HAWKS 113, MAVS 87

[burekemde]

I am in shock that there is almost no conversation about how poor Luka looked. 

Am I crazy? Did I not see reality last night? I'm confused.

I agree. I think it was mainly the gameplan, but later down the game he was also mentally and physically drained. As sefant writes above, and I fully agree on that, the gameplan was actually designed to favour Capela sitting in the paint waiting for Luka. We have seen it before with Clippers and Zubac, whenever we had DP and not played 5 out, Zubac would wait around the paint for Luka and deisrubt his inside game completely, and there is nothing to say to that, basically Luka is doubled in the paint. Basically every time Luka got past Hunter, he entered a trap with Capela in front of him and Hunter being behind him. Completely disrupted Lukas rhytm. Luka passed the ball out to wide open players, yet the space was not taken advantage of regularly at least. Later Luka started forcing things against this type of double team, and Capela was too good for that. Zubac did the same thing before, and Carlise always got around that issue by playing 5 out. Then it was Luka single team either against someone else or even worse switching to Zubac, and it was game over basically. Same should have been done here, but Kidd didnt adjust. If Luka got Capela one on one we have seen before against Houston what he did to him. Kidd will learn. Or he will keep on with this gameplan and lose and get fired.

The gameplan Kidd made, for this is essential that there is a better player inside than DP and Maxi etc. Or that the opponent doesnt have a Capela type of player. We are not dominant inside, so to be effective we need to go wide and this ensures Luka will not be doubled. Unless we find another playmaker in addition to Luka that will give more dimensions to our game.

Luka looks sligthly bigger and out of shape, exactly how he looked in the beginnings og all previous seasons - No worry. But a huge worry if Kidd is a coach that can adapt the gameplans properly to different situations. He absolutely needs to take advantages of double teams on Luka, one way or another.