technical basketball details etc

Watch how The speed of Galloway’s dip on the way down matches it on the way up. A key component to rhythm. The bottom of the dip is timed with the tap of the right foot 👌 🏀@BBiomechanics pic.twitter.com/U9ByVC2Ra4

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) January 6, 2020

one motion shot w minimal jump has become the standard, steve nash really the patient zero for the current culture imo w steph being the prime vector

galloway does the a kinda hybrid hop into a 1-2 there as far as the footwork which is kinda interesting

There’s more than one way to skin a cat

hop is def the current thinking but seems like all the best shooters will use the 1-2 situationally sometimes

The moment Ball looked down at the crossover was when the charge was gonna happen pic.twitter.com/zgkuKlFQvk

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) January 18, 2020

Deemed legal in real time.. @bballbreakdown @NunnBetterRefs @OfficialNBARefs pic.twitter.com/m8kEMpmk7s

— BBiomechanics (@BBiomechanics) January 29, 2020

saw some thing a while ago talking about how dell made steph radically change his shot to a higher release point while he was in high school because he wouldnt be able to get it off in the pros steph called it his summer of hell, got a lil chuckle out of that watching lamelo and trae shoot from their chins

🎥 LaMelo Ball from the Warriors logo in slow-mo pic.twitter.com/oX2PmubnIu

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) February 27, 2021

it goes in but you would not teach someone to shoot that way

but maybe its good idk!

The release point looks good

What did Biyombo do to his free throw form??? pic.twitter.com/yABXnSAKaI

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) February 27, 2021

oh no. i do not like that.

biyombo is a non-baller

the weirdest ft shooter I remember seeing was Shawn Marion, wouldn’t he kind of shove the ball with both hands semi-horizontally at the backboard?

pretty much describes his jumpshot altogether lol

huh, his release point looks like it's close to his shoulders!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu9ig4mbouo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMzIGECoaVQ

pretty funny that rick barry, one of the greatest shooters ever, shot free throws underhand

with some of those you have to feel for the teammates who had to dap them up at the line, like "um... good job?"
i've always be been a fan of nelly's weird one handed thing

iirc Rick Barry was and remains outspoken about the underhand free throw. I know I heard an interview once about how he got Wilt to do it for a game or part of a season or something and he was able to make a much higher percentage, but wilt wouldn’t stick with it bc it didn’t look cool.

It’s pretty amazing how many dudes in that video actually had dece percentages. More than one way to skin a cat!

i remember that barry/wilt anecdote too, from basketball gypsy

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504774/why-rick-and-canyon-barry-stay-true-to-the-granny-shot

In his autobiography Chamberlain said using the "granny" shot made him "look silly" and "like a sissy."

i didn't realize until recently that elena delle donne is a significantly better ft shooter than any nba player. her holding the ball out with her elbow at a 90 degree angle seems notable, but her shot looks pretty conventional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEHbB-9JvUo

the smaller ball would help with shooting % imo

so silly they shd use the same ball

uh why

cause its the same sport

I could watch Pistol Pete Maravich demonstrate ballhandling drills to Red Auerbach all day ...

pic.twitter.com/BWWbqcVFbH

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) March 11, 2021

"hip mobility" is the new scouting buzzword lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Eid7669zY

marcus would be an amazing player development coach someday. he talks the game really well.

such obvious passion too

yeah i could see him really wanting to do a job like that

never been clear to me who the guys are who help the players do drills, are they on the development staff or what they tend to be young theyre not coaches theyre not ball boys

Andrew Wiggins struggling a bit at Warriors practice. 👀

(via @LetsGoWarriors, h/t @dubs4o8)pic.twitter.com/convmX6EFR

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) October 1, 2021

https://www.nba.com/stats/events/?GameEventID=429&GameID=0022100172&Season=2021-22&flag=1&title=Clarkson%20REBOUND%20(Off:0%20Def:1)&sct=plot

never seen this play before. the pacers used it to break the jazz zone. it's like the elevator doors play but in reverse

this is cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T4bJh165g

Ralph Miller, the coach of the Oregon State Beaver hoops team from 1970-1989 favored a similar heavily pass-oriented offense. I think he cribbed it from Phog Allen. He hated to see his guards dribbling more than twice.

