This is exactly correct. Freddy and Jalen missed a ton of open looks. I wouldn't expect such poor shooting at home. The one stretch where Jalen was hot, the Rockets opened up that big lead in the first half - then he and Fred shot us back out of the lead. Also, like many posters have noted, Sengun struggles with the sturdy, undersized power forward. I think that issue will go away over the next couple of years.
Lol man I cannot agree more and I could write a whole other essay on this. I think it's also why people are hating on Jabari so much, because this is his role! They get mad that hes like 0/1, and then Ime has to draw him up a play, and then he makes one shot and disappears again. But this should be his bread and butter. Imagine if we had 2016 Trevor Ariza on this team, he would end the game with 0 points on 0 shots. We literally never ever ever pass out to open shooters when we collapse the defense.
Like i say, basic ass, primitive and undeveloped PnR game. It doesn't work if you remove most of the options/reads. We've got to be one of the easiest teams to scout, in the PnR it's either an immediate pass back to Alpi or a chucked 3 from Fred. For Jalen it's the same except he'll also drive into traffic. We don't create the separation where people chase very often so the paint is just packed so regardless of whether it's Alpi or Jalen, most of the time they're in traffic, Alpi's just a lot savvier at dealing with it. If we added in the read to the corner/wing then all of a sudden the d's scrambling to keep up, if they get there then the next pass is to a wide open guy. How about Sengun fades to the perimeter once in a blue moon instead of it being the identical action every time? The DHO looks cool, but is it REALLY getting anybody true space they can do something with? A semi-open 3 pointer is a worthless action for us when our shooters are not lights out sharpshooters, why are we doing that as our main go-to when we're struggling to score? Why aren't Jalen and Fred holding the ball for another 2 seconds and drawing the man and either leaving Sengun wide open with NOBODY in front of him or having their own clear path to the basket? It's because they don't read the defense, it's an arbitrary decision and you can see it's predetermined by how quickly Alpi gets the ball after screening. He should be 2 ft closer to the basket with a defender behind him, not one in front and one behind and Green or Fred stood there open because they passed before drawing the ball. BASICS.
That was meant as "more midrange shots". Regardless what you think of his current efficiency, it's better than his midrange efficiency. Its not even close. Why would you want him to replace some of his current shots with less efficient shots?
Has nothing to do with mathematics if he is the 'guy'. That is why we should cast him into the fire and see what comes out.......a superstar has more freedom to chuck but is reigned in when the results are not good. If he is just a scorer role player, then his shot attempts are limited to 10 FGA, 3-5 3%A/game maximum. Superstars shoot midrange like SGA, and nobody questions it.....requirement is he needs to shoot a high percentage of midrange. He shoots it so that the whole Offense can be kept honest and the opponents leave Thunder's real 3 pt snipers wide open. The problem with Jalen is that he is not a star yet, people still leave him open on the perimeter a lot of times, but he cannot capitalize on it consistently....... Alpe is on track to be a Number 1 but he isn't getting the foul calls to make life easier for Jalen Green......it is a conundrum. Also Alperen is still a low volume long range shooter.
Not being able to move the opponent defense is a major problem. It looks like we are running twice as much on defense, and the other team is just resting on defense, all they need to do is collapse when necessary, no chasing the ball. This makes it both physically and mentally very easy for them and is one of the main reasons, we are gassed out in the fourth and cannot perform well.
I thought Jalen played fantastic in the first quarter, particularly on defense where he was all over his assignment, the intensity was something I hadn't seen from Jalen - ever. Then the 2nd quarter comes and he starts missing shots and that defensive intensity seemed to fade too. Sam Amick gave us the perfect analogy recently - Jekyll & Hyde. The highs are a top tier NBA player, the lows are some dude in the Russian league and you never know which one you are getting from game to game. Just look at the 3 point shooting numbers last season. 27 games where he shoots .508. That's phenomenal. 43 games where he shoots .175. That's beyond ass. That leaves only 12 games of anything between .175 & .508. There's just not much middle ground. Yes, I realize last night's 5/15 is in that middle ground for the game but again, it's more about the ups and downs. He shot 2/3 .667 in the first quarter and 3/12 .250 for the next 3 quarters. I'm not blaming this loss on Jalen tho .... If anyone is responsible for this one it's FVV who was 2/11 from 3 and 4/18 overall.
