PG Raps - Dame + Malik = WIN

[pifhluk23]

I think last night proved that one of the young energy guys has to be in the starting lineup if only to just get the old guys moving initially. Energy is contagious.

[randy84]

The truth is NIETHER Dame and Giannis need to reinvent themselves.

BOTH simply need to tweak their games and gain more chemistry to have a better feel for when to take the lead from the other

The idea that either guy needs to reinvent themselves is simply limiting one and missing the point of pairing them together

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This. Shots were made tonight and missed other nights. The level of play offensively didn't change.

The ball movement tonight was insane compared to anything we’ve seen recently, all because Dame dominated the ball. What were you watching?

The funny thing is that the new guys and young guys seem to move the ball a lot better than the old guys. When Giannis, Mids, or Brook get the ball 9 times out of 10 they are shooting. I don't know if this is a by-product of let it fly, but those guys seem to try to get their shots first and pass second. They don't really set things up for other players.

[PG Graveyard]

I’m guessing Dame saw Kendrick Perkins top 5 eastern conference guards yesterday. It was locked in and going downhill whenever he wanted to

[chonestown]

Almost as if a guy who can blow up for 30 would have value on a roster. Imagine that.

This is a comment about Dame fwiw.

[MissKhriddleton]

Giannis will never play like Shaq, and it would waste a lot of his talent if he tried. I think the key is to always immediately put him into an action getting him going downhill as a roller or driver. Never, EVER, allow him to ISO except in the post. Keep the ball moving.

Yeah the blueprint isn’t Shaq, it’s prime Amare Stoudemire. He’d score 25 on 80% shooting if all he did was concentrate on rolling, cutting, and offensive rebounding.

[tedbrogen]

I think last night proved that one of the young energy guys has to be in the starting lineup if only to just get the old guys moving initially. Energy is contagious.

I did like the attempt to mostly have one or two energy guys (AJJ, Marjon, Portis, TA) on the court at all times.

It’s why so many of us hate starting Beas, it’s a complete no energy guy lineup.

[Turk Nowitzki]

Beasley was smoking hot..if he can somehow be consistent he can stay

He can't, but games like last night are why these guys stay in the NBA.

[jute2003]

The truth is NIETHER Dame and Giannis need to reinvent themselves.

BOTH simply need to tweak their games and gain more chemistry to have a better feel for when to take the lead from the other

The idea that either guy needs to reinvent themselves is simply limiting one and missing the point of pairing them together

Respectively disagree. The point of pairing them wasn’t to have Giannis bring the ball up, go 1-4 into the wall, and shoot 3’s. He’s got to end that.

I mean if it's one on 4 Dame should be pretty damn open for a 3 pointer.

Limiting either is dumb. Let them build chemistry and open up the court for each other.

Trying to turn Dame into something he's not (like a Nash just setting people up) is dumb and its dumb to do the same to Giannis.

Each has strengths. They both need to tweak their games to play off each other. This idea of whole sale changes to eithers game completely misses the point.

Tweak. Not completely change

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Giannis hasn't been finding any of the open guys when he does his head down bulldozer drives. That is the problem. The amount of attention he draws is next level but forcing shots, slamming into defenders, and getting confused into traveling are the reasons why the other team are willing to give him that attention.

Dame being one of the teammates standing wide open on the perimeter makes it that much worse.

[skones]

Beasley was smoking hot..if he can somehow be consistent he can stay

He can't, but games like last night are why these guys stay in the NBA.

Also happens to be around that age where it clicks for a few of these negative impact gunners and they become coveted 6th men. Obviously that's an ideal outcome and a stretch, but who knows.

[sidney lanier]

Watching the Griffin postgame presser, I see a guy who is self-aware, not afraid to admit that he himself is "a work in progress," and who has a profound knowledge of the NBA game.

I like him.

