would probably have done better with a healthy Manu)
Utah
Denver (though, they really don't have a defense.  Just guys that put up empty defensive stats)

[Who]

Kirilenko is by far the worst defender on that list. He's a thoroughly mediocre perimeter defender who cannot defend a player like Kobe Bryant. AK's value is as a power forward, around the hoop, playing help defense and causing chaos. Even then he's an average one-on-one defender, not a stopper, he's a help defender.

Bowen is the best man on the list. He did a sensational job of Kobe Bryant in that series. That's exactly how you want to play him. Keep him off the line, out of the lane, stop him creating for his teammates and force Bryant to take 16-20 foot contested jump shots.

I don't know whether I'd put Pierce or Ray second. Paul is the far superior defender but Ray has eery level of success defensively on Kobe. Ray has great knowledge of what Kobe likes to do and how to defend him. Still, I think I'll go Paul, then Ray. With Kirilenko coming in last place in a landslide.

[Discoflux]

I thought AK did a good job on Kobe actually.
AK can defend the rim too.

[jay_jay54]

I think a lot is going to be how the officiating goes,on gaurding Kobe.Will some refs call every little ticky tacky foul on our guys when he drives to the rack?If so,he will continue to exploit the refs calls in attacking.How closely will the refs call gaurding him outside also.If Kobe sees the refs giving quick whistles when he pump fakes a lot,he will use it to his advantage.Kobe,plays the refs a lot like Lebron does,to his advantages.I think,Pierce would probably be a good start,but if he gets in foul trouble,then Ray will probably handled it.A lot of it,will be who can better sell the refs in certain situations,unfortunately.

[Who]

I thought AK did a good job on Kobe actually.
AK can defend the rim too.

I didn't think so

He did a good job in comparison to Matt Harpring and Ronnie Brewer. Ronnie is just too young and bites at all the wrong stuff, Pierce did the same thing to the young fella in Utah. Brewer will get better.

Those 16 FT attempts per game versus the 1.7 San An gave up tell the story of how well Utah's wings kept Bryant quiet. If Kirilenko was succesful he would have been the de facto defender on Kobe simply because everyone else was failing, Jerry Sloan was desperate, and Kobe was single handidly tearing apart Utah's whole defense with ease.

It's not just Kobe. AK's inability to lock down perimeter players is the reason Utah keeps getting lit up by star wings .... guys like McGrady. His best skills are help defense around the rim, not stopping players wings. As a defender Kirilenko has more in common with a Marcus Camby than a Shane Battier.

Bostons wings - Posey, Ray, Pierce, Tony Allen - all play better perimeter defense than Kirilenko.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Paul Pierce has pretty much shut down every single SF in the playoffs at the most made them completely underperform. By far the best defender this playoffs in your list, and I might even argued he should be considered the best defender in the playoffs period.  Not that he is the best defender, but you can't deny the results of what he has done against Marvin Williams, LeBron, and Prince (who was the hottest player for Detroit coming in to the series).

[Who]

Paul Pierce has pretty much shut down every single SF in the playoffs at the most made them completely underperform. By far the best defender this playoffs in your list, and I might even argued he should be considered the best defender in the playoffs period.  Not that he is the best defender, but you can't deny the results of what he has done against Marvin Williams, LeBron, and Prince (who was the hottest player for Detroit coming in to the series).

Pierce has a great argument but I'd go with Bruce Bowen.

First Round - Shut down Steve Nash.
Second Round - Switched onto Peja Stojakovic in Game Three, Bowen proceeded to take him out of the series. The Spurs won four of the final five games because of the Hornet's offensive woes without Peja's scoring.
Conference Finals - Limited Kobe Bryant brilliantly.

Prince and Marvin are worse than any of the three Bowen faced.

I think Bowen did a better job on Kobe than Pierce did on LeBron by a small margin. I could fully understand others disagreeing considering Bron's poor shooting percentage versus Bryant's quality shot making. My chief reasons - Bron shot almost 12 FTs a game against Boston, Bryant had 11 FTs for the whole series. Bowen did a much better job keeping Bryant out of the paint and off the line. Bowen also limited Bryant's playmaking. Bron on the other hand was huge in dictating play and setting his teammates up, he wasn't scoring efficiently but he was making lots of plays for his teammates ... unlike Bryant. Pierce did a better job limiting Bron's scoring but I reckon Bowen did a better job limiting the Lakers offense with his defense on Kobe. That means more to me.

[celticmaestro]

defensively, the celtics are the best in the nba. the key to this series is defensive intensity, there are no second chances, it's do or die and when these players have had their backs to the wall this year, they've delivered.

i can see kobe being contained, but sometimes being unstoppable. the key, once again, is energy and focus.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Paul Pierce has pretty much shut down every single SF in the playoffs at the most made them completely underperform. By far the best defender this playoffs in your list, and I might even argued he should be considered the best defender in the playoffs period.  Not that he is the best defender, but you can't deny the results of what he has done against Marvin Williams, LeBron, and Prince (who was the hottest player for Detroit coming in to the series).

Pierce has a great argument but I'd go with Bruce Bowen.

