Appreciate that but that's not an informative stat when our strategy is to stick to him. When he/we held Curry to 3, it wasn't because he spent the whole game on him. It's a combination of ball denial, fighting through screens and contesting shots. Amen was only a minor issue in this game where there were several major issues.
No we're not saying the same thing when you're saying "it's partly on Ime's rotation". Ime has the highest share of blame, and it's his tactics that are the problem. The rotation is just a natural manifestation of his tactics. He wanted to fight 3's with rebounds and Kerr served him his ass on a platter yet again. Let me make it even simpler for you: with 2 superstars on the court and shooting the 3 at a higher % than the Warriors, he got toasted by Kerr in the Finals. If this strategy didn't work then, it certainly won't work now. The entire season, all the perimeter players are disappointing on drive efficiency or drive frequency. FVV, Amen, Green, Whitmore all struggled getting to the rim because Ime keeps crowding the paint and saying not to play in crowded areas. This offense is built for the rebounders to win the game, plain and simple. The rebounders murdered the Warriors on the boards and it didn't work. If you want Jalen (or any perimeter player) to win this game for you, then you build the offense around them. We didn't. That's not what we're doing. What we're saying is: we'll win with rebounds. This is one of the worst shot making teams in the NBA and we're in the same tier as most tanking teams on TS%. The reason our offensive rating is higher than our TS% is purely rebounds. For Jalen to be the man, just like James Harden needs, you need 3 shooters and an excellent rim runner or stretch 5. You can make the argument "why should we build an offense around him" and that's fine, but you can't then turn around and act like the rebounders are not the people we're counting on to win it for us. Your bias is making you exaggerate Jalen's role while being soft on everyone else. They held us to 85 points and all perimeter players struggled. Winning the rebounding battle by a massive margin didn't make a difference. This strategy made both drives and jumpers easily contested by the other team. We played exactly as the Warriors dreamed we would. Curry/Butler/Podz didn't have to worry about drives, they could just play up on our perimeter players and if we blow by them who cares there's FOUR bigs in the paint.
Of course it's not the same thing. "You think Ime has the highest share of blame. I think Jalen has the highest share of blame. That's it, no need to talk about other bullshit and writing an academic paper analyzing this or that." That's what I meant. Don't understand why it's so hard to communicate with you. "If you want Jalen (or any perimeter player) to win this game for you, then you build the offense around them." Of course we didn't because he has been outperformed by Alpi in the past years, because he has a proven track record of being inefficient. That's why we run most offense through Alpi. That's why Alpi is our first all-star and Jalen is not. Why shouldn't we build around him? He just did not earn it himself. Root for Jalen as you like. Actually I will be extremly happy if he can be "the one" and lead us to a championship but unfortunately he is not so far, and unlikely will he ever be. I will not reply to you further, waste of time.
F that we are a 2 seed... expectations for a 2 seed is what it is. Play like it because tomorrow isn't promised. Houston sports has to stop beating themselves.
Sorry a long internet post feels like an academic paper to you. Yes it's difficult to speak to me when you are being shown all the holes in your argument and remain stubborn about it. There is a need to talk about all that because this is a basketball message board and you're ignoring the facts and making it seem like this is an opinion exchange. Your own reasoning doesn't support your conclusion. So when you have a childish thread title, I'mma let you know about it. You can't blame this one on being a Green fan, I'm very clear that Green had a garbage game. Like I said, you can say we shouldn't build the offense around Jalen, but then you have to stick to your guns and say: oh this offense is built for the bigs. You can't have it both ways. Adams, Sengun and Bari all played well and the perimeter players all played poorly - something I predicted on this board a month ago. You sitting here acting like this whole game is on Jalen is disingenuous. You don't have to reply, that's a wise strategy for your circumstance.
i'm not asking for the world... just fort knox. i mean, we'll be the 58 and they can be the 61. we still losing.
Jalen is not a perfect player, he has his flaws, but at the same time we gotta do a better job at putting him in a position to be effective. He needs space to operate. They need to play less Amen and more Jabari.
More Jabari and less Amen will definitely serve Jalen well. But here is the thing, Amen is a future DPOY candidate and Ime is a defense-oriented coach. Plus, GSW has the best 3pts shooter in history, so I guess it's hard to reduce Amen's minutes in this series. In fact, it's hard to imagine any coach to reduce Amen's miuntes in the future, this is how rare and how good Amen is on the defensive end. Everybody will just tolerate his offensive flaws. Come back to Jalen's case. Like Amen, he is not perfect. At the same time, he is not as rare as Amen to the point that coach will adjust the whole plan to make him comfortable. That's the real NBA, you have to earn anything yourself.
Jalen was always going to have a tough go this series. The matchup vs the Warriors with our personnell is terrible. You're asking a slasher/driver to be effective against a team who plays FANTASTIC help defense when he is playing with Amen/Adams/Sengun AND YOU CAN ADD FRED HERE BECAUSE HE CAN'T HIT AN OPEN 3 AT A HIGHER CLIP THAN 35%.... That's Jalen + 3 non-shooters... Jalen played awful but look at the context.
Was Jalen pathetic? Of course. Was FVV pathetic? Of course. But it's not their fault, it's Ime's fault for playing them so much when they were that bad all game.
Almost all of us have known the backcourt is the problem...and would be one moving forward if left alone. FVV has done the job setting culture on and off the court, but now it's time to use his contract in a move with assets for a star. This was always the plan. Good job, Fred. Thanks for your service. Enjoy all that dough. As to Jalen, enough is enough... We took him over Mobley...one of only a few mistakes so far by Stone. He's played a lot of value back in, but It's time for him to fly.
Well said. These are my thoughts exactly. FVV was garbage, but Jalen deserves most of the blame if he's the guy that was supposed to be the heir apparent to James Harden. He is definitely the weakest link, and Ime needs to bench him if he's not generating offense by putting in Aaron Holiday, Cam Whitmore, or Reed Sheppard.
I gave Ime a lot of credits for bringing this team to the 2nd seed and set the tone of defense. That's why I tend to put Jalen over Ime as the main reason. Regarding FVV, we all know Ime always wants a safe choice as ball controler, not mentioning the first playoff game. Regarding Jalen. Well, I guess Ime just does not want to destroy the kid's confidence for his first playoff appearance. If FVV continues to be inefficient in scoring, Ime better reduce his minutes to around 25 mins (first game is 40 mins), but I doubt it will happen, Ime is stubborn.
That performance was unacceptable I just hope it was first in the playoffs game 1 jitters. If that keeps up we’re in trouble hopefully Ime does something about it if he keeps up that performance like sub in cam or somethjng
Terrible take..."the systemic issue" can't solve an open player missing 3-point shots. However, I would argue Aaron Holiday should've taken some of FVV minutes as he was struggling to hit the 3. We know this is an evaluation season so if Jalen continues to stink it up then he'll add to our nice trade package to get an Superstar/All-Star this off-season.