Fascinating video

that was great, thanking u

Ya watched that a couple weeks ago and been telling all my bball friends about it

NEW Breakdown: Ty Lue shows again why he is one of the best X's & O's coaches in the NBA - NASTY ATO counter! pic.twitter.com/U4MAFvOKCd

— Half Court Hoops (@HalfCourtHoops) December 7, 2021

love it

I made diagrams of 34 types of ballscreens, from Angle PnR to Wedge Roll

If you see a pick-and-roll but don't know its name so you can't look it up, try looking for it on this page and hopefully you'll find the right one

Lmk which ones I've left out!https://t.co/aBO1HPCn7T

— Bowser2Bowser (@bowser2bowser) January 21, 2022

that is excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyA_wTOzza4
Alex Caruso talks defense

i want to thank caruso for shaving his head

love that

hes really thinking about the shot clock good stuff

chasing down the origin of the shamgod https://theathletic.com/3139815/2022/02/24/the-unknown-history-of-the-shammgod-crossover-or-as-philly-calls-it-the-pooh-allen

guess nba assistant pooh allen did it on national tv when shamgod was still in high school lol

“If you know Pooh,” Rozier said, “you know he’s going around showing people that clip.”

finally track down the penn coach who taught it to pooh and

O’Hanlon said he doesn’t remember when he first did “The Reach Across.” He was always trying to come up with new moves and discovered this one on his own and never saw anyone do it before him. “I did come up with that,” he said. “I didn’t steal it from anyone.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8vvtQ4ir8

whats going on with DSJs shot form? looks like hes fumbling it right before he releases it

Highlights from Dennis Smith Jr.’s private workout this week in Las Vegas in front of several NBA personnel. pic.twitter.com/MiidVmp0uo

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) July 14, 2022

it looks like he's using some wrist action to generate backspin rather than like flicking it off the fingers as one does. definitely a little weird.

looks like hes catching then adjusting so his hand is way on top and to the side of the ball then compensating for that weird placement by thumbing very intensely, good luck man

yeah some sort of pre-shot rotation. takes him so long to set it up yikes.

Former Toronto Raptors center Lucas Nogueira released these team scouting reports on John Wall and Bradley Beal from round one of the 2018 NBA Playoffs.

Why? I don't know. But cool. pic.twitter.com/qGUWz2FbwA

— Quinton Mayo (@RealQuintonMayo) July 27, 2022

i wonder how common it is for teams to include stuff like ppp and ts% in communicating with players

The Bucks have tweaked their approach to pick-and-roll defense this season and the early results are extremely promising - they're taking away all of the juiciest options and forcing teams to settle for more tough shots. https://t.co/k7gm0R1zdi pic.twitter.com/0DNjv3GYnu

— Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper) November 11, 2022

i like those visualizations!

found these defensive mistakes videos which look at more minute details than most breakdowns positioning routes on screens etc and the guy is just bitching the whole time hes really disappointed in the players lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDYP4Xzkjw

Love that. Luka not shaking the harden comparisons lol. That Javale signing looks crazier by the day. Do they have even a single plus defender on the roster outside of dorian?

hes like harden who shows up in the playoffs

Harden made the conf finals a couple times

he made finals once even but his playoff numbers are bad where luka has killed it, which makes sense to me hardens game has always been a little gimmicky but luka is a flat out baller

omg that defensive mistakes video had me in tears.

it’s like your uncle morty giving you a hard time about your shoes

🚨BREAKDOWN🚨

Steve Kerr added a new ATO set that takes advantage of 3 concepts:

1) Steph Curry's gravity
2) Steph Curry's screening
3) Jordan Poole's downhill explosion

Simple but brilliant play design that makes full use of the team's dynamic offensive weapons.

⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/FoyQIq0sR8

— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) November 26, 2022

luka the post god
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI8wq7vUxoo

lukas a freak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17H6OaQQ5qY

good one on haliburton, its crazy how much he uses the look away or just keeps his eyes on the rim, its like he can take a snapshot and doesnt even need to look anymore

caitlin cooper wrote a whole thing on haliburtons jump passing https://www.indycornrows.com/platform/amp/2022/8/3/23285985/on-the-aerial-exploits-of-tyrese-haliburton which tyrese actually shouted out on jj redicks podcast

Very cool to hear Tyrese Haliburton give @C2_Cooper a shoutout for the jump pass article on Old Man and the Three. pic.twitter.com/VC4ucmKWH5

— Tony East (@TEastNBA) November 11, 2022

also this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSlCsBgbP-g

caitlin cooper is good af

what is this shot

This is one of the wildest shooting forms I’ve witnessed 😭💀 pic.twitter.com/nbizW4kclM

— NBA Memes (@NBAMemes) December 5, 2022

wild that he is a 10 year vet and shoots like that

never shouldve let him back in

coach nicks dream is coming true

I don't think we're talking enough about how Victor Wembanyama is making floater 3-pointers a thing over in France. He's made multiple of these shots this season, and it breaks my brain every time he does it. Think Luka is the only other person I've seen try this more than once? pic.twitter.com/5T3MhWjit6

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) January 3, 2023

I know this sounds dumb but if you have the requisite strength and skill etc it doesn’t seem like a bad shot at all

that's a runner not a floater imo

imo its defining trait is that its a one legged shot, which when dirk popularized it with his turnaround people were like wow only dirk what a great shooter but we come to learn its a good shot in many situations so why not from three

Still didn’t seem like a good shot cos youre moving towards the rim vs stationary up and down, adding another factor to screw up the shot. But it could be used to keep the defense off balance to set up other moves I guess

maybe a couple things that could be good about it is the big jump towards the basket is powerful making it an easier shot arms wise allowing for more touch, and also it could open up spots where a traditional jumper wouldnt work step through type moves and so forth, i dont have any idea if guys can hit it at a good enough rate to be worthwhile but i want to see them try

you see guys shoot it sometimes when they dont have time to get a normal shot end of shot clock situations etc so on some level its a thing that makes sense to do

yeah it's probably no worse than the stepback three as far as degree of difficulty; both are using some sort of movement to create space for the shot

all that action to get a contested 30 footer lol

This is a nasty half-court set from the Nuggets. Elbow action out of HORNS flowing into "Chicago" that then flows into Floppy-adjacent staggered downscreens for Bones Hyland. pic.twitter.com/MuqWricjAg

— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) January 12, 2023

guys might be seeing plays where none exist like sure players are setting off ball screens and whatnot but i dont think theyre all going horns chicago floppy, past the initial action its prob more just read and react

yeah particularly with jokic they probably are coached just to set a ton of off-ball screens and he'll find someone.

these twitter guys want to talk about basketball like it's football

otm sometimes its interesting but usually its just some dudes ballin.

ATOs are cool tho.

not sure where to post this but cam thomas has a beautiful shot. the perfect arch

Over his last three games, Cam Thomas is averaging 44.7 points on 56/56/90 shooting splits!

Pure bucket-getter. pic.twitter.com/r3YlG9UXCX

— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) February 8, 2023

its pretty def shoots an easy ball

higher arc than is usually advised but its working for him

thread of great shooters thumbing

Just bc the guide hand thumb goes w/the ball, DOES not mean it will spin sideways. Additionally, it is a “release of good tension” & imparts negligible force into ball flight

What matters? The primary force producer: The shooting fingers, wrist & forearm @bballbreakdown pic.twitter.com/UxZTAvZCy1

— BBiomechanics (@BBiomechanics) February 13, 2023

ray allen heavy thumber

This is even MORE pronounced guide hand “tension release” with more movement than Russ as shooting side imparts force

Does the ball spin sideways? Was he consistently inaccurate? pic.twitter.com/koXKYREIE4

— BBiomechanics (@BBiomechanics) February 13, 2023

recall a reporter asking ray allen why he didnt get more rotation on the ball since it helps it bounce back in if it hits the rim and he was like its not supposed to hit the rim lol

