Anyone notice Kevin Huerter playing bigger this year? On both ends, it feels and looks as if he's remembered being 6'7 and it's helped us quite a bit
Oh come on.
Nobody has said we should be jacking up 3s with no regard. It was always "we can't lose the 3pm battle by 6+ every game and expect to win"
And no coincidence we shot great, won the 3pm battle and beat the crap out of them. This game is far more in argument of what myself and few others have been saying over the "take less 3pa" crowd
“This is going to do wonders for his trade value!” I scream as Kevin plays like a huge JJ Reddick with better defense while on a ridiculously affordable contract.Also, where did all those "Huerter is worthless" people go? Weird I didn't see any of those comments
This game is an argument for "if the 3pt shots go in, we win" -- and not one single person has argued against that. What happens when the 3pt shots don't go in? Just shoot more of them is not the answer, imo. That's how you lose 20 pt leads in the 4th quarter.
My argument isn't that we shouldn't shoot threes or even that we should shoot less of them. I don't care about the number. My argument is that the entire offense shouldn't be built around the idea of "more 3pt shots = win" because that equation is clearly not true. We should aim for balance and make the 3pt attempts we do take the best possible shots -- wide open shots taken by elite shooters. And more importantly we need to commit to denying the other team good shots. All too often we've been the "let them score so we can get the ball back quicker" defense (again, so we get to take more shots) and that just doesn't cut it for a team with playoff aspirations.
It is though. The math is probably staggering if you have a 5+ 3PM advantage every game.
That's all I care about. Not spotting the other team 15+ PPG on 3PM as we were doing prior to last night's game. How you close that gap, I don't care, but it's just not sustainable for wins longterm
Did he actually figure that out or did he just not have DeRozan for most of this game?
But for my part I think the bellyaching about too much iso offense in the early part of the year has been way overblown. I only think we went to the DeRozan and Fox iso heavy sets after it became clear that nobody else could hit a damn thing. And it's not like we were torching everyone last year with our 3pt heavy offense either. We shot ourselves out of a lot of games last year (remember the 20 pt fourth quarter collapse against Phoenix?) and DeRozan has already won us a handful this season with his slow-down post ups.
Speaking of which, I also want to point out that Phoenix shot 15 more threes than the Kings did and lost by 23 points. Can we stop acting like getting up those shots is the only thing that matters now? The Kings played much tighter defense tonight and forced a lot of misses. That's what needs to carry over in every game -- we know this team is capable of defending. They just need to stay locked in and actually do it. Opportunistic offense, sharing the touches and keeping everyone involved, and clamping down on defense. That's our recipe for success.
This might have been Sabonis’ weirdest game as a King:
0 two point field goals
3-3 from three
4 total shots
7 turnovers
Still almost had a trip dub
Of course it is. But unless someone invents a way to guarantee that 3PA's = 3PM's (or Vivek's experiments with cloning Steph Curry through AI come to fruition) there is no way to go out and get yourself those 5 extra 3PM per game, all you can do is shoot (increase your 3PA) and hope enough of those shots go in to get you there...
Case in point: Currently Phoenix is 8th in 3pt% while we're 29th in 3pt%. Even in that context, if shooting 15 more threes than the other team (like Phoenix did) doesn't guarantee you a win (they lost by 20+, in fact) then this is just statistical noise. It's math nerd stuff, not basketball. Working hard on defense to deny clean shots is controllable. Taking smart shots is controllable. The Kings did both of those things last night and they won easily. Conversely, throwing up junk and expecting the percentages to work in your favor is just bad offense. And even worse, it's a particular type of bad offense which often leads to long rebounds and easy shots for our opponents.
And lastly, even if I concede your point that the end goal of NBA basketball in 2024/2025 is to get your team 5+ more 3PM than the other team, does that change at all if your 3 best players are shooting 58.3% (Fox), 54.4% (DeRozan), and 68.4% (Sabonis) on their 2pt attempts? Or if your other 2 starters are shooting 71.4% (Huerter) and 59.4% (Murray) on their 2pt attempts? We should expect Fox, Murray, and Huerter to raise their 3pt% based on past performance and DeRozan and Sabonis to lower theirs but even from watching the games it should be clear that those long stretches when we score no points are largely made up of 3PA and when these guys do slow things down and just go for 2 or they stop shooting fast break threes and just take the layup they are successful a lot more often.
