Finally got to watch the game. His defense is still not good enough, but his effort on the defensive side was vastly improved. If we see that consistently this season, his impact on winning is going to rise and it will reduce the pressure on needing to score.
I really wonder how Jalen would look like in a 5 out offense with open driving lanes. I know guys like Tatum and Brown feast on those type of 5 out sets where they just have to beat one person to score at the rim.
Post all-star break over 7 games Green has actually a positive +/-. The team is 2-5 during that stretch. Just something interesting I've noticed since the As break. Maybe it's the way Silas is doing the line ups but the team seems to fall apart the past 7 games when he's on the bench.
You and others have highlighted before how horrendous the Rockets are at spacing the floor. Last game it seemed really bad, so much so that I actually noticed a few possessions where players nearly ran into each other when attempting to get into driving lanes after a pick. Know we aren't winning, but still would like for the Rockets to look like a team that can execute a half-court offensive set (when we run one).
I really think it's intentional. No good distributor on offense. No good anchor on defense. No spacing. Stone guaranteed this tank. That's why I always tell people, if the entire roster is shooting poorly there's clearly something systemic going on that is dragging down shooting percentages. You can speculate all you want about why that is, but you don't get to ignore that when making assessments of players. It looks like practically anyone you plug into this "offense" will shoot worse than you expect. So if you're shooters are mostly struggling and you always have one guy on the floor who can't shoot and a couple of guys shooting 30% from 3, then there is NO space. Green's path to the basket is as difficult as anyone's in the NBA even on a mild double team. Despite that he's going to the line almost 6 times a game with 0 opponents he has a strength advantage over. If we can keep that habit and improve it, it will be a big key in his future. This offense seems to be taking 2-3% off everyone's shooting percentage (I'm guesstimating by looking at everyone's numbers). If you add that onto Green's 3pt shooting percentage, his season numbers would show he's clearly improved offensively (shooting, finishing, passing) but has stalled defensively. I'm seeing some better defense and wiser shot selection from his recently, let's hope he keeps building and has an extremely positive finish to the season.
If there is anything positive that I hope comes from this is Green pretty much is learning through the worst possible situation so that means he is becoming very used to crowded paints and defenses catered to purely stopping him from getting to the rim at such a young age. So when he actually does have a a competent roster around him that can go 5 out with defenses actually respecting the other 4 players it's like when Goku takes of his training weights before a real fight. I guess it's better for him to train through hard mode in a sense. He's gaining a lot of muscle memory of how to handle 3 defenders packed in the paint area.
I thought Green's game vs. Boston was better than the box score indicated. I know his shooting numbers were terrible but I barely noticed he was hitting such a low % until i looked at it in the 4th - it seemed like he was putting a lot of pressure on the defense even though he missed a lot of shots and opening up for others. Also didn't appear to be overdribbling too much (until the 4th when the celtics started defending the way they are capable of and everybody was affected).
Honestly Green gets easily the most defensive attention at the perimeter at least. There is always one primary defender following him and a long wing and/or big between the three point line and paint that are covering Green's driving lanes. Green just needs to get better at finding the teammates he's creating space for.
Yes i think this is what happened, probably why i didn't notice his bad shooting numbers until later. There was also one sequence where he missed a layup and got his own board Tari style, abd missed one or 2 tips, which may have counted as 3 misses, i didn't go back to check
Also I don't know if this holds true still after the Celtics game but Jalen Green is the only rotation player on the roster post AS break with a positive +/-
I agree, after he got hot in the first, Boston made it a point to shut him down. But he was still pretty relentless with his drives. He also got a key basket down the stretch which helped with sealing the win. I think Green has played a lot better in recent times in terms of basketball IQ decision making. Teams are starting to really try to rattle him so he doesn't get hot. He needs to tighten his handles though under pressure, and part of that is gaining strength.
Remember with this terrible offense where no one can create, Green ends up taking the most bail out shots on the team, by a lot. Now of course his personal shot selection can be improved, but let's not act like anyone else can consistently create their own shots. KJ Martin is efficient, but he also passes out when he doesn't have a good shot for himself, unlike Green.
Lol I mean it's better than the other way around but I actually prefer his current haircut to the point tail or cornrows. For some reason he looks more filled out with this haircut. Maybe he actually literally just gained more mass also