It's not a perfect fit for this thread, but I enjoyed this article and couldn't find a better place to post it.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35645800/inside-nba-unwritten-rule-passing-ball-seconds-left-clock

that was great and i think it's great for this thread! i was laughing at dinwiddie and dfs both being like "we're fine just hoisting if we need to"

"I know some people are worried about their percentages and trying to preserve it," McCollum said, "but I'm a guy who enjoys shooting the basketball.

lol good piece

cj!! my man.

guide hand pushing the ball into the shooting hand kinda interesting

Guide arm & hand is creating pressure of the ball into the shooting hand putting the flexors on stretch (including the finger flexors)

So much so, that the main fingers that impart force are prioritized (pinky off then back on for lateral stability at release)@bballbreakdown pic.twitter.com/eEjCRLLa7F

— BBiomechanics (@BBiomechanics) February 12, 2023

It's a free throw bro please put down the thesaurus

— Alex Hines (@NYJetsGOAT) February 12, 2023

let bbiomechanics cook

Always a pleasure talking to Hornets head coach Steve Clifford, one of the most candid guys we have in the league.

Asked him where he sees defense going in the midst of the offensive explosion league-wide, and got a really detailed response. pic.twitter.com/dQkKx38t2P

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) March 2, 2023

yeah interesting stuff about offenses all playing the same these days and defense needing to take the initiative back. i do think there is room for defenses to improve. possibly there will be more of a focus on lineup consistency to allow for better team defense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE5VsBDoZEg

horf explains his weird shooting form, spoiler it just happened and he couldnt stop

What is @TyHaliburton22 looking for when running PnR?

He answered that on the latest episode of @dunkerspotpod

Apple: https://t.co/GenUklE8It

Spotify: https://t.co/Ny8i9uOkqD pic.twitter.com/7eV5nWwqoa

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) April 4, 2023

That was a great ep. Of the Dunker’s Spot.

would love to get hali and kd together talking technical basketball details

one would think these guys like to be asked about this stuff rather than the typical sportswriter shit

his legs are so far apart when he shoots

The LA crowd is booing Dillon Brooks in warm-ups and cheering when he misses 😅

🍿 Lakers-Grizzlies Game 3
📺 10 PM ET on ESPN pic.twitter.com/AO5YLcpTOn

— ESPN (@espn) April 23, 2023

yeah that doesn’t seem comfortable or repeatable

klay is the great shooter that has a notably wide stance but its not that wide

https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2018/03/3cc52-1520254103-800.jpg

shooting for perfected

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5cdaddb77bf70b38e5de7d5b/4:3/w_2456,h_1842,c_limit/Cunningham-CurryWarriorsRockets.jpg

Lmaooo

eyes on the rim hes thinking about it

The mythical no dip shot from Klay, plus sprinting to his right. This is the absolute hardest type of catch and shoot there is for a righty, and the pinnacle of shooting skill pic.twitter.com/furuTnMOjQ

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) May 5, 2023

feel like ive seen a lil more no dip action recently but the shooter is always still trying to generate some sort of rhythm with like a lil lean back spring forward thing but sometimes klay just goes right up with it

Pat Connaughton does it. As well as Pat Connaughton can.

it just seems unnecessarily difficult but im not a professional shooter

defensive mistakes guy full roasting of joel embiid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIDDVZ-cp18

why are they like this

https://twitter.com/johnhollinger/status/1657387864785666049

why you delete tweet of college team doing seven dribble handoffs in a row five feet behind the 3pt line

https://i.imgur.com/LSQfgis.jpg

casting a spell on the ball

Without looking at the comments what stands out to you about this video:

Gilbert Arenas daughter Izela dropped 38 points at Nike Nationals today 👀 @teamwhynot @NikeGirlsEYBL pic.twitter.com/LKxpzZrHlv

— Courtside Films (@CourtsideFilms) July 8, 2023

ball has almost no rotation on her shots? never seen anything like that before that i remember

that s crazy i dont think i could do that if i tried

Yah I’m dumbfounded how is it possible

i tried to do the izela arenas no rotation shot today and i don’t understand the physics of it

its gotta be an illusion lol. the science of it really makes no sense.

