Perk is going to make him an allstar like he won Embiid an MVP. He should say something like, 'If you don't make him an allstar you're being Islamophobic.' That would 100% do the trick
I guess only the other four Rockets played defense. Thank goodness they managed to somehow make up for the guy that was hunted.
While we are selectively quoting stats, here are the hustle stats from this game: https://www.nba.com/game/gsw-vs-hou-0022401204/box-score?type=hustle In addition to leading the Rockets in scoring, rebounds and steals: Sengun had 3 screen assists leading to 7 points (team high), 6 deflections (team high by far), contested 9 shots (team high; interestingly 7 of them were three pointers, so perhaps his role wasn't so much to protect the rim tonight), 4 box outs (team high, tied with Tari).
Good game from alpi. Hopefully in Vegas he can pretend he’s back in turkey and play through contact and stop complaining. He was fouled on a lot of misses (and makes) but he’s got to power through in a “playoff” atmosphere.
Sam pointing out the issues that other analysts have with Sengun in space. Eventually smart teams with quick guards will exploit this and the Warriors did so in the second half. This is why Jabari is important. Basically nukes this strategy and Ime needs to be quicker about recognizing it. Mentions Sengun needing to be pulled a little quicker when the Warriors started going to this. Sengun also needs to understand angles a bit better vs these guards. He's been better but these stats that have him at the top of the league defensively need to be taken with an enormous grain of salt. He benefits from being surrounded by the absolute pinnacle of oversized defensive wing depth in the association. 26/11/5 with the bucket to cut the lead to 1 and some hustle in the 1st half was great. Also his traps on Steph (esp in the 1H) were awesome. 4 turnovers and getting roasted in space in the 2H was not great. He'll get better and the best thing is that he's shown that he's willing to learn it (along with another 2021 draftee). Saw the best and worst from him tonight.
If Sengun is selected to the All Star game this year, big Turk will join big Yao, big Mo' and big Dream as the youngest Rockets to make the all star game. Legacy of bigs. Make it happen, Silver
Defensive stats from yesterday: https://www.nba.com/game/gsw-vs-hou-0022401204/box-score?type=defense So Sengun defended by far the most shots of any Rocket (I guess if one has an agenda, one could say this is because the Warriors were "hunting him"). He held the shooters to 40 %. His defense contributed to the Warriors missing 8 threes (he held Curry to 2-7). Narratives crumbling when looking at data. That said, the whole team defended well, which is great. Only reason to specifically point out that Sengun was part of that is because some people are still pushing an agenda of singling him out as "the problem", even after a win in which he carried us offensively.
That's why you watch the games and actually see what the issues are instead of just pointing at "well the data says". He's been above average defensively. His issue is that he suffers from the same issues Jokic does (which is why the Nuggets have to pull him at the end of games for defensive purposes in a tight game) while not necessarily providing the same offensive monsoon that Jokic provides. It's OK to admit that Sengun is still a defensive issue that needs to be mitigated. And it largely has been. But its the same hoops JOFs jump through to convince people that Jalen is actually a good player. I don't think either of Jalen or Sengun are great defensive players. But they are tops in most defensive metrics largely because of how damn good our team defense is and they're being carried by the other 4 (Jabari, Tari, Amen, Dillon...and frankly Fred quarterbacking the whole thing). Sengun is a foundational piece and will be moving forward. But he either needs to take a big step forward offensively *or* defensively or he'll just be Robin masquerading as Batman. I'm not sure if he's "the guy" so much as he is definitely "one of the guys" right now. Maybe that's enough and we can have a team where him, Jabari and Amen all average 20.
