But Stoudemire’s deficiencies on the other side of the court would wash away much of what he has on Bosh offensively. We saw what the Celtics did down the stretch against the Knicks on Wednesday night. The game plan was clear: Go right at Stoudemire every single time. On two straight possessions, Kevin Garnett got good looks at the rim and beat Stoudemire to crucial offensive rebounds. On the final play, the Celtics drew a play specifically designed to force a Stoudemire-on-Paul Pierce one-on-one mismatch. And it worked. Pierce got all the space he needed on a step-back jumper off the dribble and drilled the clincher right on Stoudemire.
That’s Stoudemire in a nutshell. He’ll win games on offense and lose them on defense. Now, Bosh isn’t a defensive player of the year by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s far more motivated and effective than Stoudemire. Over the years, the two bigs have been lumped in the same group of all offense-no defense post players, but that’s unfair since, compared to Bosh, Stoudemire is comparatively a matador in the paint. In post-up situations, Bosh has allowed just 36 points on 53 shots this season, ranking him among the league leaders with Dwight Howard and Anderson Varejao. Stoudemire? He’s allowed 79 points on 75 shots from the post. And it gets even worse once we compare the two defending off the dribble. This isn’t anything new, either.
To see how Stoudemire’s defense neutralizes his scoring prowess, consider that the Knicks are about 12 points per 100 possessions better offensively with Stoudemire on the floor, but nine points worse on defensive end. Also troubling? No one has been whistled for more fouls than Stoudemire this season (100).
That was my first guess.
