Report from the Warriors game: I’ve got nothing to add to the general acclaim for Reed’s offensive performance: the early 3’s, the later middies, the impressive passes. Mostly I’m happy to see him figuring out his game inside the arc. Every night he seems to get a better feel for the spots he can get to and finish. And Ime’s letting him do it, mistakes included. All good. We’re also seeing some improvement in his handle and movement with the ball. My favorite was his hesitation on a full-court drive in the second quarter, to trick Podziemski into shifting over to cover Amen. Then Reed accelerated to the basket for the layup. But let’s talk about his defense. The main thing I noticed in this game was a marked improvement in Reed’s help rotation to cut off attackers in the lane. At first he didn’t move, and we got scored on without resistance. Then (maybe after a gentle reminder from Ime, LOL) Reed became way more attentive to this job. Big guys, even Post, pulled up and got flustered when Reed suddenly appeared in their path. I can’t imagine it’ll work in most games as well as it did tonight (I have no idea why the Warriors didn’t go at him and abuse him in that position), but it’s way better than the nothing he was doing before. He’s excellent at anticipation, and he’s very fast laterally, so he has a good chance on most of these plays to get there before the attacker. Things to work on: 1. More teams are going to do what the Warriors did tonight: doubling Reed off screens to trap him into a turnover. The first couple of times it happened tonight, he seemed unprepared, and he lost the ball. He needs to expect the double and know his first couple of options to get out of jail. As the game went on, he started to figure it out. Next time he needs to be better prepared going in. 2. On rebounds and loose balls, he’s getting pushed out of the way like he’s not there. The worst incident was the one where Richards threw him aside for a putback. I used to think this was just a matter of Reed being outweighed. But I’m coming around to the suspicion that it’s also personality: He likes finesse, not contact. He has no interest in taking on opponents in any sort of collision. This might be a really hard hangup to get over. Jabari’s been in the league 3 years and still struggles with it.