I just watched the video like five more times in the exact way I would watch a video of a magician doing a card trick

i think she is giving it heaps of off hand thumb. like a chest pass

interesting

Interesting trend from the Korean Basketball League where a number of players are 80%+ from the free throw line shooting exclusively bank shots. pic.twitter.com/OBKmVW3pfa

— Eric Fawcett (@EricFawcett_) August 31, 2023

looking into this

i used to do this when i was 8 and it worked, confirmed

lol yeah that’s how I shot fts when I was a small child

i remember on my friends fucked up backboard if you hit the top right corner of the small square it would go in every time

those carrot uniforms are pretty fire

banking free throws is much harder imo! maybe something to try for people that suck at them tho?

i feel like you can kinda launch it, don't need to worry about arc so much just bang the middle of the square

Cam Johnson and I breaking down shooting going right and the mechanics required to do it well. Lots more on this discussion in link below! pic.twitter.com/amLTIkun2a

— JJ Redick (@jj_redick) September 28, 2023

smh jj doesnt want children to know the shooting secrets

f* them kids

https://theswishtheory.com/analysis/2023/10/the-mind-of-a-defensive-menace-cognitive-athleticisms-impact-on-defense/

Caruso is so good. Pretty much the only way I make it through Bulls games is just focusing on him playing defense, it's a joy to watch.

i like this in that its drawing attention to lesser known things but im not sure if its clarifying to call them all athleticism, i guess i could "listen to the podcast" to get the full argument

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FY17U6EUUAAjuJQ?format=jpg&name=large

that's a nice-looking ppt

you know what thinking basketball do good work i like em

The Milwaukee Bucks are 29th in defense to start the season. Gonna thread some clips from my film session here as we try to find out *why* this is the case.

First, a P&R switch, but looks like Giannis is trying to scram Dame out of the mismatch, but Dame seems to not know that: pic.twitter.com/c3hmgAMOqx

— Jason Timpf (@_JasonLT) November 3, 2023

not sure if this is the best thread for this or just the reg season one

i’m down to try and use this thread for stuff like this to not bog the main thread down w/ nba film twitter threads & the like

yeah makes sense to me

Alex Caruso gave Kevin Durant hell last night. Deep dive on how he did it.

Turn sound on to hear why Caruso is a defensive savant. pic.twitter.com/F8hT1IiMr7

— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) November 9, 2023

feel like guys are getting better at poking swiping etc at the ball, jrue had a play last night where he was beat and just doinked the ball out at the last moment

i think i read somewhere that steals are way up this season

steals are one of the best plays, as long as youre not gambling

seems like pursuing the play once youre beat has become standard defense where it was once not, leads to more blocks from behind poking balls away and so forth

Jose Alvarado please stand up. Also get healthy so you can poke away balls again.

the 309 point game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvyiAiF6L9c

man i really cant stand how that guy talks.

i was mad they did not overturn this

I can’t believe that I have to explain this…#basketballiscooked pic.twitter.com/f5KF8N4WIw

— #1 ranked snitch ref (@DevInTheLab) November 29, 2023

steph mightve put a lil extra on that one hard to tell tho he was moving in many directions

funny thing was his kick didnt hit anyone

he got monk on the thigh, pretty dubious call tho i can see how the refs would be suspicious of the path his leg took sort of an usual hooking motion

https://i.imgur.com/GSgQEAi.png

shoudla just been a nocall

yeah in real time it looks like theres a ton of contact but there wasnt much really

i dont think devin should be using a clip of reggie of all people to demonstrate a natural shooting motion

or mj or kobe or cp3 for that matter

haha thats fair

i think a lot of these guys practice kicking out to the extent it does become part of their usual motion, even if its not necessary to get the shot up... no real downside to it unless the league cracks down

the right leg kick out is def naturally when turning on that shoulder to shoot

sure in that particular shot maybe

Whyyyy

Kyle Anderson warms up with corner 3’s before Wolves-Clippers.

