I'd think eventually the defense would be able to read more of those if he did it continually and they may become turnovers. It would be really nice if he could do that consistently, but with his size it would be difficult to create an offensive system that would give him those clear looks without them becoming predictable. It definitely helps when Alpi and Kevin draw so much attention though and open up those options for Jabari and Amen down low. It's just nice to see something other than iso in the half court. I love the screen options that he was getting in this game from Alpi, KD and Adams. Felt more like what was planned for FVV offensively.
If he’s shooting the way he is and you have KD and Senguin on the floor It won’t matter, there’s no way you can stop the passes. If he can shoot 3s like layups spacing is wide open, lanes are open people are going to be wide open as a result. David adelman said it in his postgame . But I agree if it was just him on the team he can’t beat doubles etc
Yeah, the thing that concerns me about them is that he has to jump to get the ball over the defense. So if he goes up and discovers that the passing lane suddenly isn't there anymore, what happens then? Actually, come to think of it, I think we've seen this already. Those crazy long-range floaters that almost get picked off or go out of bounds. Those must be the ones where he went up and tried to change his mind.
His passing was much better, and he knew when to shoot. His steals were welcome as always. It's quite obvious, Amen needs Reed in the backcourt with him. KD is a beneficiary of Reed's passes as well.
And Reed benefits from Amen passes as well. Tonight he assisted on 3 of Reed’s 3 pointers. They are a good fit. Ime adjusted the offense this game. They ran mulitiple picks for Reed on several occasions. Not sure I’ve seen that all year. Also didn’t play the double bigs too much. Durant spotted up several times and didn’t Iso as much. All of that resulted in Reed having the best game of his career. It’s just what the doctor ordered. More screens, more movement, less Durant ISO’s and he should never be handed the ball by the half court line. We got back to what made our offense successful early on this season. Spreading out, moving the ball and hitting our 3’s. If Tari and DFS can’t get on the court we should trade for another 3 & D player. I think we will play less of the stupid double bigs if/when Tari gets back.
IIRC, the two long bullet passes, one to Jabari one to Amen, were broken play improvising, not by design. Same with his outlet passes after getting a defensive rebound. Those are football passes. In basketball, it's very hard to design your half court offense in such a widespread way. The good thing is, Reed can see those opportunities and delivers. That alone can give you several extra points per game. What I want to see more in design is Reed PnR not with Adams but with Sengun or Amen, roll guys who bring rim pressure. Reed's shooting gravity will force the big defender to hedge or to trap. That's going to open up the paint for the roller.
He's developing his PG skills before our eyes. I like seeing him being aggressive; really, really enjoy seeing his aggressiveness rewarded. Great game for our baby-faced assassin last night.
I am so ready for this. I think the emergence of Adams has really slowed the development of Amen as the roller. Amen is just so deadly with the ball going to the basket with options. Amen does need to get better at screening. With Reed still not having the ballhandling to get to screens as easily, not sure Amen can be the primary screener for Reed.
This is a good discussion @Easy and @OremLK, mind if I jump in? Where I see Reed being elite (right now) is with his court vision. Watch how quickly he makes a decision and gets the ball up the court or to the open man. He's the best on the team with making these kinds of passes/decisions. I agree he's got a way to go as a playmaker, but court vision is the most important ingredient to attaining that skillset. Think of some of the passes we've seen him make in the last two games, those kind of passes take advantage of the defense lapses and we need more of that. Reed is an old soul ball player, he's unselfish to a fault and like last night he needs to realize hunting your own shot/playing to your strengths is unselfish if we want to maximize our potential as a team. The more he plays, the better playmaker he'll become. He still has some situational learning to process, but the future's looking brighter by the game.
Yeah. He needs to understand when he is aggressive in scoring, he opens up more options to set up his teammates.
