The difference with PP vs. any other defender the Celtics have is size/strength. Yes Kyrie is liable to go wild regardless of who is defending him but there is absolutely a difference in having the guy in front of him be someone who can challenge his shots, body him up a bit and make him work harder for it.
Yes. We all know this. The point is/was... if nothing else is working (or in the face of foul trouble elsewhere), instead of trying to put PP on the court and hide him somewhere defensively, why not consider putting the person with the least defensive skill on the person who is least defensible and crossing fingers for an offsetting basket or 2.
I think you can probably get Pritchard about 12 minutes by playing him (1) when Kyrie sits and (2) when Durant sits, while minimizing the ability to hunt mismatches because when only one of those 2 is on the court there will be an ability to help him if he gets isolated. If they can exploit Pritchard, it’s reasonably likely he’s not very playable when both KD and Kyrie are on the court. It’s also possible he’s improved enough defensively that he doesn’t need to be protected, but I wouldn’t bet on that, especially considering that our other guards are among the best perimeter defenders in the league.
I'm not quite this certain that he doesn't play (although I'm just about there), but if he does take the court, I can't care about it. He's as good as any at slowing Tatum down, but he's a year removed from an NBA game, has to be at least as rusty as any player at the start of preseason, and back injuries can leave players super shaky when they first return. Even if he's healthy and instantly shakes off the rust, all we've heard for years when discussing Simmons' offensive shortcomings is that he needs an offense built around his strengths. Playing off ball with at least one other non-shooter on the court (be it Drummond, Brown or Claxton) is not an offense built around his strengths. Maybe they can try sticking him at center with Durant and Brown at the other forward spots for good spacing, but that team is really small and the Nets shouldn't want either Durant or Simmons banging around in paint considering their injury risk.
I'd like to see Tatum guard Kyrie and Smart faceguard Durant sometimes. Thought Rondo's face guarding of KD bothered him
Because putting your worst defensive guard on their best offensive guard will always be a terrible idea.
how many minutes do you think Payton Pritchard will actually play against their starters in a close game?
I can’t imagine PP playing anything more than limited minites as Brooklyn is such a terrible matchup for him. Those minutes surely will be when Kyrie is out of the game. I don’t understand the concept of conceeding points or purposely playing one of his worst matchups against Kyrie.
if they overlap it may be a minute here or there. IME will be very cognizant of matchups.
Be careful, there may be something in his contract tied to playoff appearances. They may run him out there for a few minutes as a favor to his agent.
Unless someone gets in foul trouble or injured very few. Maybe he can cover Curry or Mills for short stretches, but he should never ever ever be out there if he's going to have to even try to cover Kyrie.
Is Brooklyn that bad for him? He obviously can't guard Kyrie at all, but Brooklyn plays with two small guards all the time and I don't see why Pritchard couldn't match up with Curry or Mills while Smart/White/Brown guard Kyrie. Switches are always a worry I guess, but I'd worry more about him getting switched onto Durant than getting switched onto Kyrie.
HRB can’t miss an opportunity to point out any perceived flaw of Pritchard.
League stretched it out because they see it as a premium matchup you usually don't get round 1.
Agreed, we'll mostly see that group at the start of Q2/Q4 when the opposing stars like Kyrie/KD are resting. BUT IME will be on top of any potential mismatch on D. IME has done a great job with rotations
Ive always thought Pritchard looked pretty strong. Let him beat the crap out of kyrie a few times if he's forced to guard him at all.
Nobody works switches and matchups like Kyrie and Durant. If PP is on the floor with either he’s going to be hunted. That’s what the Nets offense is all about especially in the playoffs…….this isn’t a end of year regular season game anymore.
It’s the Shams story.
IIRC, BRK blitzed JT a lot in March and he shredded them.
Agree with this. And if the Nets struggle to defend, I wonder if the Nets might lean into playing really small with something like Durant, Kyrie, Mills, Curry, and Brown/Edwards, and try to get the games into the 130s or even 140s. I think the Cs are too good defensively for this to work for an hour extended period of time, but I expect to see the Nets try some unconventional strategies if things aren’t going well in the first couple of games.
Is this discussion being broken out into another thread?
