This man is a beast. We NEED to get him another big to take pressure off of him. That has to be the priority.
I still can’t believe that Rob felt that we could beat the Nuggets with Wood and Hayes as our backups. Oh well, on to the next squad.
and build a team that can be a top defense instead of one whose entire defense rests on a single player. it's insane.
Listening to our radio announcers was too funny: JI: ...and AD seems to be in serious pain. MT: He'll be fine. JI: ...he's not getting up. MT: It's just a stinger. JI: But Mychal, look, he can't lift his left arm. MT: I've had this before, he'll play. Or, if it's out of the socket, they can just pop it back in. JI: Jokic is now going over AD's left shoulder! MT: He can play defense just fine. Just raise your other arm. JI: Now, on the other end, his teammates are ignoring him. Davis is not even calling for the ball! Do you think he should go out? He HAS to go out now, right? MT: He should be more aggressive, catch with his right hand, go for the hook. You can't take him out now. JI: Mychal, I am not sure if you're watching the same game the rest of us are watching.
let's focus on the positive..... He had great starts to games, and then tried to get other people involved.
we went away from him as the games went on. some of this has to be related to how the offense in general stagnated as games wore on, no? and in the last one, he was injured.
some of it was terrible coaching, some of it was Lebron hunting mismatches all of it was unforgiveable
Yeah. I honestly put AD not scoring in the fourth in most of games on Ham and his teammates for not getting him the ball.
One good thing about the season was AD staying relatively healthy. Maybe he will connect that with working out in the off-season and continue to do so. Also led to him returning to being a top five player again. IMO. I don't think AD's scoring droughts in the fourth are bc of Ham, his coaching sucked all game. LeBron becomes even more ball dominant and AD is willing to take a backseat. I am hoping LeBron will retire and solve our issues. Again, IMO, firing Ham is cosmetic if LeBron keeps playing. No one has ever been able to coach him. He does fill the seats though. I'm not advocating for keeping Ham, just pointing out the obvious issue the next coach would have.
MEH .... for a beta. Am I doing it right? Puss got "brushed" in the shoulder from behind last night and my gawd you'd have thought it was Magic getting knifed by Pelinka.
AD has scoring droughts in the 4th because he struggles to create his shot. That's when the opposing defense is locked in so they are just not going to give you the same access that you get during the free flowing early portions of the game. AD is spoon fed for a majority of his baskets. That's why I say that AD isn't an ideal number one option offensively, great 2-way player, but he seems content with the way things go here because he probably knows his limitations. You can blame that on Lebron for freezing him out if you want, but the evidence doesn't really support that. AD averaged less 4th quarter points per game with Lebron out (4.6) vs with him in (4.9). Wings/guards tend to take over the offense as they are superior shot creators. Just see in Denver with Murray (and Jokic is an EXCELLENT creator), Sixers with Maxey. Heck even when Lebron was out, it was Dlo the one cooking. Additionally, the Lakers were the best clutch team in the nba this year winning 73% of 33 clutch games. *Clutch Time - when the score is within 5 points during the final 5 minutes of a 4th quarter (or OT). They also had 119.1 offensive rating in the clutch so I don't even think us not force feeding him the ball offensively is an issue.
AD scores plenty in isolation, which is why teams routinely send doubles at him. the issue is that he's a big. he can't start the possession with the ball, and he's easier to double because he's not a deep threat or a real pull up threat. this is why nowadays most closers are guards. hell, denver uses murray WAY more often than jokic down the stretch of tight games.