12-26-2022, 07:52 AM
(12-26-2022, 12:46 AM)mvossman Wrote: So I didn't get to watch the game tonight. When Wood and Powell were on the floor together, who was playing center defensively?
Powell covered Lebron and Wood covered Bryant. It worked surprisingly well. They ran that the entire time except for one possession coming out of a timeout. In that possession they ran zone with Powell in the middle and Wood on the wing. It resulted in a 3 as Wood's instinct was to stay low when the ball swung to his side. Powell was trying to push him to go out on the shooter, but it was too late by then.
They had Kidd's mic on a little earlier in the game and you could hear him telling another coach (presumably Sweeney) that he thought Dwight should be guarding "L" (who the announcer identified as Lebron). I thought it was an interesting exchange on several fronts, but I'm not sure Powell would have been my first choice to put on an island with Lebron. Part of why it worked in the second half is it left Wood available to clean up the paint. Bryant brought Wood into a switch several times, and he and Powell did a nice job of closing off the paint. The one time Lebron connected with Bryant for a score low it was more about Wood complaining at the other end and getting down the court too slow than an issue with how Wood was covering Bryant.