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He doesn't suck...I'd give him a 7 or so. His biggest problem is his size...bigger point guards can out-muscle him.
Question guys: How would you rate Tony as a defender? Average? Above Average? Maybe on a 1-10 scale. I don't get the chance to see many Spurs games so I was curious. As he gotten better? What are his strengths and weaknesses on defense?
He doesn't suck...I'd give him a 7 or so. His biggest problem is his size...bigger point guards can out-muscle him.
Funny -- That's exactly what Eva said about him!
Yeah, I think that is about right. Tony does have a size problem matching up sometimes. But he is active and he makes his man work hard on the other end. So, yeah, I think on a 1 - 10 ... 7 is about right.
Tony's defense is pretty good. I think 7 is fair. One on One he gets victimized by a few point guards in the league but the Spurs system doesn't emphasize one on one as much as help/switch so he is frequently mismatched on the perimeter with bigger players...and in those situations he does a good job of harrassing their shot/pass without fouling...
In Spurs system (i guess), hes a 7.
In any other, hes a 5. Average at best.
As a player? Hes an 8. Because he does everything else very well (this year I think is the start of this young mans future).
Tony plays really good D. People don't give him enough credit for how well he plays. Most of the time he gets lit up it is when someone bigger takes advantage of their size and takes him down low.
On the Perimeter he is pretty damned good.
Tony has been impressive this year. It does look like he has taken his game up to another level.
And now, after watching him make 3 3s last night, I wonder if this is his final step. I have heard they have been working on them in practice, but he has taken very few this year. Last night he took 4 and made 3. If he gets this part down, he will be unstoppable. What you gonna do? Where you gonna guard him? Tony has been a rare find.
I would give him a 6 ro 7 right now
Sean Elliot pretty much said it the best...
He has all the skills to be a great defender he just needs to learn how to apply his incredible quickness to the defensive end of the floor.
Although he still would have problems with the bigger point guards as he does now i.e Billups, Miller, Cassell
Tony is one of a few players that use their offensive talent on the defensive end. Dirk is not one of them. His greatest strength is speed and his only weaknesses are strength and size. He hardly ever gets into foul trouble. I think he averages like 2 or 3 fouls a game. This shows that he moves his feet and beats deenders to their sweet spots. This is why he owns point guards like Steve Nash and White chocolate. He moves his feet and stops penetration almost everytime against them. They get almost all of their points through pick and rolls especially Nash. Duncan on Nash after the pick just doesn't work out.
Billups is the only point guard I can think of that has that size and strength advantage on tp. TP still plays him tough though. I think pop should keep Bowen on Billups for longer stretches. Rips game is speed and that plays into tp hands. TP is fast enough to run through screens and contest all Rip's (all Jumpers).
TP's defense: 7.5. I think he's better than a 7 in the spurs system but no quite an 8.
Satisfactory
Tony is one of the best defenders (guards that is) in the league....
His speed helps him keep infront of his man at all times, he always gets his hands up, and he has even boxed Dirk out of the paint
The guy's great and I think his defense is underrated aswell....
I actually admire it.
Without Duncan, 4, maybe 5. With Duncan, 6-7.
I'd say 6. He can stay in front of his man, but on the flip-side he's been dominated by guys like Marbury who could post him up. Still, I haven't seen him get lit up the way guys like Derek Anderson and Terry Porter were, and both of them had two HOF 7-footers behind them unlike Tony, so you can't say it's all the system.
The thing that Tony doesn't have that other fast point guards in the league (Iverson, Wade, Arenas... even though these are more like combo guards, which in reality Tony might as well be) have, are the high steal numbers. I think this doesn't show that he is a bad defender, rather, I feel it shows his willingness to become a good one. He doesn't sag off his man and patrol the passing lanes like many speedy players do and this results in not giving his man a wide open shot or lane to the basket if the gamble fails. With that being said, I would give Tony a 7 on defense (needs to be able to handle the bulkier point guards better and try to utilize his quickness even more), a 9 on offense (improved 3 point shooting and FT% and it would be 10) and overall he's an 8.
Funny -- That's exactly what Eva said about him!
This year he has been very good. When he hustles and uses his quickness he's a 9, but on average he's about a 7. When he plays Chauncey he's a 3 though.
WHAT? As a product of the Spurs' defense university and a small cog in their defensive machine, I would say exactly the opposite. As compared to other Spurs, I'd say Tony's defense is about a 5 because he doesn't have to defend that much (thanks to his teammates). On any other team, like _allas, which isn't playing any detectable defense right this minute (although they did show some promising "signs" earlier in the season, it has evaporated, given up the ghost), Tony would be at least a 7 or an 8.
I would give him a five, nevertheless; i dont think that tony is bad defender player. He puts energy when he has to defend you can see that, but as some people say he loses a lot of times because of his small size against another guards.
Tony has two major weaknesses that I think are readily apparent -- he cannot fight over screens (meaning his screen-roll defense is pretty bad) and he can be posted up and dominated in the paint by bigger guards. Of the two, it's his screen-roll defense that bothers me the most. When Tony has to go under the screen, the Spurs are left to either switch the play -- putting a big on a PG -- or must concede jump shots. In the playoffs, I'd expect that teams with good shooting PG will try very hard to exploit that weakness with big-small pick and rolls (I'd expect Sacramento to do this all night long tonight, too), trying to get uncontested jumpers or bad mismatches.
It's not near as good as it was last year.
Tony was a very good defender for a while last season when he was putting out a lot of effort on that end. Seeing as he's had to carry the team offensively for a lot of this season, his defensive efforts have been lacking a little this year.
That being said, he's quick enough to stay in front of a lot of players. And he's never going to be strong enough to do the things that Billups does. So if I'm rating him compared to how good I think he can be, he's about a 7.5 or 8 (last season he was a 9 for a while). If I'm rating him compard to other PG's, including the ones much stronger than him, he's about a 6.
I'd say about a 6.9. With his speed I can't understand why he doesn't get more steals.
Spurs are 23rd in STL. Their STLs diff is -0.59. I would say Pop doesn't want them going for steals vs other defensive priorities.
His defense was never a problem. He learned pretty well.
He's much better than Steve Nash.
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