He's really really bad at defending in space and in the pick and roll, OKC can't shoot so he's just laying way back, and they don't have a center who can stretch or put it on the floor. This is the perfect series for him, against a different team he gets run off the floor. He's a good situational bench big.
Yeah, even with Blake healthy I'd have expected a comfortable sweep, with him out it's going to be a bloodbath, he carried DET on his back all year.
Yeah, I get the flaws...but what you say at the end is my point, he has a role and he's a useful guy to have.
I just looked at Detroit's roster. Without Blake, it's got holes. A lot of holes. It had holes with Blake, but now it's swiss cheese.
Agree with this. I hope people check out this series. Teams match up very evenly. Should be really close games.
In other words the polar opposite of the Bucks-Pistons’ series.
The play was pretty obvious to me; Drummond was obviously frustrated and gave Giannis a shove when he got an offensive rebound over him. He immediately ran over and extended his hand, to me he clearly felt bad about it and I think that makes it a flagrant one.
I've always said the same and oh, surprise, he posted these type advanced numbers in a dysfunctional situation that shouldn't ever be solely used to properly evaluate a player by these metrics in settings such as this. He is still an awful iso low post defender.
I was at the game yesterday and I just couldn't disagree more. While he put up points and rebounds he was an absolute disaster on the defensive end of the floor. OKC was running action towards him on almost every play and even when Adams wasn't scoring on him directly, the rotations to cover his bad defense were leaving holes all over the floor. Had OKC shot even decently from outside they would have won that game going away. Kanter can play a role, but he's just so limited as a player. In my opinion Collins needs to get the bulk of his minutes going forward or the Blazers lose this series.
He had one block where he was like five feet out of position and just managed to get his arm out there somehow. You don't miracle your ass into blocks like that too often.
Advanced numbers have their flaws because there's no way DeRozan is actually a net negative value as a basketball player.
The other factor yesterday was that OKC was going at Kanter aggressively....which got the Thunder away from their regular sets by posting up Adams leaving RWB/George standing on the perimeter as spectators and out of the offensive flow of the game.
Yeah his reaction was priceless! Like it's a min Flag-1 100% of the time with it being a Flag-2 being a tossup in that spot. If it is a regular season game he's gone imo. I don't mind the officials giving the player the benefit of the doubt in a playoff game. Stu Jackson immediately tweeted that it was a Flagrant 1.5 which is where I am on it as well.
An 18/9/8 on 8-11 shooting midway through the 3rd is eh he's looked better?
Embiid has logged 21 minutes and should be done. With the knee issues, he might only be good for 25 in these playoffs on most nights.