How did we go to Kevin Porter Jr and KJ Martin to Fred VanVleet and Jabari Smith. Just by Height and Talent Tall, Athletic, Strength, Great Handles, Toughness. Fred VanVleet is a Career Bench Player, his height and inconsistent shooting, low stamina, big body. Jabari Smith such a lightweight, Bigger, Stronger Power Forwards easily Punk Jabari around. Jabari talks rubbish to opponents, yaps to the Referees, scared look on his face, when he gets dunked on.
Like I've said in the past - Jalen's shot selection isn't bad at all. He just misses good shots, relatively open shots that you'd want him to take in the flow of the offense. More often than not, the team isn't getting a better shot from a possession than the shots Jalen takes. He just needs to ****ing make them.
Exactly. We need to put pressure on the opposing defense and we actually don't. When we beat them it's because we pushed past the bad offense and succeeded on talent/skill alone, the strategy's been horrific the entire rebuild on that end of the floor. For all the people out here saying "the offensive system is fine" I'm flat out saying they don't understand basketball, and probably never played a game in their life. Just look at the opposing defense when we play, they don't ****ing MOVE! Do we sometimes beat them or get an open look? Sure. Do you ever see opposing defenses run ragged trying to chase us off the line or get to the open men? VERY RARELY. Now look at us on the other end, we hustle hard and we chase people down but we're forced into rotation all the ****ing time, because other teams know how to play offense. We have players with offensive talents, but we make it about as hard as it can be made for them to succeed. We get a lot less big games from scrubs than other teams do, because their offensive schemes and playbooks put them scrubs in a position to succeed. We don't even put our god damn starters in that position, so the scrubs have no ****ing chance.
Your saviour scored 2 points on 1-8 shooting/12.5% fg% last night. He's a scrub, not even fit to kiss Jalen's boots. And a woman abuser.
Did you miss KPJ's debut for the Clips last night? 1 - 8 FGA, 0 - 4 from three. 2/4/2 stat line for the night. Really missing that kind of stellar production.
This is where the stats annoy the hell out of me because if you look at the final numbers, it looks like Fred had a decent-ish game. Just inefficient. 0 plus/minus. 14 points and 6 assists. Meanwhile Jalen looked like he had a high scoring yet inefficient/bad game. 28 pts on 23 shots and a -11 overall. I'm going to re-watch the second quarter and third specifically where Jalen shot 4-5 straight 3s he proceeded to miss and see what the lineup was looking like then. My point being....FVV was much worse yesterday than Jalen was. But the numbers don't really tell that story. Another thing I keep hearing after the game is "those are good shots and we encourage our guys to take them". Ime said that about Fred and Jalen's 3s yesterday and chalked it up to "they just missed". Yeah....that seems to be the case a lot. Why doesn't Reed get those same shots? I was watching him like a hawk yesterday and the defense didn't seem too keen on letting him get those shots whatsoever. Almost like the defenses are fine with FVV/Jalen taking those.
This is a good strategy if you're starting 5 players who are well rounded. When you have guys who excel at different things, you have to adjust your definition of a good shot. Udoka was not ok with the shot selection for much of last season so it wasn't really fine. He used to take way more bad shots.
The only time during the game yesterday that I was annoyed with the shot selection was at the end of the first half when Jalen started to launch stepbacks. Like 4 in a row all misses. It allowed Charlotte to get back in the game and gain some confidence. Besides all that Jalen needs to have a 3pt rate more clost to 35% and not 65% that is up to the coaches to track and influence during the course of a game.
The main action is not that bad. We do get some open looks or Sengun attacks the rim. Not good but not bad either. But the difference with other teams is when that action does not work well, i.e. when the defense collapses on Sengun or the guard runs into traffic. The other teams try to find someone who is cutting at that moment, some off-ball screen etc and have some ball movement, whereas we either force a bad shot or try to reboot to the original pnr scheme once more which is a big loss of time, and makes everything easy for the other team because it is one dimensional. Edit: We have a shooting problem but we also have an offensive coaching problem.
