Ime Udoka is a very good coach. He has overall been very good at identifying players that contribute to winning basketball games and that have talent that carries over to actual performance - he has also been good at moving on from the players that do not do so. Some people will just not like Udoka - but really helped the young players in Boston and he is in Houston as well, because he is consistent and holds his players accountable.
Betting lines don't mean anything to me. You can't say players earn minutes and start Jalen Green for 2 years. Ime is a good coach, I just don't see him outcoaching anyone thus not a great one...yet. Some Ime supporters have their heads so far up the organizations bottom that they can see the lining of the stomach....lol. DD
Right now he's taking 9 3 point attempts per 36 minutes, that would put him at top 5 in the league per game if he was playing enough minutes. So he's already shooting at a very high rate which gives confidence it should scale. Defenses probably key in on him more... but that gravity should help his teammates out a ton.
That Adams screen at 0:48 was fun. He didn't even need to square up. Just stand at the right position and the defender just ran into his shoulder.
This team has incredible communication and genuine in wanting all the players to succeed. Reed is improving much faster than I anticipated. I still don’t think he needs to be starting, but he could play more minutes but not by forcing it. There are going to be matchups that are going to overwhelming at times. We could probably still need a cheap solid vet guard in case Okogie gets hurt. You could then move Reed into a starting role as long as you have a solid ball handler coming off the bench. Given his improvement we would be idiots to give up major assets in a trade.
But that's such a problem for other teams. You just have to play man to man then basically. And Durant and Sengun require double teams to stop. But what can you do? Leave Sheppard open? Leave Bari or Tari open? Leave Amen unguarded as he lurks in the dunker spot? The only guy you can comfortably leave open, in theory, is Okogie. But he's been burning teams too! This team is dangerous! And yet there are still people here thinking Stone needs to be fired and Udoka is a bad coach.
At 1:00 in this vid, Reed makes a beautiful basketball play. Amen drives and Reed's defender has to follow the ball. As soon as his head is turned, Reed slides over for the pass. When the defender turns back, he has to find Reed again but he's not where he was. Reed's movement off-ball created both the passing lane and extra time to get the shot off. Bucket.
Nice catch. (You, not him, lol) I was annoyed about another play where I thought Reed should have moved over. On this one he did. Hilarious to see Carrington turn and find himself all alone where he expected Reed to be.
The pick Adams sets for Reed, outside the 3pt line at about 51 seconds, that opened Reed up for a shot, that he hit, was pretty great
And the thing is...our guys have only had a training camp + preseason and a few games in the regular season to get used to a pretty new system with a new star, without Jalen and FVV (and Dillon) who were three of our most ball-dominant guys. The guys will get more familiar with the system and each other as the season progresses, and they're ALREADY causing lots of problems for the league, as you've already noted. I just feel like this team could be pretty dang special.
Very nice video, thanks! Nice to see Reed move off ball. When Sengun or KD is doubled, a lot of times nobody is moving and they are forced to a turnover or a bad pass that totally takes the momentum.
When FVV went out (around All-Star break) that was the precise moment that Ime should have given Reed more PT to see what he could do and he wasted that opportunity. That swath of games are the ones that I was mad about because we could have killed two birds with one move (experience for the rook and a floor spreader for the offense).