(via @TomerAzarly) pic.twitter.com/kEx9DjGYxn

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) February 13, 2024

investigating the luka mysteries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfufGaRhHg

crazy the mavs have two guys who are elite with the ball and do nothing otherwise

i think thinking basketball lets him off the hook there only trying when you have the ball is actually really bad, is pretty easy to look at individual plays and see things luka couldve done better but theres also the hidden loss of strategic flexibility, mavs arent drawing up plays for luka to get easy catch and shoot threes, and their opponents know that and theyre like thank you for leaving that very good play on the table, it also as mentioned in the video squanders the talents teammates who are good with the ball

luka reads the game in a self centered manner, hes an amazing passer but not in a way that cares about his teammates talents, its anti point guard stuff, its a hardenesque approach where hes just like spread out and be ready to shoot or roll, his teammates are cogs in the luka machine, and then he powers down when he doesnt have the ball lol, cant be the most fulfilling system to play in

funny aside about plus minus in there lol yeah a stat thats noisy over a single season might not be the best over a longer timeframe because players output might change over the course of five years, but they want it to be good so bad it makes so much sense

great video, even if ben thanos’d jokic for some reason lol.

raw plus-minus is clearly telling you something important, you can just look at the guys at the top, but you are always going to have outliers that need to be explained (usually due to weird lineup things, for example KCP is like top 10 in raw plus minus this year). the adjusted plus-minuses are getting better and better, they still have some kinks but it’s not like the old days where some rando big was 7th in the league in PER or something.

delivering accuracy on the level of asking a casual basketball fan is a great accomplishment for a decade of work by the statistics community

i think these playoffs will tell us a lot about the current state of luka. he is a perpetual top 5 player so he should be held to a high standard; on the other hand there isn't any lead player drafted in his class or after him that has anywhere near as many playoff wins. the thunder could make the finals this year and SGA still wouldn't have as many playoff wins as luka & that's including games where he was chris paul's sidekick. if the mavs win another playoff series this year, given what is on their roster, i think i'd have a hard time worrying about whether luka's "impact" is overstated

he just needs to win one playoff series and the questions about his game are moot

i mean, no. i said i get why he is held to a high standard. but i also think if he continues to demonstrate the ability to win playoff series when other stars his age cannot/do not, that some of the criticisms start to seem a bit silly

Luka Doncic is leading the league in scoring and is 2nd in assists, but for there's a long term trend related to the scoreboard that doesn't match that production

yeah i wonder why that could be one sec lemme check their roster

mavs roster always seems to be bad its weird lemme check what some of their past players are up to

yeah when he had a really good young player on his team luka put up 32/10/7 and led his team to the conference finals hopefully one day archeologists are able to uncover his impact there, it's a huge mystery

i was watching mavs celtics last game with my dad who is a big box score reader but not that big of a game watcher outside the celtics and he was getting all fired up about luka to kind of an annoying degree tho tbf luka was cooking the celtics were just guarding him straight up letting him get his i was like just watch him get tired as the game goes on and sure enough by mid third quarter he was chucking stepback 3s then in the fourth he had one basket and the celtics wrecked the mavs easily, his style of play its just obviously not good its not the good way to play basketball

mavs barely squeaked into the conf finals and got destroyed, they were a second round quality team that year, i mean it was nice for them dont get me wrong and they were on a roll for sure but stuff like that happens no one is consulting the history books over it

like the lakers last year sometimes there just a bunch of pretty good teams and one of them wins a couple rounds

i think one reasonable theory about lukas game is that its a high floor and not necessarily capped ceiling but its more difficult to raise the ceiling of his teams to contender status because he doesnt play good team ball, of course thats just speculation at this point since hes never had a contending quality roster

the suns that year were defending conference champs, brought back the same nucleus, won 64 games, and were the 1 seed by 8 games so gonna have to disagree w/ you on that one. don't retcon that game 7 into them being some mediocre opponent

i agree w/ you & have consistently agreed that he has conditioning, stamina, modulation issues that he has to figure out as his career progresses so if "style of play" just means a decrease in usage so that he can last longer across games/the playoffs then yeah. but the heliocentric possessions where ppl stand around and watch luka thing that you guys really pick at i just don't think is as big of a problem bcuz he's simply too good. i'm not chalking james harden's playoff failures up to "style of play" and then pinning that on luka

