I’ve said for weeks our defense is about average. We’ve slipped to 10th in defensive efficiency and I expect us to slip to 12th or so in the coming weeks. There is absolutely nothing special about it outside of Rudy.
Here’s the biggest problem as I see it. Royce should probably start and certainly close. He’s our best perimeter defender in a league that plays small ball and not having him on the court when it matters most is bad. It is a major problem. Rudy, O’Neale and Mitchell absolutely should be closing games. Ingles and Bogey should be the others imo. It just makes too much sense from an offensive, defensive and chemistry standpoint, no matter how much money we pay Mike.
If the guy wants to truly win that badly, he’d suck it up and volunteer to come off the bench. If he wants to have his ego stroked, we need to ship his *** out this summer.