2) If your C or PF is listed as the defender against a smaller player, this is almost certainly because they are trying to block the shot as a help defender, not because they got caught up in a switch.
This OK, but people are reporting centers defending shots from the 3P line. And PGs defending a dunk of a pivot! Of course this may happen from time to time, but last saturday this was happening more often that it should.
3)it's evident that the end result is that people are looking at the scores and saying their defense doesn't work anymore.
Somehow defense has been affected by the GE changes. Maybe not directly but as a side effect. Pace, of course, could be responsible of that. We can just suppose it because we don´t have all the information, so we can only give you our feedback.
In Spain, this match:
(13099827) was played between a very offensive team (more attack than defense) and a very defensive team (the opposite).
Last season the same match finished with a 43% of field shots for both teams.
Now, both teams played "look inside" and both teams used the right defense "zone 2-3", and the result of these tactics were 58 and 56 % of field shots respectively.
Can we explain this by just a faster pace? Maybe yes, but what we can see is that defenses are not working as they did before, in other words, defenses were overwhelmed by their attacks whatever the reason is.
¡Me aburro! (Homer Simpson)