Everyone watching Boston sorta knew tbf.

Hauser is the reason Grant Williams started racking up DNP’s last season. He was our best 3P shooter and he actually led the league in defensive rating.

The defense was a talking point for us all season. He’s nothing special but he holds his own defensively. Opponents just saw the no-name white guy as an easy target, so they’d abandon their offensive system and just try to iso him. Every team tried to treat him like Duncan Robinson. Having him on the court was so disruptive.

Although his shooting has gotten even better this season, his release is a lot quicker, so now everything looks like an open shot for him.

Young fast teams generally run into a wall in the postseason when the game slows down and the halfcourt becomes more important.

I don’t like when people say players like that are “bad” on defense. Because they aren’t really unskilled at defense. They’re just less effective due to their size.

My pet peeve is that people massively overrate size issues defensively.

You mentioned Isaiah, he’s a great example.

He wasn’t a good defender by any stretch but people listed him as the worst defender of all time, said he could never be a good defender and then would turn around and say other short PGs like Chris Paul and Kemba Walker were more respectable because they were at least a little bigger.

Isaiah had the exact same standing reach as Kemba. But one was 5’8 and the other was 6’0.

Not to mention the effort plays a huge role. Isaiah’s height definitely hurt his defence but that same season Russell Westbrook was bottom 5 in the league in contesting shots. Harden was just as bad, a simple screen would leave Houston playing 4v5 defensively.

A 6’3 PG standing 4-5 ft away just isn’t a bigger defensive presence than a 5’8 guy in your face.

But he’s just small.

As for Pritchard, we were actually subbing him into playoff games last season specifically because of his defense.

6’5 Brogdon was dying on screens and both Horford/Williams had to play more drop coverage because of their health. A guard who needs to switch and a big who can’t switch is a really bad combination. So coach Mazzula would periodically try to sub Pritchard into games. We needed someone who could fight over screens and stick to their man.

But Pritchard had DNP’ed so much last season he had lost his shooting rhythm and couldn’t hit the side of a barn, so we’d sub him back out.

He was subbing in for defense and subbing out for offense.

People might also come around on Pritchard’s defense this season because we’re actually using him as a weapon now.

Part of why we’ve struggled on teams like Miami and GSW is because they pressure our wings with smaller guards who might struggle to contest shots but can get in lower and disrupt the dribble, think Chris Paul doing well on Durant historically.

This season we’re running a lot of Pritchard + Holiday full-court presses and it looks like we’re hoping to do the same.