interesting. Eye-test also tells you that Trae is a hit-or-miss and flawed and can’t be the backbone of a a championship team. And so you’re in a tough spot, given that, what do you do? you don’t MAX out a 25pts/10asst guy? Tough…
No need to mention his insane offensive contributions in the Nuggets game. He has made the sale. But I do want to commend his defense. What he did tonight was a new level of preemptive aggression. He's using his anticipation and speed at the outset, to narrow the ball handler's options. My favorite was Reed bolting 25 feet from the baseline to zip out and cut off the top of the key, forcing the play wide. Also generally stepping up on his man, grabbing position, and not getting tricked out of it. Almost none of the chase-and-swipe we saw earlier in the season. We can all see that this kid is short, and this limits his ability to defend vertically. But he's showing he has the physical ability and brains to defend horizontally. He's now preventing enough plays to make Ime less skittish about leaving him on the court. And we're only 14 games into the season. He's learning fast.
Not sure he was feeling it today but the way he was dribbling felt much tighter and gotten better in very short time. I honestly didn’t see him cutting out to be PG but he might have chance
I missed AGordon being injured, and Strawther, Braun missing, that is a lot of length, wing depth that the Nuggets were missing that they could throw upon Reed....
I was impressed by the way he finished at the rim tonight. That was one of his weaknesses coming into the league, and it's nice to see him making improvement there.
GARM gonna GARM...there's a guy in another thread who is saying in all seriousness that Ime forgot to tell the players to pass Reed the ball in the 2nd Half
We have to give Ime credit for doing something he never does which is a key to offensive rhythm: let a player do what they do best. Rounding out a player's game is for practice and offseason. Once games start, you need a guy to have confidence that his main weapon is great. MDA was amazing at understanding that, he would yell at shooters to SHOOT and defenders to DEFEND. Ime yells at everyone to defend usually. The only offensive praise he gives most of the time is "shots were falling" which is really deflating when someone has a great offensive game. He wouldn't accept "opponent's shots were falling" as an excuse for a bad defensive night from one of his players. The way this works is Reed started burying 3's. Without that, we could not go anywhere (similar to Bari's offensive game). Teams started guarding him ultra close with no space at all. This makes it extra easy to drive past your man and get an uncontested middie or layup which is easy for Reed. Now you have a 3-level scorer. With Amen for example, it's the inverse. What Udoka needs to be doing is spacing the **** out of the floor so that Amen can go full blast downhill without worrying about there being a rim protector to beat after he's beaten his own man. Downhill he can score, pass or a last ditch middie. This would make teams give Amen more and more and more space. Which would make his 3PTers more wide open, which would increase his 3PT%. Udoka hasn't done this sufficiently yet. The difference is if you're a shooter you can earn this by just shooting over Ime's packed paint. But if you're a downhill guy, the coach HAS TO get involved in spacing the floor. That's why all 3 guys we drafted to get lots of drives have struggled to meet expectations and their handle has looked shakier than reality because there are so many people to swipe at the ball in the paint. That's also why it was SO important that KD was the right acquisition. Being able to shoot over everyone in a packed paint takes the decisions out of Ime's hands, which is why I wanted KD. We'll get there. Ime is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he eventually gets there after stubbornly trying everything else lol. For some reason, he's allergic to helping a star guard be a star guard. I think all those years of guarding them has left some kind of illogical disdain in him.
I've been saying this for a long time. His court vision is very apparent. Yet some people keep saying he's an undersized SG. He is still learning, But he clearly has playmaking instinct.
He has to put that heat in. He’s a little guy playing with giants. I bet he can fling a football downfield too.
Knowing how much zip needs to be put on the ball is something he's starting to get better at. Sometimes you can do a gentle touch pass, and other times you need to put some velocity on the ball so it gets to your guy before the defender is in range to intercept.
one glaring issue for me is strength. He beat murray on a drive last night but he bounced off murrays shoulder at the end of the drive allowing an easy layup.
whether he had his feet set or wasn’t in the right position or his core and lower body is weak i dunno. I Just know he bounced off murrays shoulder. A good strong base and core helps prevents this.
True and reps will help strengthen that core and the muscle memory on how to set. Reed went from HS to college to the Pros in 3 years, dealing with bigger bodies each time and he’s still doing well. I’m optimistic.