I think Brown did figure it out because the style was totally changed in the first half when DDR was in the game. The faster ball and man moving style continued in the 2nd half when DDR was absent. Now maybe, maybe, maybe one could argue that Brown switched his offensive style because he knew DDR was somewhat incapacitated to start the first half and he thought he needed to go elsewhere for offense, but that seems like a thin reed of an argument at this point.
I think you've got it reversed: Nobody could hit a thing because the iso-ball of Fox and DDR limited ball and man movement, which limited rhythm and put the entire offense into a straight-jacket. If you want to continue with these 100-110 point performances, go back to the slow-down post up crap we've been seeing. If you want 120-140 point outings then this team needs to continue with the style we saw last night.
I don't care about setting arbitrary goals for 3-point shooting. The 3-point shooting will take care of itself as long as there as an emphasis on ball and man movement, making quick decisions, pushing the ball up the floor for fast break opportunities, and not hesitating when a player has an open shot. It's a simple game. Don't make it complicated.
I've never once said the goal for US should be to jack up 3's. Ever. Ive fought back on the idea that:
1. We cannot be giving up 5 3PM every game and expect to remain competitive. Those were the numbers before last night's game. That does NOT mean I'm suggesting to jack up 50 3PA to compensate for that gap. I've been pretty clear on that, don't know why you think differently. But it is absolutely a fact that it's not sustainable for us to be a good team if we're losing by that much on 3PM every night.
2. We should take less 3PA overall as a team or that we ourselves are taking too many 3PA. We're 23rd in 3PA and 29th in 3pt shooting. We're 7th in 2PA, 13th in FTA, 1st in 2pt % and 1st in FT%. That suggests we very much are getting the exact shot distribution we should be getting; take advantage of what Domas/Fox/DDR do best by collapsing the defense at the rim/mid-range and kick out to shooters. You'd have a point if we were 7th in 3PA while only being 29th in 3pt%. That would suggest a massive problem in where our shot selection is coming from.
And we finally got the great shooting game last night, won the 3PM "battle" and beat the living daylights out of them. This offense is only going to work if the guys who are supposed to take the kick-out 3's (Huerter/Keegan/Lyles/Keegan/Monk) are making them at high rate. Of course there's going to be bad 3PA shots every game, just like there's bad other shots every game. It wasn't us jacking up bad shots; it was shots that need to be taken for this offense. I think a good majority of our 3PA this year HAVE been good shots within the flow of the offense. We were just bricking them, prior to last night.
It's a chicken or egg argument which is ultimately just going to result in us finding proof to support our own biases. I don't know that there's a foolproof way to make outside shooting more reliable. That's the reality I struggle with.
Forcing doubles with iso play should result in better 3pt shots theoretically but if teams are refusing to double, having DeRozan pop a mid-range in their face is a better shot to me than a contested three. In general though, I agree with what you're saying here. Keep the ball moving and find open shots. If there are no open shots, take it to the basket and force the defense to collapse.
The point of confusion for me is that you sometimes use 3PA and 3PM interchangeably. And also I don't think "make more shots" is an actionable strategy. Obviously nobody is missing them on purpose. So either you're arguing "take more shots" which I think is a dubious plan on nights when we're only making 20% of them or you're arguing "take better shots" in which case we're in agreement and are just arguing over semantics.
I think the shot distribution can and should vary from night to night based on how the defense is playing, how close the score is, and how well guys have been shooting that game. If we're not making threes there needs to be a plan B.
Pretty sure this is semantics. Regardless, a fun conversation to dive into.
My main point just boils down to the fact we had to close that 15 PPG 3PM gap that we were surrendering. Whether that's actually defend the 3pt line, make your damn open shots, I don't care. I 100% agree that we shouldn't become Boston because we don't have near the shooters to sustain that volume. But there still has to be SOME volume there; it can't disappear. Also can't allow opposing teams to be 40%+ vs us on a consistent basis.
We were grabbing wins off the back of (probably) unsustainable mid-range/ 2PA/FT shooting and when that faltered just a little bit, we got our teeth kicked in by SAS because they hit 11 more 3PM than we did. Last night to me was the recipe; hit 2 more 3PM than they did, made a brilliant % and then we dominated them in the paint. That's where this offense is going to cook. But the answer just cannot be abandon the 3PA, which some (I dont think you) were suggesting. And my counter to that was we're already one of the lowest 3PA teams in the NBA; can't get much lower.
