Talen Horton-Tucker Discussion: Growing Pains

We need to roll to the basket with Tucker more too. He get's hung out to dry too often on his drives, because guys are just standing around the perimeter looking for kick outs. He does show a talent, for still being able to dig out assists anyway on his drives. On another note...Once he improves his pull up jumper, and can hit it with some consistency, he's going to be a serious problem.

 

I think one of his biggest issues right now is he decides on the play he's going to make and no matter what, he's all in. There's no counter or plan B. If he's going to drive, they can put 6 guys between him and the rim, set the net on fire, and put a shark tank in his way. The play won't change. Or if he's going to pass to the corner or a wrap around pass to AD, Drumm, or Trezz. Same thing. A defender can move into the passing lane or the teammate might rotate out of the spot. Doesn't matter, the play is predetermined like the precogs from Minority Report gave him the play on their ping pong ball system.

 

Oh .... my bad above, thought that other 3 was late in 4th.

If both in OT that's even more hugest.

 

Problem I see too often is when THT or AD or whoever get into their pounding the ball one on one to get the defender off balance .... it keeps going too long and hard to know for others when to even cut. But yes agree moar movement please. And back to question from last night, and others agreed ..... since Frank is defense savant extraordinaire, what do Kidd (one of the greatest point guards ever in running an offense) and Hollins contribute on the offensive side of the ball. Have we ever had any commentary come out about that from those covering the team?

Also I commented last night that the stop on a dime rise and fire jumper off the dribble seems to be a diminishing art in lieu of the even more difficult looking (to me) leaping backwards and then going up jumpers. Both can be effective obviously. Jeezus they stop on a dime from forward sprint to launch 3s. KC3 does this well.

 

Some of these issues are just spacing problems: you let him play with Gasol who can stretch the floor and real PnR problem in Trez then he wouldn't have to put his head down so much and force things.

The AD/Drummond pair is just tough as AD rightfully isn't just going to settle for 3's so him and Drummond take up the same space. Sometime it's great when Drummond gets an offensive rebound but more often then not the offense just stalls. Same thing happened in the playoffs, guys like KCP and even Lebron looked so much better with AD the 5 because this

 

Aw..the Gasol thing again SMH.
AD plays best facing the basket, he excells at the 5, because he is usually bigger and more athletic than other team’s small ball 5. This isn't always going to be the case though.

It's not just a magic potion of putting him at the 5. It depends on the opponent, we played Dwight against Denver because Jokic was too big for AD. We couldn't force him off the floor as much,because he is a good player in his own right, and he's a big dude. Utah has size in the paint, the Clippers do too. We can't base everything off of who we played last year in the playoffs. We might have to play three different teams, to make it out of the West this season.

Drummond/Gasol gives us more flexibility. They have their plusses and minuses. Drummond can give you double doubles, this allows us not to have to totally rely on AD, to do all the scoring and rebounding in the paint, like he has to do with Gasol.

Gasol is a big body, he can be effective on defense against other big guys, more so than Drummond. He plays on the perimeter on offense, this gives AD space to operate. They both are useful in different ways. I don't think we should automatically assume, that we are at our best with AD at the 5. Davis is the best power forward in the game, there is absolutely nothing wrong,with him being that. Javale and Dwight were very limited offensively, we made do, these two are more versatile, I think we will do just fine with them too.

 

Everyone is misremembering this: Dwight was valuable in that he ate up minutes and gave the ability to rest Davis and avoid foul trouble.
However, it was only game 5 where Dwight played 30+ minutes.
He was only moved to the starting lineup in game 3. His minutes before game 5 were 16, 12, 14, and 22

Howard did NOT play in the 4th quarter in games 1, 3, 4 and played just 3 minutes in game 2!
AD at the 5 was the critical lineup move even against the beast that is Jokic. The only time that AD was not at the 5 to end games was the 4th quarter of game 5

 

No..his physical play against Jokic in the minutes he played, was his greatest contribution. He banged on him, it tired him out as the series progressed. Jokic didn't have the same legs late in those games at the end of that series. The Clippers should have banged on him too, they would have won that series.

AD benefited from Dwight's work in those 4th quarters. You watched the games but you missed what was happening.

 

marc gasol can bang with anyone.

 

Yeah I watch the game but missed what was happening

AD excelled at the 5 against Jokic but you just conveniently forgot to mention that I suppose. You're changing the topic to try to say Dwight wasn't valuable: he was valuable but at the end of the day AD had no real issues playing the 5 even against Joker and all the pluses to still remained (better spacing and easier to switch)

 

He is our only starting PG tonight. Could get ugly, with no Ad, Bron, Dennis, or Alex.

 

Joker scored at will on AD in the paint. That's why Dwight got run. Jokic is not some defensive standout, saying that AD could score on him isn't making some great point.

 

LOL..The Gasol fan club is deep. I like provoking them. Valid point though

 

LOL..10-4!!

 

So you just admitted to trolling. Got it.