Porzingis Postup Debate - Rick Carlisle vs TNT

[Dahlsim]

Not sure if this is posted already..

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/2840...onard-sits

You boyz are finding some smoking hot analysis on this topic.  Thanks.   
Reading the piece you reference I think an important point to distinguish is scoring from the post vs. scoring through the post.  Not the same thing. 

As Lowe points out scoring from the post is down, way down, maybe as Carlisle said close to dead if you simply look at going to the post and leading directly to bucket as a point per possession. 

Scoring through the post is something more and he's talking here about Porzingis as a passer being poor and poor passing out of the post.  Where he says the Post up come in handy  is more for the tough defense situations which you see some in regular season and will see even more in playoffs. 

But it's a handy tool. Not even the Mavs -- on pace to produce the best offense ever -- will get everything they want against postseason defenses. On a bunch of possessions, they will have to make something from nothing. Porzingis improving his passing out of the post -- at least against switches -- would help.

This relates to something he said earlier about the way the rules have changed for post defense in the NBA comparing now to the 80's and 90's.  
He doesn't elaborate but I think the point is NBA is allowing better defense inside the post against big men, more physical, arm bars etc. while its allowing less defense than ever against guards and perimeter players.  This particularly blew open with the elimination of hand checking rules and continues with rules protecting shooters.   

So defense in the post is much better now however what defenses have to do to defend well against a really good post player which are fewer than ever, can open up great secondary scoring including wide open 3 point shots.   So when defenders are bodying up against Luka and all the Mavs shooters they can't also defend as well against someone like Anthony Davis or lets say Boban in the post. It's going to be one on one in the paint against an efficient post player.  

The 2 pointers and the fouls and free throws can then eat your defense alive! 

So coming back to KP, Lowe in your article pinpoints the problem for the Mavs using Porzingis there: 

Only 4% of Porzingis' post-ups have resulted in him dishing an assist -- one of the league's lowest marks.