And "make more shots" is actionable because it's within the flow of the offense and they're almost always good shots. Tizzy pointed out a great stat that prior to last night, we were only hitting 22% of our open 3's. That's absolutely wild and I'd be willing to bet we get quite a few of them with the attention our 3 stars draw near the rim. An open 3 is always the shot you want to be taking; you should not abandon it just because we're in a slump. That's a long-term losing strategy in my book. There's also just relying on the career %'s of what these guys have proven at the NBA level with regards to shooting. The entire team is not going to be 7-8% worse this season; just basically impossible to happen. So keep taking these open 3's and we should eventually start making them (and we did! Last night!).
Pretty sure this is semantics. Regardless, a fun conversation to dive into.
My main point just boils down to the fact we had to close that 15 PPG 3PM gap that we were surrendering. Whether that's actually defend the 3pt line, make your damn open shots, I don't care. I 100% agree that we shouldn't become Boston because we don't have near the shooters to sustain that volume. But there still has to be SOME volume there; it can't disappear. Also can't allow opposing teams to be 40%+ vs us on a consistent basis.
We were grabbing wins off the back of (probably) unsustainable mid-range/ 2PA/FT shooting and when that faltered just a little bit, we got our teeth kicked in by SAS because they hit 11 more 3PM than we did. Last night to me was the recipe; hit 2 more 3PM than they did, made a brilliant % and then we dominated them in the paint. That's where this offense is going to cook. But the answer just cannot be abandon the 3PA, which some (I dont think you) were suggesting. And my counter to that was we're already one of the lowest 3PA teams in the NBA; can't get much lower.
And "make more shots" is actionable because it's within the flow of the offense and they're almost always good shots. Tizzy pointed out a great stat that prior to last night, we were only hitting 22% of our open 3's. That's absolutely wild and I'd be willing to bet we get quite a few of them with the attention our 3 stars draw near the rim. An open 3 is always the shot you want to be taking; you should not abandon it just because we're in a slump. That's a long-term losing strategy in my book. There's also just relying on the career %'s of what these guys have proven at the NBA level with regards to shooting. The entire team is not going to be 7-8% worse this season; just basically impossible to happen. So keep taking these open 3's and we should eventually start making them (and we did! Last night!).
Pretty sure this is semantics. Regardless, a fun conversation to dive into.
My main point just boils down to the fact we had to close that 15 PPG 3PM gap that we were surrendering. Whether that's actually defend the 3pt line, make your damn open shots, I don't care. I 100% agree that we shouldn't become Boston because we don't have near the shooters to sustain that volume. But there still has to be SOME volume there; it can't disappear. Also can't allow opposing teams to be 40%+ vs us on a consistent basis.
We were grabbing wins off the back of (probably) unsustainable mid-range/ 2PA/FT shooting and when that faltered just a little bit, we got our teeth kicked in by SAS because they hit 11 more 3PM than we did. Last night to me was the recipe; hit 2 more 3PM than they did, made a brilliant % and then we dominated them in the paint. That's where this offense is going to cook. But the answer just cannot be abandon the 3PA, which some (I dont think you) were suggesting. And my counter to that was we're already one of the lowest 3PA teams in the NBA; can't get much lower.
And "make more shots" is actionable because it's within the flow of the offense and they're almost always good shots. Tizzy pointed out a great stat that prior to last night, we were only hitting 22% of our open 3's. That's absolutely wild and I'd be willing to bet we get quite a few of them with the attention our 3 stars draw near the rim. An open 3 is always the shot you want to be taking; you should not abandon it just because we're in a slump. That's a long-term losing strategy in my book. There's also just relying on the career %'s of what these guys have proven at the NBA level with regards to shooting. The entire team is not going to be 7-8% worse this season; just basically impossible to happen. So keep taking these open 3's and we should eventually start making them (and we did! Last night!).
For what it's worth, I don't even think winning with this level of 3pt volume is sustainable for Boston. I don't think the boom or bust offense is sustainable for anyone. It leads to nights when you win by 30 followed by nights when you lose by 30. But if everyone else is committed to it that sortof forces our hand.
Here's where I'm happy to meet in the middle though: As long as the guys keep playing defense the way they did last night, I'll try not to complain about whatever offensive gameplan they roll out there.
I mean Boston already won a title doing exactly that, so I think we can say it worked. They get the cupcake East, but are off to a 10-3 start this year too, so very much looks like they'll be in title contention once again.