To the posters who wanted to switch:
I think Griffin is finding his niche
His rotations and schemes
May not give you wet dreams
But a coach hook should not be fast-twitch

[FrieAaron]

Beas has been playing hard and can shoot. He's just not a starter for this team.

[greekbuck34]

Respectively disagree. The point of pairing them wasn’t to have Giannis bring the ball up, go 1-4 into the wall, and shoot 3’s. He’s got to end that.

I mean if it's one on 4 Dame should be pretty damn open for a 3 pointer.

Limiting either is dumb. Let them build chemistry and open up the court for each other.

Trying to turn Dame into something he's not (like a Nash just setting people up) is dumb and its dumb to do the same to Giannis.

Each has strengths. They both need to tweak their games to play off each other. This idea of whole sale changes to eithers game completely misses the point.

Tweak. Not completely change

Sent from my SM-G975U using RealGM mobile app

Giannis hasn't been finding any of the open guys when he does his head down bulldozer drives. That is the problem. The amount of attention he draws is next level but forcing shots, slamming into defenders, and getting confused into traveling are the reasons why the other team are willing to give him that attention.

Dame being one of the teammates standing wide open on the perimeter makes it that much worse.

The reason he gets this attention is not because he is not finding the open guys but mainly because even with the wall of defenders he is still close or above 60% on his field goals after a drive specifically even in the playoffs. He had 64 FG% on average 13 drives per game in our championship run. Only the best possible defenses like the championship Raptors, the 2021-22 Celtics and the Heat can actually drop his percentage to the mid 50s.

So what do you do when you don't have Beasley having a career night or the Bucks hitting +20 3s in a night? What do you do when you brick 5-7 open 3s in a row? What do you do when the team averages 28% 3p shooting in an entire series like the Celtics two years ago. Do you still continue to shoot 3s and pray or let Giannis attack the wall for a 55-64% shot opportunity.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Giannis will never play like Shaq, and it would waste a lot of his talent if he tried. I think the key is to always immediately put him into an action getting him going downhill as a roller or driver. Never, EVER, allow him to ISO except in the post. Keep the ball moving.

I think there is a lot of all or nothing here. How many times in the fourth have we seen Giannis just too exhausted to function? Have him play a DAJordan/Shaq role for 15 minutes while dame does his thing. He still have 20 minutes where he is being Giannis but is either more rested or can spend his energy on defense

[tedbrogen]

Respectively disagree. The point of pairing them wasn’t to have Giannis bring the ball up, go 1-4 into the wall, and shoot 3’s. He’s got to end that.

I mean if it's one on 4 Dame should be pretty damn open for a 3 pointer.

Limiting either is dumb. Let them build chemistry and open up the court for each other.

Trying to turn Dame into something he's not (like a Nash just setting people up) is dumb and its dumb to do the same to Giannis.

Each has strengths. They both need to tweak their games to play off each other. This idea of whole sale changes to eithers game completely misses the point.

Tweak. Not completely change

Sent from my SM-G975U using RealGM mobile app

Giannis hasn't been finding any of the open guys when he does his head down bulldozer drives. That is the problem. The amount of attention he draws is next level but forcing shots, slamming into defenders, and getting confused into traveling are the reasons why the other team are willing to give him that attention.

Dame being one of the teammates standing wide open on the perimeter makes it that much worse.

Some of this is because Giannis doesn’t have great vision. This is why Bud having people in blue boxes was perfect to maximize Giannis driving from the top. He always knew where his teammates would be so he could throw passes to spots rather than needing to actually see teammates. (Remember when Giannis hit Harden in the head with a pass? That’s because Giannis saw help coming on a post up and assumed the corner where he knew someone would be standing would be the open spot on the D rotations, Harden was standing in the way because he is lazy and didn’t rotate with the rest of the D)

This is also why when they run PnR with Dame/Giannis, they need to at least have a shooter in each corner instead of doing crazy off ball cuts with everyone, because if Dame kicks to Giannis which will happen a lot as teams will blitz Dame to try and blow up the play, Giannis needs to have a couple outlets that he can trust will be there. And they need to stay in those spots. I’ve noticed AG likes to have corner shooters slide out of the deep corner towards the break when someone dribbles to the baseline on their side (or at least Beasley repeatedly has done that). You can’t do that with Giannis because he needs to know exactly where those guys will always be. He doesn’t have the vision to see that they moved.

