Was thinking about our beloved Hoos a bit while reading this piece about my beloved Suns (Valley Boyz!).
Long story short is the Suns are scoring at preposterous rates on unfashionable shots (2-point jumpers), because their guys are bizarrely good at them (Paul, Book, Ayton).
Had me wondering whether there’s anything we could do to lean into Armaan and Jay as 2-point snipers rather than trying to stretch them into 3-point gunners (last 2 games of the season notwithstanding).
Paul warps the defense because he can attack the elbows as a ball-handler (they are massacring Luka in this series by isolating him in screen actions). Can Armaan handle the ball well enough to initiate out of a screen/roll action? Will there be feasible lineups that allow him to do this without the defense sagging off like 3-4 of the other players on the court? Obviously I don’t see Jay dribbling down from the top of the key, but maybe there’s some value in zagging instead of zigging.
When I watch stuff like this, my main thought is: Shedrick could be our first NBA 5 in quite a while. Add some offense, big fella.
Forget this lineup stuff - Can we please run some pick n’ roll again? We were becoming a pick n roll team since 18-19 and then all of a sudden last year was like “Blocker-Mover Strikes Back.”
(since I’m already on record as a Jayden skeptic, that’s actually one of my bigger issues with him – he’s not a good roll man. If BVP can be a good roll man, I always supported the BVP acquisition)
It would be good to have pick and roll in the toolbox, but I do really hate what it does to off-ball movement. That’s a more stylistic preference rather than what I think is more or less effective. I do think you can have an elite offense without necessarily relying on pick and roll (e.g. Davidson), but it is a balance to negotiate spacing and off-ball movement, which can trade-off.
Personally like when a big steps out and guard hits him with the pass real quick then takes dribble hand off for faux screen. more continuous to borrow the phrase
That’s why I liked the continuity ball screen, but we seemed to scrap it in favor of the spread. Those who know more hoops than me can get into the whys and wherefores.
Also, this was my favorite Shed play of the year. It’s one of the only ones in his ACCDN highlight package that isn’t him dunking on a putback or finishing an oop.
Nice work! I’m way to lazy—or way to afraid of my wife—to put in the time to find similar plays from this past season. But I remember seeing a few drive and kicks followed by a pass to Shedrick slashing down the lane. Always wanted to see more of that.
Seems like we should have the shooting and spacing to create a lot more of this type of action. Like you, however, I’ll leave it to others who actually know this stuff to explain why I’m wrong.
Yeah, to dig up the old bones, we didn’t have the shooting so we didn’t have the spacing. So we relied on the B/M to create little tiny openings for Gardner and Franklin to work midrange magic. And we finely tuned our midrange magic offense so we were scoring in the 50s in regulation against NIT teams (and ACC teams in BK).
So the run it back proponents are basically saying let’s watch "Midrange Magic 2, with BVP playing the role of Kody Stattmann. And I’m like, remember perimeter shooting? That’s a fun way to score. And the answer is well we fixed Armaan so he’s now gonna shoot 38% or so. To which I say, sounds great!
I think you’re basically right, but I’m a bit more optimistic that we’ll see a lot more lineups this year with at least three shooters on the floor as the season progresses.
Going back to conversation sparked the graphic posted here by @JoeBoxley earlier, I think it is reasonable to expect lineups of:
Are we now brainwashed from the guard play on offense the last 3 years that we now think 38% from 3 for a 2 guard is great?
Tony’s offense at it’s core generates jump shots…. Lots of them… 38% should be 3rd or 4th best on a good team that has any March aspirations…
38% would have been 5th best on both of the 2016 and 2019 teams… that’s why those two teams went the farthest
), yes, I mean rotation 5.