OMG, been saying this at home - Adams doesn't fit, anymore we play him FAR FAR FAR too much, he should be the situational center, instead of going to double big, we should go small some times. Ime trying to win with rebounding instead of shot making is exasperating. DD
Report from the Kings game: This was Reed’s worst defensive performance in quite a while. Low energy with many mistakes. He was hanging back on ball handlers, giving them 7 or 8 feet of runway, getting hosed several times. When he stands in that position, he’s advertising, “I’m a victim.” The Kings took the cue and went right at him. In general he looked flat-footed, lacking his usual spring. In the zone he slacked off. In interior traffic he sometimes stood there guarding nobody. On closeouts he was a step late, which made the gesture useless. On drivers he made a couple of bad positional decisions, giving up the baseline. Also he looks like maybe he has developed some Adams dependency. He was turning sideways and channeling guys into lanes toward the basket, as though he expected a big behind him to clean it up. That works when Adams is there. But since Adams wasn’t there, the result was buckets or fouls. He was absent-minded when he needed to box out. Jumped at shooters when he needed to stay down. Weak on the boards when the ball fell his way. I could go on. He regressed with his hands, reaching or swiping when he didn’t have position. The worst was that shooting foul in the lane with a minute left. Reed had done the work with his feet and didn’t need to swipe. The shot was going to fall well short. But he couldn’t help himself, and it’s one of several mistakes that ended up costing us the game. On offense, he still picks up his dribble as a reflex when he gets anxious or isn’t sure what to do. It’s a terrible habit, and even when it doesn’t completely screw the play, it often costs us half the shot clock. We can’t have him bringing the ball up routinely till he breaks this habit. Sorry to be a bummer. I’ve been agitating to play Reed more minutes. Last night Ime gave him 34, and the trust was not repaid. I assume fatigue was part of the problem. But in that case, Reed needs a lot more conditioning.
Exactly, and it reminded me of the 2nd jazz game ..another back to back. it’s 90% fatigue but again can’t use that as an excuse. He’s in the NBA. when you said he was advertising I’m the victim on D therr were a couple times he looked like he was going to try too hard not to foul or switch off and it really was sharks smelling blood in the water When Reed plays like a demon, good things happen when he plays like a poos, he’s channeling far end of the bench guy not deserving of NBA minutes. We need to see the fire , anger, and resilience consistently. When he was jawing at brown or tripping Bane is the due the rockets need not Cliff Paul
Adams and Reed have one of the highest +/- in the league when on the floor together . Adams tries to maximize Sheppards impact on the offensive and defensive end so you can’t look at him in isolation. He’s one of the most important players on the team But you’re not wrong we should go small sometimes. Interestingly you can play 3 guards if Adams is holding the paint down so he helps that too!
Yea but no one will have it every night. No idea why Ime played 8 deep rotation especially when everyone is tired on a back to back against a weaker opponent. Should have went 10-11 deep and make sure all the guys can keep up. We have one of the deepest teams in the league. Gotta use it more. Especially with KD playing ungodly minutes that’s way too risky. Keep KD around 30 minutes and sit him some back to backs. This is giving me shades of Tom Thibidoe running players into the ground.
Agree with this 100%, i'm very objective about Reed and thought he played a pretty good game against the kings with his offence. Until i saw some youtube replays on the 4th quarter. Reed was the main culprit in the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, his lack of defensive awareness and positioning led to us ultimately losing the lead and going into OT. Reed cost us the game against the Kings with his terrible 4th quarter defence. It was utterly attrocious.
Report from the Clips game: Posting this one ASAP because I never want to look at this video again. The good news: Reed's defense wasn't notably worse than the defensive performance of our other guys. The bad news: Reed's defense wasn't notably worse than the defensive performance of our other guys. A huge suckfest all around. On offense, there were two categories of players who failed to give Reed a shot when he had open looks: 1) pretty much every teammate on the court with him, and 2) Reed himself. Seriously, how many times did he pass up a good look and toss the ball instead to a teammate who had a worse look or who failed to take the shot? He did end up taking shots later in the game, but they were desperate and scrambled. Almost none of them were open or with feet set. Just bad shot selection in both directions. I really don't want to trade for another PG. I want Reed to show he's capable of giving us enough at that position to get through the season. But this is not the kind of game that supports my argument.
i've noticed this in other games, his teammates seem reluctant to pass to him, while he's overly deferential. on the other hand, everyone seems psyched when he nails a three. it's just an odd dynamic.
