TIM MORSE: Where was the defense?

Forgive me if I’m not excited about the NBA All-Star Game. I didn’t watch a second of it. Instead, after a rough weekend that consisted of countless region and state tournament games on the high school level, I went to bed.

After working on the newspaper Monday afternoon, I read several stories about the All-Star Game.

192-182?

Are you kidding me?

Where was the defense?

I won’t forget one story I read which compared the game to a playground-style pickup game and said fans wanted to see offense. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. I, for one, have no interest in watching a basketball game in which both teams run up and down the floor and score.

After the game, MVP Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans talked about everything being offensive-minded. He said nobody wants to get hurt in a game like that, so there is very little resistance when you see a guy driving to the basket.

I guess it is sort of like the baseball all-star game. Fans don’t come to watch Clayton Kershaw or Justin Verlander dominate the hitters. Instead, they come to see the long ball.

But I don’t watch much of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, either.

Back to basketball. Surely there are some out there who enjoy watching a good defensive game.

Can someone say box-and-one, 1-3-1 trap or a triangle-and-2 defense?

The lack of defense has filtered its way into the college and high school levels. In my opinion, that is what made watching Billy Donovan’s teams at Florida so entertaining. They would score, then come back and play defense. He would make you beat his defense.

I listened to Deerfield-Windsor coach Gordy Gruhl talk about playing a 1-3-1 trap in the first half against Southland Friday night in the Georgia Independent Schools Association Region 3-AAA basketball tournament.

The longtime coach knew what he was talking about. His defense created turnovers, and it led to easy baskets on the offensive end. Simply put, his defense created offense, and the Knights won the game against a team they had split with during the regular season.

That is a big reason the Pelham High School girls basketball team will be so hard to beat in the Georgia High School Association Class A public school state basketball tournament. From the time of the tipoff, you never stop hearing coach Antonia Tookes telling her players to “box out.”

She loves defense and, like Gruhl’s teams, her defensive scheme generates offense.

In the back hall of the Cavalier Area last week after Pelham destroyed Seminole County in the semifinals, Tookes told me her defense was still a work in progress.

“I’m a perfectionist. … I know we’ll never be perfect, but if we can get close to perfect, we can do something special,” she said.

The old adage that “defense wins championships” doesn’t just exist in football.

At least Tookes knows a little about playing defense.

Apparently, the NBA — at least Sunday night — didn’t.