Unless your team is in possession of the world’s greatest player—shifting the competitive terms quite a bit—chances are high you need an elite defensive big man to anchor the lane if angling for a championship is to be taken seriously.
It’s no coincidence that the teams that advanced far in last year’s playoffs had great rim protection, and the ones that lacked it did not (excluding Miami).
One of the teams that succeeded on a relative scale, based on their own expectations last year, was the Golden State Warriors. The largest reason for their success was unstoppable offense, supplied by historically great shooting numbers by Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. But they were perhaps most fierce with a healthy Andrew Bogut patrolling the paint, stifling penetration and forcing offenses into drawn out possessions that led nowhere.
Here's a fantastic example from a game against the Kings. Watch Bogut in relation to his man, Jason Thompson, who's eventually forced to take a wild, contested jumper. Brilliant work by Bogut.
More times than not, Bogut’s strategy on the flo ...
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Article written by Michael Pina
Why Andew Bogut Is Critical to Golden State Warriors Defensive Evolution
August 30th, 2013 by Michael Pina Leave a reply »
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