Good article here on cnnsi.com about scoring being tougher in the NBA. In the article it talks about how teams are starting to realize the importance of team defense more and more due to the Celtics championship run last year that was stressed by defensive intensity. Here are some good quotes from the article about players/coaches upset at their teams' defensive effort.
*Even more telling than the statistics, perhaps, is the attention being paid to defense up and down the NBA spectrum, from organizations with pedigree to those less proud. The Lakers lost just once in their first 12 games but beat themselves up after two or three of them, cranky over what they considered defensive underachievement.
"I'm not happy with this win,'' Kobe Bryant said after Sunday's 118-108 home victory against Sacramento. The Kings shot 53.4 percent, scored 58 points in the paint and became the third team in five games to score at least 100 points against a Lakers team that dedicated the preseason to stopping people.
"It's a mentality,'' Bryant said. "We want to get better each game. We don't want to give up 100 points.''
Joe Johnson of the Hawks: "One-on-one, we haven't been really guarding our man particularly well. And I'll take a lot of heat for that. But at the same time, we haven't been manning up and guarding our guys. Guys are flying by and getting to the hole and then breaking our defense down.''
"We have lost some of our defensive swagger, intensity or whatever you want to call it,'' coach Mike Woodson said earlier this month after back-to-back losses to New Jersey in which the Hawks gave up 234 points in barely 48 hours.
