02-09-2025, 05:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-09-2025, 06:08 PM by KillerLeft.)
(02-09-2025, 04:44 PM)F Gump Wrote: I think you have something here, but it's also not quite right.
It's true that AD yesterday had the ball a lot. So as a result he was Luka-like in those possessions in being able to do things with the ball. We're not used to another player having such freedom.
But Luka played the 1. What he did and where he played was not the 4. He brought the ball up the floor, dominated the ball, decided who might get a pass, etc. Labeling him as playing the 4 is just not accurate and makes no sense.
It's hard to know if anything yesterday was by a new design, or just happened to happen in this game. It's a sample size of 1, so it's beyond premature to say we are seeing a permanent trend.
BUT - I saw 2 things I hope are going to be the new normal:
1 To me it was noteworthy that the PG did not have to possess the ball on every possession. Rather than the rebounder passing every time to Luka to walk it up the floor, there were lots of rebounds that brought immediate passes upcourt that pushed the pace.
2 It was refreshing to see the offense be so varied. It came from all directions, not just one player. Because everything didn't go through Luka, the ball moved, and the offense was unpredictable.
SIDE POINT - if the offense now no longer HAS TO run through the PG every possession, it changes the importance of the PG, and lessens the negative impact if that position as seen as a bit of a weak spot. That's worth keeping in mind.
I think you're missing my point a little. Yes, he played the 1, on offense. But, I think the offense was designed for the guy labeled "4" to play the "1" on offense. I can find no other explanation for some of the sets I saw yesterday, particularly in light of the emboldened paragraph. I believe this because I don't think they have had time to add ANYTHING new by design. In other words, I think everyone other than AD and Christie are just running the same actions they have been, and (not for every play, mind you, just in certain player groupings) they literally just filled AD into the missing hole (again, not in terms of what to do from the sets, just purely from a spacing/court location point of view). I just don't think they've had any time to do anything else yet.
I don't expect this to continue, I just thought it was interesting.
If it helps, forget the numbers. My point is that it suuuuure seemed to me that the approach to getting AD out there fast was just not to disrupt ANYTHING anyone else has been doing all season. Even on defense, I think part of what we saw was due to AD being GREAT, defensively, and part of it was just due to the guy in Luka's place (low man, pretty often during the times Gafford gets pulled out) actually understanding how to play defense.