I don't know how to find that off-hand. Our team average is 23.3 points on 52.5% - defensively. On offense it's 18.2 points on 47.9% eFG.
He is still my favorite of the young core. His confidence in himself given his limitations is staggering. Of the young group, he's been by far the most impressive. All that said, he needs to learn communication and he's a damn stubborn kid who learns slowly. If this isn't a wake up call to him to learn how to communicate on defense, I'm not sure what is. Figure it out, kid and learn how to focus defensively. Sure Deng as the veteran, knowing Julius is behind him, should have switched out on the perimeter, but it's on Julius to communicate that. Not only that, but in all honesty he shouldn't have switched. I trust Deng as a help defender more than I trust Julius. It's important he realizes that despite what he already brings to the team, he can accomplish more and in order to accomplish more he has to be better on both ends of the floor.
Yep. Randle is my favorite player, because he's a monster in the making IMO, but I have serious doubts about his potential defensively. His defensive instincts are pretty terrible, other than weak side blocks. It's gotten to the point I expect him to mess up and let a guard go by him even though he has the quickness to stay with them if he was just in the right position. But by far, his biggest problem is he has no instincts for defensive rotations, and he gets complacent and doesn't properly scan the court around himself to see who needs coverage.
Man, I haven't noticed that many D break downs. I think part of it thinks he can always get there in time, even bait his opponent, and other times he's pre assuming people are going to switch/rotate accordingly? His offensive game is getting better and that's important for me cause the rest of the team,himself included will get better. He looked a lil tired in the fourth. D for a PF can be quite a challenge especially with small ball era(lots of switching on smaller players). I'll be doing jumping jacks when he goes for 20+ 5 straight games. We need one of him or Russell to give that to us every night. Last night showed once again even if we had Heyward on our squad, guy like that is a difference maker to get Ws instead of Ls. I'll wait another two years after this, if we don't get even a mini star we gotta make a trade.
He's been our most productive young player this season. He's had a few monstrous games. He's shown that he can be a difference maker and as realdeal said, given his lack of polish it's been impressive how far he's improved in all of his shortcomings - off hand, finishing near the rim, outside shot, FG%, and playing under control. His one glaring weakness continues to be his help defense. I have seen some minor development there, it's just that he was so bad at it that anything is an improvement over last year. He's still a poor help defender with not much instincts for it, but Luke at least is making him conscious of it and I think this staff can get him to focus on it more over the next couple years. I believe over time here he'll at least become decent in that department, or that's my hope. The things you can't take away from Randle are his drive, his Beast-like quickness and strength and his ability to board and push in the open court. He's key for our offense in those ways and it's paid off especially early in the year when everyone was healthy. His game is growing and he's maturing. Let's not forget that great finish to the Suns game against Tyson Chandler with baiting him one on one only to kick it out for the open three or his tour de force play against Gibson to cement the road win against Chicago. The kid has fire.
Great game but thats what we are accustomed to from Randle... a great game followed by a string of stinkers. Then another great game followed by stinkers and so on. Randle obviously doesn't need 19/14/11 every night but it would help if he was a consistent 15/10 player. Some nights he is shoots 10-13, then the next game 2-10. That is not what gets him or us over the hump.
Julius' last 5 games... MEM - 19/14/11 TOR - 15/9/6 (with 2 blk and 3 stl) DAL - 18/4/3 UTA - 25/12/3 LAC - 13/8/7 average - 16/9.4/6 Where are the string of stinkers you're referring to....?
No double double = stinker We know what he is capable of, and he needs to be held to a higher standard. There are days it does look like he is in complete cruise control mode, and other times he is very aggressive. The numbers look solid, but I think visually I noticed that the effort seems different on a game by game basis. Oh, and Luke, keep pushing that button.
