Who would have thought you need shooters to play with a great shot creator. That’s some rocket science.
Knox nepo watch: Should be ready in 8 years. Theoretically we could still have Luka, AR, Bronny, (Bryce?) and JJ at the helm.
Top notch JJ game. Was the better coach on the floor. Scheme was right. Liked the sub package, kept rotating guys early and kept fresh legs. They all were ready and bought in to the required level of effort and the required defensive engagement. Only possible complaint was burning both challenges early (we didn't end up needing them) , but it was to appease the stars. Bron was right on his mauling and if Luka acted out the leg flail a 7th time, he was risking injury. My gripe is that if you're right on both your challenges, you can't be out of challenges. That's on the refs and the league to get the review time down, but penalizing teams for your f*** ups is INSANITY!
eh, i buy it. again, i tried to sell myself we didn't go all out strategically against gs, knowing the very high likelihood we meet them in round 1 or 2. okc has little to play for right now. if i were them, i'd sit my guys tomorrow just like it looks like we will. that said, i like our ability to generate unanticipated wrinkles more than theirs. and i won't worry about it because it's increasingly likely we don't see them until the conference finals if we get there. things happen between now and then.
If I'm OKC, Warriors and the Lakers are my two most difficult matchups. The experience factor is going to matter a lot here. I think the games will be close but the Warriors will find a way to close the games out.
Teams who can't play small against the Lakers are in trouble .. OKC will have a better shot against us with its version playing without Harts. and Chet at the start of the season .
Hartelstein looked unplayable against the 4 starters with DFS. It’s one game but he was lost out there since Fatboi was targeting him every single time
Most bigs will be unplayable against Luka if their plan is to switch. Kid cooks these fools so easy, it's borderline hilarious.
Hungry wanting more. Mamba mentality. AD isn't fully healthy and they have no real playmaking, but i like the scheme and personnel deployed for it. It gives the best bigs in the game absolute fits.
yeah, i commented on this briefly in the game recap thread. we were all over AD on the catch, from different angles with active hands and feet. i thought rui did a great job keeping AD in front of him a few times, too, so that help could get there before it was and-1 time. much like when AD was here, when teams do this, you have to get him into motion off the ball. this is something we rarely did. i chalked it up to coaching choices, but it may be possible that AD prefers to catch stationary and face up, which is fine unless teams are doing what we do.
From 7th last season with Pockets to a likely 3rd this season even with all the tumult? Let that sink in.
and actual coaching going on Hamster was an absolute liability last year and cost us games. Good coaching should win you games. Just not a great head coach.
Remember when Ham would refuse to challenge a call and the game ends without any challenges being used? He wouldn't even use it just to burn some time so LeBron could get some rest. Everyone knows the challenges can take a few minutes long which is good resting time for an aging LeBron late into the game... Nope, Ham just stands by the sidelines. I remember the other day, JJ called two challenges in a span of a few minutes. One of them was to contest a 'foul' call against Shai. It was early in the game so initially I thought it was too early to burn your second challenge so early into the game. But it turned out JJ did it because he didn't want to get Shai going with two FT's. That's called real coaching... Changing the momentum of the game in a deciding factor. Ham would never do that. He'd save the challenges like he was collecting them for next season.
