3toheadmelo wrote:spree8 wrote:3toheadmelo wrote:The issues with our players have been going on since before Thibs has even coached them as I said in another post though. Blaming Thibs for that doesn’t really make much sense.
And again I agree Thibs overplays his guys sometimes and could get more creative with his offense. But ultimately I care about the wins. I don’t really see anything changing even with the adjustments you want him to do. Those are just very minor adjustments at the end of the day. At the end of the day he got KAT to be an all star starter for the first time… hart and OG are having career seasons. Hes done a lot to get guys to play better.
Sure Tom is good at getting guys to play harder and gives them free reign to go out and get buckets which is why KAT n Jalen got their starting All Star nods, but how does that translate to winning playoff basketball?
It also leaves guys like Mikal just standing in the corner and KAT (despite having an All Star starter year) not being used to his max ability… mainly 3pt shot attempts, types of looks (doesn’t come off screens much), playing in drop coverage, posting up 100 ft out, etc. Jalen n KAT aren’t really a dynamic duo either… I expected more in the way of them playing off one another. Not Joker-Jamal level, but better than this.
I haven’t mentioned anything specifically in this convo adjustments wise yet besides minutes and rotation. The schemes and actions mentioned throughout the year that he hasn’t tried are significant.
Like what I mentioned above about KAT and Mikal plus a lack of p&r with those two. With Brunson out Mikal has looked better with more opportunities to handle the rock. Thibs needs to find a way to get these guys to play better when they’re all together. Also needs to get them to shoot more from 3. Not to mention putting better lineups out there that complement each other/staggering correctly.
Defensively, it’s been beaten to death how a switch heavy defense would benefit this team and limit getting killed by the 3 like we do. Also playing zone at times with a double big lineup (KAT n Mitch) would be nice like Houston does. With a lack of wings on the team, try bringing Hart off the bench. Mikal out of position at POA, start Deuce. These things aren’t trivial.
Switching heavy defense doesn’t work with KAT unless you have a DPOY C next to him which we don’t have. And even then, KAT is pretty ass at switching which resulted him in getting benched tons of times in the playoffs for Naz Reid. The rockets have actually benched Sengun a bunch of times as well in the 4th quarter for that same reason (although he’s a much better defender than KAT).
Mikal is only looking good because we’re going against trash teams, not because Brunson is out. Watch him stink it up tonight against the Cavs.
You need to watch tape on KAT from recent seasons because he’s scoring the same way he has when he was Minny. His bag is simple, he just jacks up 3s or does straight line drives into traffic looking for a foul. Been like that for years. That’s not a Thibs problem.
I dunno man, it seems your hate for KAT n Mikal is too strong to overcome lol.
I don’t get why you would tell me to watch more tape on KAT to see something that just isn’t true?
His 3pt attempts are the lowest they’ve been in his career… they’re at the bottom along with the other years he’s played under Thibs.
His frequency of shots off screens are also less than half of what they’ve been in Minny years prior. The guy has been between 75th-90th percentile off screens. I’m not saying it should be as much as Markkanen, but a lot more than he is.
We’ve kinda gone as far as we can with the Towns switch defense because nobody is budging. The footage has been posted often. I’ve also mentioned a few times the cases you pointed to where guys like Tatum got the better of him and it was because he was either in drop or out of position fighting thru screens and had to recover at a disadvantage. I also broke down the very play Finch benched him for in the video Gravy posted the other day, showing how it was really on Rudy not KAT. We’ve seen him handle his own against wings and pg’s on the perimeter this season enough to know he can do it.
Every defender gets beat on occasion, but I’d rather live with that than watch him in drop getting 3’s hit on him because he’s 5ft from the shooter.
The whole team only looks good against trash-average teams. We can’t beat elite teams and everyone looks bad in those 30+ point losses, so what’s that really prove about Mikal?
RIP mags