A 3pt shot would be nice. But I'm surprised Udoka talks about Sengun's 3pt shooting and not sticks to his physicality mantra. IMO Sengun needs to play with more physicality. Maybe he needs to add more upper body strength. All those missed layups could have been dunks if he just went up more forcefully. But all he did was complain about fouls. Slam your body into the defenders. That's what big men do under the basket. Force the refs to call something if the contact is obvious.
This year the main and unexpected improvements were in defense and rebounding. Both were questionable for his position before the season. Now, he is a positive defender and an elite rebounder. Time to work on shooting and touch.
All in all a pretty mediocre series for Sengun, and an abysmal game 7. Not too bad for his first playoff series. He's shown growth his whole career, lets see if he comes back even better next season.
He didn't finish as well this season as he did the last couple of seasons. I hope he gets back on track there. I hope it's not his defensive effort detracting from his ability to finish.
I understand that you all are pissed! If you arrive game 7 after a 1:3 and play on your own court you need to win! But pashing a young player who was 16th Overall pick is not the right way! Your second pick was hiding in 6 of 7 of the games anywhere on the court. Last night it was in many situations really hardcore to see what Jalen does! He took the ball and he dribbled and try to lay up but he didnt find a position and gave the ball 4-5 seconds until the shot clock was over to Alpi in a bad situation and defended by Draymond. He took a lot of last second shots. Why cant your second overall pick take responsibility in this situations?!! Alpi had not his best match but is delivering his numbers in every game. If you dont see what the problem was then you dont know how basketball works! You need players who are consistent if you win the championship. Jalen got not the mentality for a championship player. He dont deserve to be starting player in my opinion.
He also had to deal with Draymonds antics the entire series. For some reason the refs just let draymond kick and grab at players after he gets one tech. They won’t throw him out so they let him just foul non stop. Sengun is going to grow a lot from facing draymond. I expect him to make a huge leap next season. Sengun also works with Hakeem every summer.
And do you see Jalen talking at the presse conference??!! You see 100% that he isnt a player who is the chosen one!! In germany we say to player like him: Good weather player!
Yes, Sengun struggled at times but he was our most consistent player the entire series. You knew he was going to give you a double-double. If everyone else did their part we would be playing the Wolves by now.
I aggree! We saw that Jalen is not the Tier 1 PG. I hope Rafael Stone got the same opinion and they go for a trade!
I think Draymond is the type of defender that Sengun has difficulties with. He is strong enough so you cannot back him down, but also fast enough so you cannot just drive past him. I thought GS would be a terrible matchup for Sengun. So I was pleasently Surprised how he did. Yes is percentages were not great, but he did great in many other areas. He dominated the glass he defended well, he had a good passing series. Overal he was clearly our best most consistent player in the series. So IMHO he had a veryu good series, and he and Amen has shown us that they are 2 players we can build around.
I think it was not only the Draymond faktor. The Rockets was not flexible in their offense. If you make always the same things in the offense after and after players of quality of Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler and more can defend you easy. Fred did in my eyes his joy but if your PG (Jalen Green) hides in 6 of 7 games you cannot win against the Warriors. Game 2 that was the only game where Jalen was strong and Game 5 and 6 the reason why the Rockets won was the impact of FVV and Adams. Adams didnt played very good at game 7 and the Bonus impact of Fred didnt came in game 7. I was expecting that Jalen try to impact in game 7 but he didnt tried. Maybe he dont wanted to do mistakes like game 6 but you cannot be called Franchise player if you dont take responsibility in so important games. I see that he got not the mental strength to carry a Competitive Team! Thats his biggest issue i think. You know plus/minus what you can except from Alpi. He got a minimum Performance and sometimes he makes big things but he never fall under his minimum Performance. The biggest Sportsmen in every Sports need to work on the minimum Performance. Then you will be a champion. I was a professional Pool player so i know what i am talking about.
for me his ceiling will always be lower as a score-first option. no doubt his best game was the one he shot the fewest time but got 9 assists. that is mainly on our head coach and offensive philosophy. it killed us this series that they guarded Alperen 1v1 and he shot below 50% from the field.
Couldn't have asked for a better first round opponent for Alpy. Gives him a lot of data to use this offseason. He answered his biggest question which was....can he play in the playoffs. If Steph couldn't torch him, then you know you're good.
Draymond Green: "I want to give a lot of credit to that team [Rockets] down there. Ime, the way he had those guys fighting. I gained a lot of respect for that team throughout this series, one of the tougher series I've played in, personally... Sengun is an incredible player."