First Round - Shut down Steve Nash.
Second Round - Switched onto Peja Stojakovic in Game Three, Bowen proceeded to take him out of the series. The Spurs won four of the final five games because of the Hornet's offensive woes without Peja's scoring.
Conference Finals - Limited Kobe Bryant brilliantly.

Prince and Marvin are worse than any of the three Bowen faced.

I think Bowen did a better job on Kobe than Pierce did on LeBron by a small margin. I could fully understand others disagreeing considering Bron's poor shooting percentage versus Bryant's quality shot making. My chief reasons - Bron shot almost 12 FTs a game against Boston, Bryant had 11 FTs for the whole series. Bowen did a much better job keeping Bryant out of the paint and off the line. Bowen also limited Bryant's playmaking. Bron on the other hand was huge in dictating play and setting his teammates up, he wasn't scoring efficiently but he was making lots of plays for his teammates ... unlike Bryant. Pierce did a better job limiting Bron's scoring but I reckon Bowen did a better job limiting the Lakers offense with his defense on Kobe. That means more to me.

No way Bowen did a comparable on Kobe to what Pierce did to LeBron, especially when you consider how Kobe coasted for the most part in the first half of games without pushing the issue, and when you consider how strong LeBron penetrates, he's easier to foul than a Kobe is. LeBron was pushing the issue way more than Kobe did. Kobe had his way with the Spurs, anyone thinking otherwise is living in denial... forget about the low free-throw shooting attempts, what good does that do for you if he's still scoring so much at such a high percentage? Low FTA, you know what that tells me? That people were giving him easy looks and weren't really contesting his shots as they were supposed to.

And guarding Peja, is that a joke? All you need is a guy to stick to him consistently, and you'll have a high chance of containing him, plus his decision making in the later half of the series was simply putrid... he played himself out of the series.

He did a good job on Nash though... but wasn't Nash sick through most of the series? Even so, I've always liked Bowen on Nash so I give him credit there.

[Who]

Paul Pierce has pretty much shut down every single SF in the playoffs at the most made them completely underperform. By far the best defender this playoffs in your list, and I might even argued he should be considered the best defender in the playoffs period.  Not that he is the best defender, but you can't deny the results of what he has done against Marvin Williams, LeBron, and Prince (who was the hottest player for Detroit coming in to the series).

Pierce has a great argument but I'd go with Bruce Bowen.

First Round - Shut down Steve Nash.
Second Round - Switched onto Peja Stojakovic in Game Three, Bowen proceeded to take him out of the series. The Spurs won four of the final five games because of the Hornet's offensive woes without Peja's scoring.
Conference Finals - Limited Kobe Bryant brilliantly.

Prince and Marvin are worse than any of the three Bowen faced.

I think Bowen did a better job on Kobe than Pierce did on LeBron by a small margin. I could fully understand others disagreeing considering Bron's poor shooting percentage versus Bryant's quality shot making. My chief reasons - Bron shot almost 12 FTs a game against Boston, Bryant had 11 FTs for the whole series. Bowen did a much better job keeping Bryant out of the paint and off the line. Bowen also limited Bryant's playmaking. Bron on the other hand was huge in dictating play and setting his teammates up, he wasn't scoring efficiently but he was making lots of plays for his teammates ... unlike Bryant. Pierce did a better job limiting Bron's scoring but I reckon Bowen did a better job limiting the Lakers offense with his defense on Kobe. That means more to me.

No way Bowen did a comparable on Kobe to what Pierce did to LeBron, especially when you consider how Kobe coasted for the most part in the first half of games without pushing the issue, and when you consider how strong LeBron penetrates, he's easier to foul than a Kobe is. LeBron was pushing the issue way more than Kobe did. Kobe had his way with the Spurs, anyone thinking otherwise is living in denial... forget about the low free-throw shooting attempts, what good does that do for you if he's still scoring so much at such a high percentage? Low FTA, you know what that tells me? That people were giving him easy looks and weren't really contesting his shots as they were supposed to.

Like I said I fully respect anyone's opinion that Pierce did a better job on LeBron than Bowen did on Kobe. I disagree though.

I don't think you're giving enough credit to how severely Bowen's defense limited the Lakers offense. Look at their assist percentages against San Antonio to their regular season average or previous rounds. Lakers went from about 67% in the playoffs, 60% on the season, down to 45% against San Antonio. Look at how severely Odom and Gasol struggled to score, scoring 26 combined points a contest, both shooting their lowest percentages of the playoffs. Then look at the added struggles the Lakers shooters had. Sasha, Fisher, Walton all struggled because Kobe wasn't able to get them good looks.

The Lakers are averaging 105ppg overall in the playoffs (including the Spurs), 108ppg on the season. They were down to 93ppg against San Antonio. It wasn't just pace. The Lakers got more shots up against San An than they did against Utah but less than Denver, roughly in between the two.

The vast of majority of all of that happened because Bryant's playmaking was taken away by Bowen. The Spurs defense was exceptional on LA and on Bryant in particular.

