Hey guys, TooCool here with my first blog post. Hope you all enjoy it, and that I don’t bore you to death.

Defence to the Bobcats and our beloved coaching staff can be summed up in a single quote. “Larry Brown teaches, preaches, and even craps defence” – Along13. Defence is what makes the world go round, for Larry Brown anyway. Defence doesn’t revolve around the players. It revolves around Larry Brown’s head. They say that Defence wins championships. That statement is completely true. Without being able to get stops on a consistent basis, your team will never truly be a strong playoff team.

What is defence?

According to our beloved dictionary.com, defence is defined as:

a. the practice or art of defending oneself or one’s goal against attack, as in fencing, boxing, soccer, or football.
b. the team attempting to thwart the attack of the team having the ball or puck.
c. the players of a team who line up in their own defensive zone.
d. the positions on the field, ice, etc., taken by such players.

We now have a common knowledge of what defence is. This is what Larry Brown emphasises so much on, and this is what will lead Charlotte going forward.

Myths about Defence

Defence isn’t about blocking every shot like its hot, or fouling your man by whacking him in the face when he’s taking the easy layup, then getting him hit with the technical when he gets all aggro about his male ego being deflated from you slapping him in the face. Defence is all about making sure the ball doesn’t get in the hole. Defence is not having tall guys standing up with their arms raised and praying that you’ll have enough inches to make your opponent miss. Defence is moving your feet, not just your hands, hustling, staying in front of your man, contesting almost every shot and making it as difficult as possible for your man to get an easy shot.

Defence, and what it means to our beloved Bobcats:

There are several types of defensive teams out there. For reading purposes I will outline only three examples. I could rant on, but then you’ll probably stop reading and I don’t want that. We have the non-existent defenders i.e Knicks, GSW. We have the shot-blocking specialists i.e Magic. And then, we have the Lockdown-D teams i.e Lakers.

So with that in mind, where do our beloved Bobcats fit in?
Let us look at our lineup:

Lexy: 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m)
Saint Augustin: 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Bell: 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
UPS: 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)
Chandler: 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m)
Diaw: 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)
Diop: 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) 28
Rayray: 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Gray-hams: 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m)
Hendo: 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Prophet Nazzy: 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)
Flip: 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
VladRad: 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)
G. Wallace: 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m)

Calculating our team’s average, we have a team average of 6 ft 7 (2.01 m), or Crash’s height on average. Lockdown-D Teams usually have an average height of 6 ft 5 (1.96 m). So yes, this means that VladRad,s extra inches actually do help…theoretically. Magic got blown away by the Lakers in the 2009 Playoffs because of one reason. Height. There are three players on the Lakers roster that are below 6 ft 5. Shannon Brown, Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar. Everyone else is above 6 ft 5. That’s tough for superstar Dwight Howard, who would have to beat Gasol (7 ft), Bynum (7 ft) and Odom (6 ft 10). Dwight himself is 6 ft 10, but facing these players on a rotation basis, it’s really tough.

Our Bobcats on a recent rating, was ranked 3rd OVERALL as the best defensive teams, behind the Celtics and Magic. That’s impressive for a team, however we also have the worst offensive record…but that’s irrelevant.

The goal of shot-blocking:

The goal of shot blocking is not to block the other person’s shot. There are two goals for shot-blocking and contesting a shot. Firstly, it isn’t all about blocking every shot, it is to make it seem like you are going to block every shot of the opponent. Secondly, the other goal is to make the opponent change their shot to decrease the percentages of the shot going in. With this in mind, the Diop mentality (Must block every shot!) doesn’t always have to apply to every shot. Put a hand in the opponents face and it’s a lot harder to score. It’s a lot harder to score with a hand in your face than a wide open shot, yet we can’t seem to sink either of these shots.

Look at this Retard, Offence > Defence:

Wrong. There has only been one run-and-gun team ever to have done well in the playoffs. Those were the 1980’s Lakers, the run-and-gun team back then. However, they also had great defence and not to mention Magic Johnson. Look at the Golden State Warriors, they have relied on offence over defence, and have limited success. Denver Nuggets are packed with offensively minded people, but they haven’t had the success they could have had until they signed Chris “Birdman” Anderson for a defensive presence.

Defence = Boring:

You ever seen Gerald Wallace block a shot? If you haven’t, grab some popcorn, download/stream a Bobcats game and sit your punk ass down in that chair. If you can’t afford a chair to sit down on, sit on your bed. No bed, then find a box or a crate. Then, lean forward and watch anticipated for the traditional Gerald Wallace rejection. And they are big! You see him rise up in the air, and slap the ball away into the stands. If you think seeing that is boring, then you truly are not a BCP member. Thus, go PM Ziggy saying that you want him to delete your account, go find the nearest Lakers fansite and join it. Because if you say that is boring, just go and join the Lakers bandwagon.

Confusion about the +/-

Stat whores love the +/-, they talk all about it. If you don’t understand what the crap they’re on about, I’m here to save you. If you’re on the court, and they score 2 points on you, you’ll get a -2. If you score 2 points back, you go back to a 0. Therefore, when you are on the court and your team is blowing the other team away, you’ll have a positive. It all depends on how many points respective your team is scoring/getting scored on. So if your team scores 10 points, and the opponents score 2, you’ll have a rating of +8. And no, getting dunked on does not mean the opponents get extra points, or you posterizing the same player for the 5th time in that game doesn’t warrant extra points either.

Tyson vs Emeka in the key.

Emeka is 6 ft 10. Tyson is 7 ft 1. You may think 3 inches isn’t much at all, but it adds a lot, especially to a team like ours who needs all the stops we can get. Emeka, although stronger than Chandler wasn’t that much of a strong defender. Sure he could block shots, but he wasn’t intimidating to players. Tyson has everything. He’s got length, longass arms and a big beard to imitate a terrorist to send the opponents scurrying. Hence, Tyson far outweighs Emeka as a defensive presence. Not to mention that Tyson is a vocal guy. Nothing worse than trying to posterize the guy who’s the most vocal and confident on the court, only to get your ball slapped away like a sissy.

The Flop:

Vlade Divac, the father of flopping. People say that flopping is a legitimate tactic. I find it downright dirty and unjustified. Famous floppers include Derek Fisher (the grandmaster of flopping), Andrei Kirilenko (douchebag that no one likes) and our favourite Brazilian flopper, Anderson Varejao (Oh noes, not only did he flop but his hair whipped me in the back of the head). We ourselves have our own beloved flopper, Raja Bell. However, flopping is illegal and no one condones flopping. NBA is cracking down on flopping, and I personally would pay to see Varejao’s face if he gets caught, and gets a nice big fat fine.

Still think Defence is boring? Think again.
Defence at its finest:

The People’s Elbow, courtesy of Hendo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVib6gjoZAI

Birdman Block party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha2tcAUa-e8

Huge block by Wallace: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVzu6JgOMoI
Defence is what will lead the Bobcats forward. We have defence down pat, so now lets work on the offence…I beg you LB. With that in mind, I still stand by the ILBIT, although IDTLBOO (I don’t trust Larry Brown on Offence) is something I will also stand by on, until I see something better than the train wreck that is our offence. For now, the Bobcats have one of the best defences in the league. Now, we just need to work on our offence, and things will be good.