Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

Luke (talking about Frye): "He's going to be great for our locker room, he already is.I mean the guy never shuts up."

 

Luke just said the refs took the easy way out on the Rondo/IT situation, let it go on and on until they could give them double techs and kick them both out, instead of dealing with it in the moment (I’d assume kicking Rondo out for not shutting up and continuing to go after IT while he basically just stood there). I agree, horribly reffed game, some of the softest techs I’ve ever seen.

Worthy: “A good referee would see what Rondo was trying to do right away. Rondo was trying to initiate a situation where he could get physical, they should have warned him right away... The refereeing is kind of shallow in the NBA right now”.

 

2 games since the trade is a small sample, but the D needs some serious work right now. Maybe they can make some adjustments during the break. I’m not sure how Luke can find a way to make up the bench defense gap with Larry and JC gone.

 

You’re not wrong. Not a Rondo fan, but he made a typical basketball play on IT, pushed off when a shot went up to go toward the ball/rebound. Problem is IT is 5’9, maybe, so he pushed where an average guard’s chest would be, which was IT’s neck in this instance. Not really a flagrant foul, not really even a foul.

 

Kuzma was getting utterly abused down low by Gibson. Embarrassingly abused. It was like watching a high schooler playing against college kids. What's worse is Kuzma wasn't doing anything offensively so he was just a net loss all night long.

He put Lopez in to try to fight against their length and strength down low. You could try to argue Bryant or Zubac over Lopez, but I'm not sure why. Lopez was the vet and it was the right call, it just didn't work because Minnesota is a way more skilled team than we are.

Not to mention, more of an issue was probably Hart getting lit up Butler all night long as Butler just traipsed into the paint over and over again breaking down the defense.

 

Brook Lopez: 2-5 from the field
Kuzma: 3-12 from the field

Brook Lopez: 2-5 from outside
Kuzma: 2-9 from outside

Kuzma was awful in this game and outside of back-to-back threes in the 1st (created by Thomas), he did nothing to space the floor. Many of his shots were wide open threes he just missed including an airball from the corner. I'm not trying to bash the kid, but your point about him spacing the floor effectively for us is just incorrect. The move was to try to fight size and strength with size since we weren't hitting anything outside anyway. It wasn't the wrong move. You can argue Zubac over Lopez since Zubac was having a solid game, but with the game on the line, Luke tried to go with his vet. It didn't work.

 

...made the appropriate time outs to stem the Dallas momentum when the lead dwindled to single digits. Did not do the Jackson thing in letting the players figure it out.