When you play guard, you're not going to block a lot of shots. Inside, you're going to block shots.
Defense not only wins games; it's what gets you on the floor at every level you play at. Once you get to high school and get to college, if you don't play defense, you won't play.
I know I can block shots and I've got to do it. That's part of my job as a big.
I just try to play hard defensively.
I can run up and down, shoot threes, or go inside. I can also get involved by setting screens and rebounding.
When I play, there are things throughout the game that I notice, especially rebounding.
All the coaches preach about defense. Every day they talk about defense, they talk about how important it is to get stops in order to win basketball games.
If you drive right, and your big is standing to the right, dish and keep going to their big - you grab an arm, maybe pull - so that they can't contest. You only get called for it once in a while.
The contention is if you don't do it in the first quarter, if you don't box out and control the glass in the first quarter, you are not going to do it in the fourth quarter and overtime.
A hook shot kisses the rim and hangs there, helplessly, but doesn't drop and for once our gangly starting center boxes out his man and times his jump perfectly, gathering the orange leather/from the air like a cherished possession.