he just stands around when he doesnt have the ball and that includes defense its really bad its harmful not sure what else to say about that hes giving back a bunch there

xp didnt say the suns were mediocre tho they did have some issues what i said was the mavs barley squeaked through (seven game series) then got wrecked (five games series)

sorry but beating the 1 seed on the road in game 7 by 40 points does not count to me as squeaking through but whatever

i watched that celtics game too and maybe your analysis of it is correct, it's subjective. luka was out of his mind incredible in the first half and did not match that in the second half. but my take away from that game was that the mavs are built on the concept of having two high level star players and if kyrie is going to go 9-23 and 1-7 from three vs a team as good as boston then the mavs are not going to be competitive

you're presenting a theoretical scenario where luka tries less hard and passes more in the first half of that game, gets his teammates involved more and is able to have more stamina to dominate in the fourth quarter. i would submit that if luka wasn't playing like the best basketball player of all time in the first half the mavs would've been down by 20+ and nothing that happened in the second half would've even mattered. so i guess it's a matter of perspective

but again people have been talking about luka figuring out a better balance between domination and stamina since he was putting up first half triple doubles vs the clippers in the 21 playoffs and i don't think he has taken a serious critical approach to that aspect of his game so all of that stuff i agree w/

that celtics game they were targeting him on defense was part of the reason he was so tired the other part is he plays a very tiring style, good teams are going to do the same until theres a solution for it, he could get in better shape we dont have any idea how much hes capable of increasing his stamina, its seems like probably some but also he likely doesnt have naturally high stamina, his style of expending a ton of energy with the ball then resting the rest of the time just makes him vulnerable to scheming

you really want your perennial mvp candidates to elicit the reaction from opponents wtf are we supposed to do with that, like whatre you gonna do vs joker whats the plan here you got nothing, giannis youre like wall him off hope the bucks dont hit threes its not great but its what you have, embiid the obvious plan is to have al horford haha jk he has stamina issues too, but luka the plan is pretty clear youre gonna go after him on d which tbf is just good for scoring points and it will tire him out and then you hope he fades in the second half it has a decent chance of working

maybe in the regular season where he's not playing as hard sure, that is real. in that suns series they were putting luka in every single pick and roll every single time they could and some games it was fruitful and in other games it was a disaster. he is big so you can only take so much advantage of him on defense, i don't think ppl feel like we're dealing w/ a trae or early steph curry level point of attack defender where just purely from a size perspective there is very little that person can do, tho steph is also a great example of how guys can continue to get stronger and better at defense over the years to the point where the defense is no longer dragging down the offense. you can also more easily scheme away from having the same guy getting picked on every time in the playoffs than you can or do in the regular season. so yeah idk

luka is legitimately an extremely bad defender hes not close to where he should be

i agree that he is not close to where he should be but the individual numbers on his defense do not suggest that he is extremely bad specifically and the mavs have played great defense for long stretches w/ him on the floor

if you took shai off OKC and put luka in his place and told j dub and chet that they had to stand around for 5 extra possessions a game as they watched luka cook i think OKC would prob be a worse regular season team but i don't think their playoff ceiling would be lower and it quite possibly could be higher. and if shai was on dallas i don't think anyone would be saying that they have a significantly better shot of winning a playoff series. so how much of it is the warts of the player vs the warts of the roster

the mavs have played great defense for long stretches w/ him on the floor

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Thursday, April 4, 2024 2:11 PM (twenty-eight seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

mavs playing good team defense in the regular season in stretches against just ok teams is one thing, throwing luka and kyrie out there against a quality prepared playoff opponent is a completely different proposition, the mavs could just try to effort and swarm their was through it switch a bunch fly around and so forth it could even work thats what they did in that suns series, but what they cant do is just play solid and make minor adjustments, a fwiw they are for the season a not good defensive team

luka on okc is an interesting thought experiment would we even know that jdub is a good player, prob not, maybe close watchers of the team would figure it out, tho would okc let luka play the way he likes to idk hard to say

but yeah putting luka on a better team would be good for him he should look into that, not the nugs tho that would just be unfair

it would be interesting to see if joker could get him to play better ball tho

they’re bffs it is fated I’m afraid