Fourth Quarter
7:56: Frye gets caught behind Amundson as Vucevic leaves him to cut off Pablo Prigioni‘s drive. Frye then does not contest a wide open jumper by Lance Thomas. No good.
4:05: Frye is in perfect position on a Jason Smith drive. Great contest. No good.
1:26: Frye is playing extremely far off Lance Thomas, again possibly to prevent the drive. Thomas recognizes this and slashes hard into the paint. Frye puts arms up but cannot really contest the shot. Thomas takes a running hook and it is good (and a back-breaker).
Conclusion:
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The second eye test certainly did not do too much to help Frye’s case. While Frye did make nine positive defensive plays, by my count, including a pair on the fastbreak, his negative impact was far greater. He was directly responsible for giving up 22 points and it could have been much worse considering the Knicks missed four shots that Frye did not contest well.
We all knew coming into the season that Frye was a defensively liability but watching him in person has been an entirely different experience. Teams understand how weak Frye is defensively and they are now assaulting the Magic by running pick and rolls at Frye.
Frye’s limitations seem to be the biggest problem. He does not have the lateral quickness to guard both the paint and the perimeter. He has to commit to one unless the opponent’s pass comes under pressure. His on-ball defense also leaves a lot to be desired. He has had to hang off players to prevent them from driving past him and that has led to more open shots against him.
One thing we need to keep in mind here is to not run away with the idea that Frye is the only problem. Orlando’s scheme, Tobias Harris floating around nowhere on defense, Nikola Vucevic completely letting his offense dictate his defense, and Victor Oladipo getting murdered on screens all are killing this defense.