MAVS NEWS: Luka Is Hurt, But is Trudging On | DLive's Mom Passes Away| Maxi OUT

[StrandedOnBeauboisHill]

The beauty of it all. We just do whatever works. I actually think Washington is more capable of defending a SG/SF than a strong PF/C. His strength is not his strength. It´s that he has the body/movement of a SF with the wingspan of a center. Meanwhile Gafford is the rebounding banger. Lively is the hybrid, that can do a bit of both. Will get stronger as he matures. Maxi is the glue that sticks it all together. Gafford was killing it on the scoresheet 16/17/5 in 24 minutes, but it didn´t translate, cause he struggled a bit to protect the paint. Enter the PJ/Maxi combo and it was shutdown city.

I would not be completely shocked to see Kyrie/Luka/Washington/Kleber/Gafford against Minnesota or Denver either.

It is funny that we've basically used him the opposite of how Charlotte used him in this regard (guarding smaller instead of bigger).  Especially considering lots of scouting on him is that he DOES have that upper body strength to hang but we also have Maxi who is like top 10 in the league at using his core strength to absorb contact so we have a luxury of not having to ask PJ to do those things.  I do think he can guard up or down and we've simply seen him used guarding down more (was incredibly surprised to see him used as a POA defender against Shai that first game).  When he's out there with Maxi he's been out on the perimeter and those have been our best lineups but he's had a lot of success already working with Green as the POA defender as well.  I do think once Exum is back and we have all three players we typically use to defend the POA we'll probably see less of PJ doing it but it's been a really pleasant surprise so far.  He kind of seems somewhere in between DJJ and GWill in terms of his defensive profile and versatility is key in this league.