AD is currently the best defender in the NBA when healthy. He is Olajuwon-esque on that side of the court. And when his feeling it offensively he gives you 30/15/5 blocks. Incredible.
The teams that concern me the most are Denver and Philly, perhaps the Suns. Denver and Philly have big guys to go at AD with. JJJ didn't really present much of a challenge for AD, at least on defense. He probably limited his offense, but that didn't hurt us so much when we had other guys to score. We can get big scoring games from AR, DLO and Rui when teams like to stack the D on AD or LBJ. Plus we have lots of guys on the bench who can give us another 8-12 each. We are scary. I think if I was a fan of any other team, the Lakers would be who I feared most.
Is Embiid injured/out of the playoffs? Do we know yet? Denver is gonna be a tough out for anyone, hopefully they have a tough series against Phoenix and get beat up a bit.
and we can win when he only takes 9 shots if we capitalize on the attention he draws from the opposing defense. his offense isn't consistent because teams vary dramatically in how they defend him (though they're starting to just double all the time now), but his defense is pretty damn consistent, imo. and it's crucial to our success.
No Adams and no Clarke was huge. Would have taken a lot more of AD had they been healthy. incredible - that first minute foul, then only 1 more the rest of the game. Playing THAT aggressively. Impressive. Most impressive.
I was really young, like 10-14, but I watched the Lakers and C Bags play in the Finals in those days. The comparison of AD to Russell, or to Olajuwan (closest player to Russell on D) is valid. Similar build, similar instincts, similar timing on the blocks, and similar super clean D without mauling the players they guard.
Not a player on the planet wants to face A.D. when he plays like that. This is the version that wins us another cham- peen- chip. 14 rebounds and 5 blocks in 28 mins? That's just absurd against the 2nd seed of young bucks.
Battle of the boards. Looney might be slow and all but he rebounds like a madman. Reminds me a bit of Hibbert.
I’m honestly scared of Looney’s rebounding, he had three 20 rebound games against Sac. Our rebounding game leaves a lot to be desired after AD
looney and green both play AD pretty well, and they both know how to score off AD helping to block shots. gs is still going to have to focus on AD primarily, though, and we should be able to get other guys going downhill against no real shotblocking presence and with AD ready to clean up misses. question is whether we can run guys off the three well enough without completely selling out the back line in the process. main thing i'm worried about is gs has the experience and defensive discipline to switch up their doubling schemes, and green is just such a smart defender that AD might have more turnovers in this series. i'm sure the coaching staff has considered all this and more, though. we're pretty familiar with gs by now, and they're familiar with lebron and AD (and russell, too).
AD is going to reintroduce himself as a legit MVP caliber player, to the NBA world in this series. Jackson Jr is a far superior defensive player today, than either Green or Looney. I'm expecting monster AD, flanked at times, by Lebron, Rui or Vanderbilt. I think Anthony is ready to ball out, they better not concede those foul jumpers to him, like they gave up to Sabonis.