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It was a HUGE stop to be fair to Lonzo. Big 3 pt shot too. One of he or Bledsoe still needed to be gone yesterday.
And tbc, Im happy that we got the win, of course (and lol at me being depressing) but we should have won comfortably, and we didn't. For a variety of reasons (coaching, stagnant offense, lackluster effort defensively late) I'm not going to just cheer unilaterally about a win that we honestly didn't deserve. If that makes me depressing, so be it.
Meanwhile
Free me
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) February 6, 2021
the first pacers game broke our confidence in that loss....maybe this win will build us up and teach us how to win and we go on a win streak.....
BI and Lonzo won this game. Yes Lonzo. Raise that trade value LOL.
And that Pacer 3 point onslaught was the sickest I've ever seen. These people literally couldn't miss.
Pelicans have got to find a counter to these miniature poodle lineups these teams keep throwing at them.
If my math is correct Zion only had 3 field goal attempts in the 2nd half. That madness has to stop.
Lonzo's defense was really, really good in this game. And he really only had one or two real bonehead plays during the game. (And one of those bonehead plays believe it or not was passing up an open three point shot).
I don't know if I'd go that far. Personally I was pretty happy with the way we played especially defensively. I mean the one thing we have to figure out, is how to punish teams when they decide to have a guard on Zion. I agree we didn't do a good job of exploiting that at all. Part of the problem is that Zion is creating matchup problems with bigs by basically playing offensively as a guard. Granted a very, very big strong guard but as a guard nonetheless. But his offense doesn't change when a smaller guy is on him, and he's having trouble driving to the basket when a smaller quicker guy is on him. There are times Zion needs to be a little more patient and back the dude down and dunk him into the basket.
Not worried about it. Zion will receive new and interesting coverages through the year. We'll adjust. The guards will have to do a better job of getting Williamson the ball closer to the basket when teams decide to play him with a smaller guy. If they get him the ball low enough in the post over a shorter guy, it's an easy layup. SVG has to address this for tomorrow when Zion will probably see Brandon Clarke on him.
Just woke up and checked the box score. Obviously need to watch the game in full, and I will, but just from the box score it looks like Lonzo had his best two game streak. Seems like a good night for him.
Twitter seems quite positive aboute the overall defensive performance and also Zion in specific, so I look forward.to finding out if I agree.
Basketball.
I missed the game cause of work. How was Zion on defense?
Okay so, my initial post-game thoughts after finishing up the game:
- We desperately need to run more point-Zion, especially early in the game. It opens up so much for the team when he's getting that defensive attention on ball, and they often start with guarding him with bigs that simply can't guard him. Make them treat him like a ballhandler and see how that opens up your guards and wing players.
- Zion with a drive and finish using his right hand early, nice to see after that right hand hammer last game. Diversifying the finish is always good.
- Zion's passing has really taken off recently. Great drive spin and skip over the defense early. Lonzo had a nice early bounce pass into Zion on the roll to start that off, which was nice to see him hitting early when the window was still big.
- Redick going 3/3 from deep after going 2/5 from deep last game is encouraging. If his shot can come back to him, he helps this offense a lot.
- Kind of unnoticed by the stat sheet but Lonzo was following up a lot of moves to the basket tonight as if he was going after the board. Kind of odd in our setup when we're playing Zion and Adams together and the paint is already busy but I like the idea.
- 3 FGAs in the entire second half for Zion is frankly just not good enough. This team has a legit problem with this. He'll get 6 or 7 quick shots in succession and then not touch the ball for 4.5 minutes of in-game time. It's infuriating, and it also lets the other team off easy. Part of it is a technique issue, where guys just can't get the ball to him, but sometimes it looks like they don't even consider it and that's alarming.
- Obviously Lonzo hit some big shots late, and while I do appreciate those shots they're not a real focus to me - shots sometimes go, sometimes they don't, I'm glad that they went this time but they themselves aren't the focus for me. I'm much more happy to see Lonzo back to playing legit quality defense for the entire game. He did this at times last year, and did it occasionally this year so far but was inconsistent. Seeing it show up for his entire game tonight is huge for his on-court play; even when he was having trouble scoring early, he was still justifying his presence on the floor with the D.
- Bledsoe was just pants, man. Just really not good.
- Really nice balanced offense from Ingram tonight. He drove a few times to the rim, particularly off the catch, which I liked seeing from him. The defense wasn't as good for him tonight as it was last game, but it was still not terrible.
- Adams had 12 boards tonight: he has now had 12 boards in 4 of his last 5 games.
Just my initial thoughts and comments. Good game, sucks to see it so close at the end but Indiana is a good team and they shot the hell out of the ball at one point so I can't complain too much.
Dont look now, but the Pels are 9-12 and have won 4 of their last 6. Memphis incoming.
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