Game 45 Dirkie Thread: P.J. Washington

[mvossman]

Speaking of Kleber at the 5, it sure is interesting how often he's CLOSING these games since he started playing there again, and usually to successful effect when "winning time" is close enough to be a contest.

To be clear, this has been a great stretch of play from Gafford. Kleber is not a better basketball player than Gafford, obviously. But, down the stretch against these good teams with swarming defenses and sophisticated offenses, the priority has to be flooring a unit that can CLOSE OUT to shooters for the full shot clock when in defensive rotation and CREATING DRIVING LANES on offense through good spacing.

That's why guys like Dinwiddie, Kyrie and Grimes had better games down the stretch last night. That's why Dallas was hitting more of those dagger 3's than OKC. The only downside is that it requires PJW (and others) to have monster games on the glass, but that's probably going to be a need no matter what they do.

Yep.  Its the same thing Kidd did when Lively was out late last season (another good Gafford run).  As well as Gafford was playing, Kidd generally closed with Maxi.