Yeah, except that we run it more than any other team in the league. When we play zone, we give up offensive boards, we don't rotate well and we give up a lot of wide open 3 point shots. We give up 26 wide open (no defender within 6 feet) 3's per game. That's 2nd highest in the league behind Utah. Overall, teams are shooting 43.3% from behind the arc against us. That's the worst in the league. Not exactly a recipe for success.
I think it’s a bit of both. The lack of awareness really stands out, even in zone coverage. It feels like Ime has to rely on the zone, especially since Reed struggles to guard most players 1vs1. Hopefully, that can improve over time, and given the physical limitations, he’ll need to learn how to play smarter at the very least.
The zone has nothing to do with Reed, it's meant to protect the bigs.... that's just the narrative of those who want to blame everything on him. In that situation, Sheppard stayed in his zone and whoever had the responsibility of the middle abandoned their zone. If Sheppard chases out of his zone, it opens up the 3. Honestly it's just a bad defensive scheme and that's on Ime.
"Like the Spurs did last night"? Huh? Sheppard had 6 assists and 1 turnover in 26 minutes. What's wrong with that?
Just let him try it before determining if he can or cant is all I'm saying. People say the same with Reed and I tell them the same thing. I do think Reed is the more natural PG. So if Reed can be like 65% to Amens 35% I'd be cool with that. I can see Amen being like a Lebron-Iggy hybrid or something. This KD situation has me a little annoyed man I'll be honest lol.
Sheppard is earning more minutes. His cross court skip pass is solid. I want to see him initiate more and dribble handoff less.
They just aren't similar situations at all though. Reed is clearly a PG, Amen clearly isn't. With one you are forcing a player who could be a star in one role to play in a role that diminishes them, with the other we're just talking about a player playing their natural position. It's like taking an all star right handed slugger and forcing them to become left handed for esthetics and justifying it by saying they can sort of do it.
Every Spurs possession in 4th Q - Rockets on defense Reed taken out at 1:52 (briefly reinserted on O at 1:18, taken out at 1:11)
Playing zone in itself isn't the issue. The problem is playing zone badly. To be effective, there has to be well-coordinated rotation in the zone. Otherwise, any ball movement will end up with wide open shots. We have very little coordination between players. If a guy on the wing goes out on a shooter, somebody has to slide over and protect the area they just left unguarded. Last night the Spurs got 15 Open 3s ( closest defender 4 to 6 feet away) and shot 40% on those shots. They also got 26 wide open 3s (no defender within 6 feet) and shot 42.3% on those shots. They shot 41.5% on 41 Open or Wide Open 3s. That's where we lost the game.
I agree for the most part, but Reed does get targeted in both defensive styles, because he is bad at defense. Hopefully he will improve on that side of the court. He has made great strides on the offensive side of the ball. If he could play defense, and that’s a big if, he could even supplant Okogie in the starting unit and we wouldn’t have to sell the farm for another guard. He’s got a couple of months to prove it or we will make a trade whether it includes him or not, who knows. Ime’s continuing profusive use of the zone is perplexing to me. If you have to use it, because of the two big lineups quit running the two big lineup. It was effective last year, because we had a backcourt that took most of the shots and sucked at it. We are suddenly one of the best 3 pt shooting teams in the league.
And, why are MORONS blaming Reed, when Kevin fumble fingers Durant had 8 turnovers? We protect the ****ING BALL we could play 2 people on D and win that game. All those turnovers led to ZERO shots......wasted possessions..... That more than the stupid zone hurt more. DD
It’s not all about the open 3’s. 56 second chance point is half their offense. Zones are notorious for giving up offensive rebounds. It’s nothing new. It is extremely stupid to run a zone when the other team is knocking down 3’s and when they miss are getting offensive rebounds. Ime needs to adjust much more quickly to what is happening on the court. It is a weakness that was apparent last year and although he has become more flexible he is still poor at that particular aspect of his coaching.
I think that Amen can be a point guard but there's no doubt that he's much more effective when allowed to play close to the basket. HIs scoring and rebounding are both much better when he's down low. Him playing the point means that he's up top much more trying to run the offense and it takes away from a lot of the things that he can do inside.
