11-16-2022, 02:32 PM
(11-16-2022, 02:13 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: I knew this was coming, because that was the lineup for the worst parts of that 3rd quarter meltdown. In a sense, you can pinpoint Kleber going out of the game as the moment when things started to go wrong.
However, I could be wrong, but as I was watching that stretch I had the impression that the offense was the issue (at least in this particular situation) and not so much the defense. There were loads of unforced errors, bad turnovers and just a general lack of organization on offense that put the defense in a zillion bad situations. To be fair, a lot of that was Wood's fault.
I don't know the answer to your question, but when I hear people like Zach Lowe say the answer is to play Wood at the 5 and see what happens, I agree. I am sure these numbers got nuked by last night's game, but he seemed to analyze the data in a such a way as to suggest it's not Wood at the 5 that sucks, it's Wood at the 5 with Luka AND Dinwiddie BOTH on the floor that sucks.
Unfortunately, I’m in Florida and didn’t get to watch (I feel the pain of others as my DStream app knew I was out of state). So, it makes it hard to comment on this specific game (or the prior 3 for that matter).
One thing I don’t like about the Lowe approach is if it doesn’t work you’ve further devalued an asset. But, if you can find a way to make the alternative work, you might enhance the asset pretty substantially.
One thing to bear in mind in the lineup data…I believe the Mav’s are actively protecting Wood (or certainly were early in the season). Tougher big matchups are played one way. Easier big matchups are played another. So fully unleashing Wood at solo-center is a bigger leap than we may realize.