***CC22 and the Fever mega thread***
- Thread starter LetsGoHawks83
- Start date
Meanwhile, here are some highlights from the face of the WNBA:
Tomorrow's game @ Portland will be on CBS @ 7PM. Portland is 5-3.
Amazon warehouse workers had to pull double duty last night, packing and officiating. Woof.
They like to leave their defenders, not on an island, but on a sinking ship and tell them "sink or swim" to prove a point........a point that is entirely unnecessary.
She played a little out of control late with those couple of turnovers. Rather than taking the time to compose herself under the pressure of the double team she chose to dump it as soon as she felt the pressure. The other turnover on the sideline was also because of panicking and rushing to make a move under the expectation of a double team.
A few possessions later she learned from that and created space to reverse the ball before the double team could come, which the broadcast crew blamed on the help defender being late and not taking a good enough angle. You can blame people all you want for why something doesn't happen every single time, but the fact is Caitlin learned from her mistake and adjusted and made a better play.
Unfortunately, by then she also already had the extra turnovers to her stat line so that's what people jump all over.
I watched some of the highlights trying to shame her for her defense.
She lets herself get upright and then expects her teammates to bail her out. Other times she chooses to gamble for steals rather than face who she's guarding and play defense.
There's definitely an effort issue at times still, and I don't think any amount of internet/social media shaming and people turning on her and booing her in arenas is gonna change that..............just sayin.
They do need to evolve their P&R options though.
I like some of the stuff they're doing with the ghost screens but let's not fall in love with it at the expense of actually running effective pick and roll offense.
Teams are spending more energy now trying to eliminate the Clark/Boston pick and roll, and while the Fever ARE trying to work around that....it looks more like they're tinkering and trying this or that, rather than having found a clear solution right now.
Good point! Anticipating (recognizing) the double-team is oh, so important. She'll get better at doing this, I'm sure. I don't give a hoot what the broadcasters said.
The entire team is horrible on defense which makes Clark look worse. There is no gap coverage at all. They all play off ball standing with their back to the ball and know nothing about jamming players off screens or containing gaps, that’s why they all get beat when they’re on ball. Defense is a team effort and one person can’t be good at defense when everyone else is failing to do their job. Caitlin wouldn’t look nearly as bad on defense if she played for Golden State.
Sides was widely criticized, deservedly so, for many coaching decisions.
I agree, White doesn't seem like much of an improvement.
I wonder how the groin injury effects her lateral movement? Bad mechanics or in her head
She's never been a good defender. At Iowa she could hide on that end because most teams in college have at least one player who isn't an offensive threat.
Ironically enough there have been stretches in games this year where's she's played really solid 1 on 1 defense against players who on paper should have the advantage against her. So I think her defense is improving (at least by my eye) it's more about her effort and energy on that end.
The jury may still be out on White but she did coach the Fever to the WNBA semifinals last year, within 1 game of making the finals, without having her best player and the best PG in the league for most of the season.
I think there are other variables at play with some of Indiana's struggles so far. I think they're missing Natasha Howard more than they ever thought they would. She was a much better compliment to Boston down low than Billings has proved to be so far this year. Boston may still be struggling with her lower leg injury, she's averaging about 7-8 fewer minutes per game and is having her worst shooting season based on FG% of her career. And Kelsey Mitchell has just been off all year, isn't playing nearly as good as she did last year. Her scoring is down, and she's having the worst 3 pt shooting season of her career so far at barely over 33%. I also think CC is still figuring out how to navigate the season without getting injured and as a result has been a little tentative and off herself. The mental recovery from a season-ending injury is a very real thing in addition to the physical recovery.
Not saying White doesn't deserve some of the blame, I just don't think it's all on her so far.
She had an 18 point double-double last night (18/12/5) and was the Dream’s lead scorer in their win. She’s not getting worse.
Part of the issue, whether people want to argue it's an excuse or not, is the physical trade off and toll each side of the ball takes, especially for her.
