The way i see it, defensive success boils down to two tasks: capitalizing on opportunities and maintaining a realistic gameplan. Defense has always been clearer than offense, and always more reliable in tournaments. It doesn’t take as much practice to win with defense.
Imagine you’ve got two evenly experienced players. The offensive-minded player’s job is to create openings and capitalize on them. The defensive player’s job is to minimize damage at every opportunity while gradually chipping away at the opponent’s lifebar. If they’ve both been swamped at work for the past month, the defensive player comes out way ahead because the offensive player will fail to capitalize on an opening – drop a combo, mistime a crossup, get too close on a throw attempt, whatever. Generally speaking, you have to be more on-point to win with offense.
More specifically, the term “capitalize” conveys a different meaning to a defensive player than it does to an offensive player. It’s not simply a matter of dealing damage. Let’s say you bait an uppercut. From a rushdown standpoint, you want to punish with the most damaging combo possible, which also gives you the best chance of maintaining momentum. Depending on your opponent’s habits, sometimes it’s better to sacrifice a little guaranteed damage in order to set up an immediate throw mixup. Chaos favors offense.
Conversely, turtles should generally avoid ambiguous situations. Structure favors defense. If you’re confident in your ability to counter everything your opponent does, then you shouldn’t be gambling with offense, right? Thus, the defensive definition of “capitalize” is all about inflicting as much damage as possible while maintaining superior positioning.