Here's another one from their respective series:
Against San Antonio, Kobe scored 1.22 points per shot
Against the Celtics, LeBron scored 1.21 points per shot

Add in the playmaking advantages (double the assists Bron to Kobe, would have been higher had Bron's teammates not messed up so often) and how much LeBron facilitated his teams offense versus Kobe not doing so.

That's why I give Bowen the advantage. Again I can fully understand why others would go with Paul's job on LeBron. Just felt like adding the turnovers. Pierce did a much better job of forcing Bron into turnovers, 5.3, to 2.4 from Bryant. Pierce did fantastic work.

And guarding Peja, is that a joke? All you need is a guy to stick to him consistently, and you'll have a high chance of containing him, plus his decision making in the later half of the series was simply putrid... he played himself out of the series.

This is exactly the same as guarding Marvin Williams or Tayshaun Prince. Except Peja is a better scorer and better shooter than both of those guys. I don't understand the complaint.

Bowen played exactly the type of defense that bothers Peja and it worked. Nobody on Dallas could. None of the other Spurs could. Peja lit them all up like he did to many through the regular season. Bowen did a fantastic job on him. His D swung that series. I fully believe that would have been a New Orleans victory march without Bowen switching onto Peja and shutting him down.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Peja has been more a spot up shooter than a scorer, especially in the latest years. Prince was pretty much the hottest player for the Pistons coming in to the series, that's why taking him out of the series completely is relevant. And I disagree on Peja being a better scorer than Prince. I'd argue that Prince midrange game and penetration abilities with his long arms are quite a handful compared to what Peja can do inside the 3point arc.

I think you're giving too much credit to Bowen for what the Spurs did against the Lakers... Kobe destroyed Bowen, especially in the second half of games. That's very significant because Kobe was clearly coasting in games "getting into the flow of things" on the first half of games on a consistent basis. Kobe destroyed Bowen through and through... that the Spurs executed a good game plan and stopped the rest of the players, sure, but Kobe wasn't stopped. In fact, if someone had contained Kobe a bit more they might've actually won this series, but Kobe was too much for Bowen. He was ultra efficient (LeBron wasn't).

Sure, Pierce got a lot of help from his Celtics peers, but since is more of defending the powerhouses of each team, then the edge has to go to Pierce for the simple fact that LeBron underperformed by a huge margin. I don't think anyone came out of the Spurs series thinking that Kobe underperformed.

[Barnabas]

Who

"The vast of majority of all of that happened because Bryant's playmaking was taken away by Bowen. The Spurs defense was exceptional on LA and on Bryant in particular."

Yes, I thought the Spurs played terrific defense against the Lakers, holding that team to much less than their normal point average.  However, the Spurs' offense was awful in that series.  This is another evidence to show that it's not just defense that's important during the playoffs.  Offense is equally as important as defense.  Teams that win the championship are teams that have both good offense and defense.  The Celtics will not win this series on defense alone.  They need to play terrific offense in order to have a chance against this awesome Lakers team. 

The weakness of the Celtic bench is that all of those guys are defenders first and are far behind on their offense.  Cassell and House might be the exception.  But basically, the Celtic bench does not have a lot of fire power right now.  Unless House gets a lot of playing time.  But House playing a lot of minutes against a good team will bring its own set of problems.

[Who]

Who

"The vast of majority of all of that happened because Bryant's playmaking was taken away by Bowen. The Spurs defense was exceptional on LA and on Bryant in particular."

Yes, I thought the Spurs played terrific defense against the Lakers, holding that team to much less than their normal point average.  However, the Spurs' offense was awful in that series.  This is another evidence to show that it's not just defense that's important during the playoffs.  Offense is equally as important as defense.  Teams that win the championship are teams that have both good offense and defense.  The Celtics will not win this series on defense alone.  They need to play terrific offense in order to have a chance against this awesome Lakers team. 

The weakness of the Celtic bench is that all of those guys are defenders first and are far behind on their offense.  Cassell and House might be the exception.  But basically, the Celtic bench does not have a lot of fire power right now.  Unless House gets a lot of playing time.  But House playing a lot of minutes against a good team will bring its own set of problems.

Yeah I completely agree. The Spurs were in a brilliant situation but their offense let them down. A lot of credit has to go to the LA Lakers, there's been no other team over the past two seasons that has limited Parker's and Manu's penetration as well as the Lakers did.

That killed the Spurs offense. They weren't able to get in the paint often enough and Parker/Manu were unable to create easy shots for their teammates/shooters. That was the main reason the Spurs shooters struggled. Their offense lost so much of it's diversity and became completely dependant on Tim Duncan. Duncan played very well but Gasol did an underrated job defensively on Tim. Gasol ain't the best defender but his length allows him to get back in plays when he's beaten and bother opposing players' shot attempts, Tim shot 42.6%FG for the series.

The Celtics are in a better situation though. Paul Pierce has a very good matchup. Kevin Garnett is one of the hardest players in the league to stop/limit because of his skill set, which makes him very consistent and reliable. Ray Allen has a good history against Kobe. So I think there's a lot more hope for Boston's main offensive threats. I thought the key defensive area for LA against San An was their guards ability to limit penetration which isn't as pivotal to Boston's offense because of Paul Pierce. Boston's offense should match up better with LA than Spurs did.