Do you exert extra force and energy on your legs trying to stay in front of the person you're guarding every time on defense, or do you play off a bit more and rely on help a bit more so you can save your legs for when you have to fight through more defensive pressure than any other player in professional basketball just to get open on offense in a single possession?
It's a balancing act as much, if not moreso than it is an issue of effort, even though that certainly still is a factor.
She's been a poor/lazy defender her entire basketball career...it's just who she is at this point.
In HS and college they were able to hide her and she was good enough on offense to at make up for that in the eyes of those that coached her as teams did not have enough threats to attack her, but the WNBA will start finding ways to iso her more and more and unless she starts to focus more on that end she will continue to get criticized for it. She's long, sees the entire floor well, and is athletic enough she should at the very east be an average defender. Just getting more aggressive/disciplined on closing out on 3PT shooters would make a big difference and not something that is overly taxing.
On the season overall her scoring is down, her defensive rebounds are down, and her turnovers are up. She did have a nice game last night, though. For the first time this season she finally made a shot outside the restricted area - a turnaround jumper from 8 feet.
But she was 0-for-3 from three point range, keeping her a perfect 0-for-8 on the season. She has been talking about her dream of developing into a stretch four since she transferred from Maryland to LSU. It just ain’t gonna happen.
Compared to last year she is.
FG% - Down
3FG - Down
FT% - Down
REB- Down
AST - Down
TOs - Up
STL - Down
BLK - Up
1000% this. Her defense is mostly about effort and she just doesn’t give it a lot of the time. We can make excuses (oh, she’s so good on offense she’ll get to tired if she plays defense) but you can’t just be a 1 dimensional player.
Well I might just disagree for the fun of it with, You can't be a one dimensional player". Her record says otherwise, so I'm not sure the urgency is there for her to change other than on occasion. If this goes all the way back to high school. Top 4 ranked player in the country. In college, 4 time AA and TWO time NPOTY. Set 65 NCAA and B1G records. In the W, ROTY. NBA all star both years, top 4 for MVP of the W. Top 5 in the W in scoring and has led the W in assists basically since she got drafted. All ready in just ONE and 1/2 seasons she's set several career W records. She's the face of the league for a variety of reasons, and none of it has to do with her defense, (or lack thereof), or her turnovers. Even now she's a top three bet to win MVP IF the fever get their collective heads out of their backsides. Her deficiencies get exposed partly because as a team they aren't very good on defense (especially in the post). There is no one back there for teams to worry about if they get past the guards. My point being she's gotten to this point whatever her issues on that side of the ball, so she can be pretty one dimensional and still be a top 5 player, because she's just that good on the other side of the ball.
She’s always been a bad on ball defender, but she’s been a very good off ball defender. However, that’s gone out the window with whatever defensive system White is trying to run because no one guards off ball….too busy switching and getting caught up in picks.
The W is different than college, same as the NBA. Teams just put you in switches until they get what they want. Look, everyone wanted Sides gone and White was brought in. And suddenly she’s an idiot as well? And as a previous poster said they made it to game 5 of the semis last year without CC. We all love her but it isn’t all Whites fault they aren’t a great defensive team.
Watch some of their games and watch them on defense. There’s also a good breakdown of it on a YouTube video. They stand straight up on defense, they keep their back to the ball, and they don’t fill in gaps, they don’t jam players coming off screens, and they don’t step out to slow players coming over a screen when their defender goes under the screen (hence all the wide open threes they give up). That’s all stuff that gets taught at the middle school level and they don’t do it. That’s the system and the coach installs the system. Other teams do it, so it’s not just the WNBA. Also, even though they did what they did last year, they still gave up more points from the three point line than any other team.
I don't think anyone here is arguing she isn't a great rebounder. She is. But that's literally the only thing she's good at. Lol.
Yes because so many people also hit 900
Points early in their 3rd year.
She's not even in the top-30 in ppg this year. And her career FG% is atrocious. Lol.