[tedbrogen]

Beasley was smoking hot..if he can somehow be consistent he can stay

He can't, but games like last night are why these guys stay in the NBA.

Also happens to be around that age where it clicks for a few of these negative impact gunners and they become coveted 6th men. Obviously that's an ideal outcome and a stretch, but who knows.

If it truly clicked, he would go to AG and say “I should come if the bench where my volume scoring would be better utilized”. Really the head coach should realize that first, but…

[JimmyTheKid]

First really fun watch of the season. Helps when that ball is moving on offense and guys are knocking down open shots. AG's lineups seemed to make sense for most of the game. He had a good mix of plus defenders, athletes, shot makers, and creators on the floor at the same time. Except for Thanasis getting the early call. This should obviously go without saying but he should not be seeing anything other than late 4th quarter mop up minutes. Probably best to learn about the combinations that legitimately have a chance to be on the court together if a couple guys go down with injury. I don't know what that was all about.

[tedbrogen]

Watching the Griffin postgame presser, I see a guy who is self-aware, not afraid to admit that he himself is "a work in progress," and who has a profound knowledge of the NBA game.

I like him.

To the posters who wanted to switch:
I think Griffin is finding his niche
His rotations and schemes
May not give you wet dreams
But a coach hook should not be fast-twitch

Can he adjust to fix the defensive rebounding issue he creating? Or the transition D issue he created?

[tedbrogen]

I mean if it's one on 4 Dame should be pretty damn open for a 3 pointer.

Limiting either is dumb. Let them build chemistry and open up the court for each other.

Trying to turn Dame into something he's not (like a Nash just setting people up) is dumb and its dumb to do the same to Giannis.

Each has strengths. They both need to tweak their games to play off each other. This idea of whole sale changes to eithers game completely misses the point.

Tweak. Not completely change

Sent from my SM-G975U using RealGM mobile app

Giannis hasn't been finding any of the open guys when he does his head down bulldozer drives. That is the problem. The amount of attention he draws is next level but forcing shots, slamming into defenders, and getting confused into traveling are the reasons why the other team are willing to give him that attention.

Dame being one of the teammates standing wide open on the perimeter makes it that much worse.

The reason he gets this attention is not because he is not finding the open guys but mainly because even with the wall of defenders he is still close or above 60% on his field goals after a drive specifically even in the playoffs. He had 64 FG% on average 13 drives per game in our championship run. Only the best possible defenses like the championship Raptors, the 2021-22 Celtics and the Heat can actually drop his percentage to the mid 50s.

So what do you do when you don't have Beasley having a career night or the Bucks hitting +20 3s in a night? What do you do when you brick 5-7 open 3s in a row? What do you do when the team averages 28% 3p shooting in an entire series like the Celtics two years ago. Do you still continue to shoot 3s and pray or let Giannis attack the wall for a 55-64% shot opportunity.

Well now, I would argue you let Dame takeover and be a foul merchant to get easy points. Or ISO Midds. The 2022 Celtics didn’t have to deal with either of those. They just needed to close out on Grayson and let Jrue shoot at will.

[Shaffty]

You know who disagrees with you about the way Dame and Giannis should play?

Dame.

[MikeIsGood]

I've read "if Beasley can stay hot" a few times.

And guys, he is hot. Even absent last night, he's shooting above 47/41 on the season - and it jumped to 49/46 after last night. He's been a 39/36 shooter for a couple years, so he already has been hot, even when you didn't like him (me either).

I think the hope is that this is indeed the guy we get, even when he isn't going for 30 - we just need it to be off the bench instead of starting.