He is a 4th year pro, I am sorry it doesn't fit your narrative..... If he wants my approval he needs to earn it. DD
Okay, let's go with your logic that he is a 4th year pro. Do explain why you spent an entire year telling everyone to treat KPJ as a rookie, even though he was in his 3rd NBA season, and played more games than Jalen Green's "1st year pro" in both his rookie and sophomore season. According to you, KPJ's 2 seasons did not count, and his games in g-league also did not count. Let's focus on this point.
Green TS% is now .56 and he is shooting .36 from 3. Nice improvements in both areas. Hopefully it continues.
More like their savior because Jalen and Bari would have been in deep shet.....if it were not for the hire of Udoka.... Come to think of that I shudder at the alternative.
That is the tough part with him. He shows these flashes but only about 2 points per quarter outside of the 3rd. He's like a less efficient JR Smith at this point.
Jalen slandering becomes overdone. Maybe we should ask why Ime didn't give him the opportunity to have the kind of dominance that he had in the third quarter. When Jalen has the ball, there are never any regrets. This game taught Ime a lesson. .
B2B 25-26 point games by Jalen... This is nothing in comparison to what's about to happen. We are focused on Jalen's scoring spree that is coming soon.
I would agree on this if he wasn't also distributing, since he ended with 9 assists and played the role of playmaker with FVV missing. He frankly was perfectly fine on offense, so if anything his defense was the issue since he had a few noticeable mistakes. If we remove the 4th quarter (mostly garbage time), the Rockets shot 58/45/70 for the first 3 quarters. The issue is: The Rockets were lacking on defense, and even when they were good the Nuggets were just hitting all their shots. The Rockets failed to secure a lot of key defensive rebounds. Rockets failed to create turnovers, Nuggets only had 3 in the whole game. The Nuggets are a defending champion at near full strength at home (undefeated) whereas the Rockets are on the tail end of a b2b. Frankly speaking, it was a miracle the Rockets were down only 11 points going into the 4th quarter. If I told you the Nuggets were shooting 55/50/71 in the first 3 quarters, I would have expected a clear blowout, not a 11 point lead.
I think he needs to be encouraged to handle the ball and shoot more because Ime is making Jalen hesitate. Did you see how many bricks Sanguan was throwing today? It's all on Ime....
We shouldn't count that game, because unfortunately Jalen wasn't given the opportunity to handle the ball much... But did you see how he dominated the third quarter and made it rain with his impressive performance???
It's easy to see the book is out on Jalen, right now. Load up on his drives (including his roll-man) and he'll usually passively pass it to a guy next to him, who you can recover to. Coach has brought this up, too. The defenses are backing up giving him the mid-range J, and going under picks giving him the 3. But, there is always a weakside man open. Or a seam is large enough, an aggressive Jalen can collapse the D more and kick out. (But that also requires better handles). So, while it is good to see Jalen draws a lot of attention, he's not doing much about it. Coach and the eye-test are saying he'll need to find a go-to midrange J, find the skip pass more often, or split the seams with better handles to collapse the defense more for finishes or kick-outs. ------------------------ Weakside Options Here's an example that was widely discussed. While most fans are saying he should just take Doncic off the dribble (maybe hitting the burners the first moment he got the ball), but set that aside for a second. I'd like to point out something else, not to say it is solution to the play, but rather, that it is a sign of what the team is practicing. Sengun is in the corner. Watch him set a pick for FVV: That's a reknowned Hammer pick by Pops. A SG who can find that skip pass to FVV going to the corner puts the defense in a serious bind. It's either an open corner 3, or defensive big must close-out allowing Sengun to seal to the basket against a PG. anyhoot, not to say the timing is great on this play to allow that pass by Jalen, but does show they are practicing weakside picks for skip passes by Jalen.
That's a cool observation. I paused it when FVV became open for a brief second, Jalen had his whole head down without even looking at the court, i think this might be due to his lack of handles. Jalen didn't start scanning the floor for a pass until he already picked up his dribble