GAME DAY (ish) - New Orleans Pelicans vs Orlando Magic - Preseason - 0-0

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

The defense was good when the offense was good - scoring created the opportunity for the defense to get back and set. The problem is when we missed and they were able to get out, especially in transition, while we had guys back in the paint attempting to rebound. That's an issue but it's also not a worldbreaking problem - we were a top 6 defense last year (top 5 before the end of season collapse) so I have precedent to expect that even if it won't be the prettiest, it will be serviceable.

It's going to look rough in preseason because half the people playing are not real NBA players, the ones that are don't play real minutes, they're getting used to a new style and playing into shape for some.

The only person on the team who looked like they could play 35 minutes of real NBA ball right now was Herb. Everyone else clearly has some rust to shake off, even BI and JV who both played international ball this summer.

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It looked like a lack of communication and effort. I want to see them at least try some defense. I agree that they didn’t look very good in comparison to Herb.

We don't feel like an established NBA team with vet experience.....but we have become an established NBA team with vet experience. Our starters are set. Continuity is there. Our three energy #6 through 8 off the bench guys are out. I fully expect our defense from our top 5 to look like there's no effort. Not all-star level lack of effort but definitely a "save it for the season" mentality. Let the young guys push in preseason.

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Originally Posted by msusousaphone

We don't feel like an established NBA team with vet experience.....but we have become an established NBA team with vet experience. Our starters are set. Continuity is there. Our three energy #6 through 8 off the bench guys are out. I fully expect our defense from our top 5 to look like there's no effort. Not all-star level lack of effort but definitely a "save it for the season" mentality. Let the young guys push in preseason.

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That’s a lot of paper. Lol. None of them have proven a thing to us other than they can’t stay healthy or make it without a playin. Can’t give them a “vet” pass until they prove it.

They can definitely slide to 25th in defense this year. Every year is a new year. Last year is over.

But just looking around the league there have been lots of high scoring games this early in preseason.

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Originally Posted by msusousaphone

We don't feel like an established NBA team with vet experience.....but we have become an established NBA team with vet experience. Our starters are set. Continuity is there. Our three energy #6 through 8 off the bench guys are out. I fully expect our defense from our top 5 to look like there's no effort. Not all-star level lack of effort but definitely a "save it for the season" mentality. Let the young guys push in preseason.

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Two of the three guys you allude to who may be coming off the bench are defensive liabilities and the jury is still out on the third.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

They can definitely slide to 25th in defense this year. Every year is a new year. Last year is over.

But just looking around the league there have been lots of high scoring games this early in preseason.

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This is kind of what I mean. Yeah, a new year is a new year, and a team that was good on defense last year can be worse the next even with similar personnel (though a slide from top 5 to bottom 5 would be an outlier level of decline for one year, tbh), but you're not going to tell if that's the case from preseason. It's preseason. It's only slightly more meaningful than Summer League.

Our shooting has to improve. That much is obvious. We are going to be missing Trey money