Young players sometimes need to get conditioned to it. Is your deductive reasoning buried in a backyard? How is my premise conclude that I believe no 2 way players exist?
Ime needs to sit him cause if he shoots to attempt to get us back into this game - the statbox haters will talk about his efficiency
He is having a good one, the Celtics are just shooting 48%, a good team and a great team.....difference. You have your best duo of Goon&Green but they still lose out without the Terror Twins and Bari. Not that they would definitely win but those guys can keep it close.
His defense was impressive tonight. Was really surprised to see him hold his ground against the bigger, stronger Tatum on multiple possessions. If only the rest of the team was awake tonight... it might have actually been competitive for four quarters.
One of the best defensive games he's played this season. And the sad part was, he was really playing his ass off out there but nobody else was really matching his energy in the second half.
His on ball defense against Tatum was just flat out Great. He looked like a legit top wing defender tonight. He was super locked in tonight. He made some "very aware" rotations tonight i couldnt believe. Where he would OVER rotate past his man to the next man to contest a 3 ball because he noticed Cam out of position with bad rotations. This is something i usually notice Dillon or Amen do (and truth be told it would be covering greens assignment). I flat out, never expected to ever see this level of defense from Jalen.
When they asked Jalen what changed to make his free-throw shooting better, he literally just said he tried focusing more. When he focused on defense today, he was one of the best players on the floor. I wonder if keeping him engaged and focused is going to help Jalen play better--and I wonder if Ime thought the same thing with how he's having Jalen play these last few games. I do notice that when Jalen is not a part of the offense for a while, he tends to disappear on the court (or become a complete negative on offense). We need FVV to keep taking a step back and letting Alpi/Jalen run more pick and rolls without him, IMO
That's a deceptive graphic. Minutes played.......................lineup......................................(+/-) 47:46...............[ Jalen , Amen, Dillon, Jabari, Sengun ].............(+9.2) 56:31...............[ Van Vleet , Amen. Dillon, Jabari, Sengun ].....(+27.7) But.... Minutes played..........lineup....................................................(+/-) 18:28...............[ Jalen , Amen, Dillon, Eason, Sengun ]................(+57.1) 22:26...............[ Van Vleet , Amen, Dillon, Eason, Sengun ]..........(+62.5) So for context, starters have logged in (before tonight) over 400 minutes. These other lineups are miniscule. One has to ask what competition did they face (before projecting out the per 100 possessions). Was it vs Thunder or Pelicans? per basketball-reference.com
Once again Green gave us hope that he can be great. the defensive performance was particularly impressive.
The best defenders are hard nosed blue collar workers, that shows that you can make a living without having any type of Offense. I was looking at players like Ben Wallace and Rodman who took pride in scoring 3 or Zero points to make a point. What he is missing now is a deep bag of consistent tricks like SGA who is also a very good defender in his own rights.
Honestly if Jalen had SGA’s bag he’d be literally unstoppable. But the only one who can play like SGA right now is SGA. Hopefully Jalen can get SGA’s whistle one day, if nothing else
He’s using his midrange to get in rhythm before taking a 3 and really only taking 3s on catch and shoot (unless they wall off paint) we have seen it slowly develop - more droves more midrange some people hate him taking midrange but you can see the difference in the shot the last few games - looks way more comfortable and not rushed (him shooting 87% from FT) means he should be a decent midrange shooter - he needs to get to 8-10 a game midrange and 8-10 drives a game .. if he does that then 1-2 3s a qtr (it will help his consistency a lot more)