I expect to see more Claxton than Drummond especially down the stretch of games. The Nets have played a small lineup with Durant acting as the 5 for some stretches since his return so I don’t think they’d have any trouble doing so against Boston while TL is out.
when Durant is your rim protector and Kyrie is one of your best perimeter defenders count me as not worried
In principle, I agree with you. However, without TL I think that the Cs are going to be implementing more drop coverage on 1/5 picks so as to not expose Al to Kyrie (nevermind Theis). So who that 1 is is kinda important IMO. I could be wrong on this, but I'd expect them to mix it up and give Kyrie some Brown, some Smart, and a bunch of White. Also expect them to vary the hedge and drop actions and even switch everything from time to time. Best bet is to keep Kyrie guessing. And he probably doesn't like the physicality of Smart, combined with Smart being smarter about not getting in foul trouble.
That presumes refs will call fouls on them. TV viewers don't tune in to see Kyrie and Kd sit.
They should attack them to make them work in the defensive end, without counting on foul trouble.
Specifically targeting Durant doesn’t seem like a good idea. He’s a real good defender and long as heck so he’s contesting nearly every shot without fouling. The Nets backcourt defense is suspect but their real issue is in defensive transition. The way to attack Brooklyn’s defense is to push tempo with numbers advantages but this doesn’t occur as much in the playoffs due to game planning, urgency, valuing possessions, and etc. Every playoff quarter seems to be played closer to a regular season 4Q with slower pace and iso which favors Brooklyn.
I think Simmons will help the D quite a bit if he's anywhere near 100%, and probably the offense too, because he's a much better passer than Drummons/Claxton and can beat guys off the dribble. However... I can't imagine him being 100%, and the Celtics will definitely send him to the line to break up the Nets' rhythm any time KD or Kyrie goes into their mode of just hitting hard shots with a hand in their face.
TL;DR - sorry for continuing to take this thread off topic, but had to respond to this post. Please skip if you don't care about Durant's legacy.
Curry should be fine with the playoff scheduling of this series with no B2B and two days off between each game prior to G4. Brown has been shooting well of late, 14-24 three’s in his last 7 games but as we know our close outs in the playoffs project to be much harder than those of teams that the Nets faced over the last two weeks.
Fortunately he’s zero percent so we won’t have to worry about him this year.
This is a strawman argument because LeBron took a ton of shit for forming a super team in Miami and his hopping around the league trying to create the best possible chance for him to win a title will have an impact on his legacy. It's not as if Durant has this black mark on his career while LeBron got off scott-free.
A lot of talk Simmons will be good to play by game 4.Curry should be fine with the playoff scheduling of this series with no B2B and two days off between each game prior to G4. Brown has been shooting well of late, 14-24 three’s in his last 7 games but as we know our close outs in the playoffs project to be much harder than those of teams that the Nets faced over the last two weeks.
I agree with the market that opened with the Celtics an Underdog in the series only to quickly flip. We should be able to handle the Nets with all of their holes. As you say it’s the role players being one-dimensional that makes this team easier to play. It’s only Durant and Kyrie that makes them so difficult but you’re relying on one (or both) players to carry them to 4 wins. Hard to do against a defense like the Celtics.
Fortunately he’s zero percent so we won’t have to worry about him this year.
Losing Harris makes a big difference. He's not a good defender by any means but at least has typical wing size; and if you had him + Mills/Curry out there, it would be tough to stop Brooklyn on offense because they would make a ton of threes with Kyrie/Durant drawing so much attention. Without him they have been throwing spaghetti at the wall with Edwards/Thomas/Brown. Brown is easily the best of that bunch but isn't much of a shooter; if he can actually make threes that would be huge.
Not a strawman because the original post I was responding to called Durant a "pansy ass" and the posters I've been going b/f with have been directly pointing to Lebron assembling his own super teams as somehow different and more "competitive" than Durant joining the Warriors.
This will seem like a "get off my lawn" thing, but not that long ago every team would have at least one guy who would physically destroy KD in the low post. The "nobody can stop" Shaq post up reffing needs to switch to the way FIBA allows the Offensive player more contact.
Simmons playing in the first round is the new clickbait topic. This makes me happy because it’s replacing the “Celtics stars aren’t vaccinated” one.
Agreed---I have no idea whether his back is bothing him still or not but I cannot imagine he is good for more than 15 minutes a game, and those will be very rusty minutes at best. I am not all the way to the HRB "we won't see him" but it would be truly shocking if he were able to play enough, and well enough, to impact the series at all.
If you or anyone else can find wagering action on anything to do with Simmons playing in these playoffs, in this series or by G4 please PM me I’ll share 50% of profit risk-free. No joke.
