enigmatics wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:No, not at all. He didn't match up with Lebron but Lebron looked to ISO Ayton whenever there was an opportunity to. As for Giannis, it was a team effort to try and stop him and even though Ayton was the primary defender on him, he did an admirable job on a guy that gets to the line with ease.
When defended by Ayton in the playoffs
Giannis: 30 for 62 - 48.4%
Jokic: 24 for 59 - 40.7%
Lebron: 8 for 25 - 32%
Toe to toe when he had to defend 5 of the last 10 MVPs and held his own for the vast majority of the time.
Your take is counterintuitive. If he went toe-to-toe with Giannis, they wouldn't have needed a "team" effort (nor would he have had a near historical finals performance). LBJ had a 114 shot attempts in that series and literally the primary scorer when AD was out. Why wasn't DA matched up with him more? Jokic I'll grant you - he clearly was frustrated in that series to the point he boiled over into an ejection.
He went toe to toe with Giannis when Giannis attacked him as the primary defender and mostly held his own. Nobody LOCKS down MVP level players lol I shouldn't need to say that. But when you're the primary defender, your job is to do the best you can to limit (keyword:
limit, not stop) your assignment and looking at the statistics, he mostly held his own. Other defenders who's primary assignment when they were on the floor was Giannis were Blake and Capela. Giannis was 47 for 84 (56%) against Blake and 14/34 (50%) against Capela. Oh Crowder also spent some time on Giannis when Ayton was off and Giannis went 15 for 21 (71%). Bam played him well with Giannis only shooting 4 for 15 (27%) against him. Switches happen often so just because you're the primary defender, doesn't mean you're going to defend 100% of their shots or are 100% responsible for one player's historical performances. My stats show when it was just Ayton vs Giannis, Giannis went 30 for 62.
When it comes to Lebron, Ayton wasn't the primary defender on him. It was mostly Bridges and Crowder. Against Bridges, Lebron was an excellent 13 for 22 (59%) and against Crowder, he was a poor 10 for 28 (35%). Lebron go to the switch on Ayton a number of times and Ayton was also the last line of defense near the rim when Lebron got past his defender. Against Ayton when he was defending Lebron? 8 for 25.
Your question around defensive game plans, why wasn't he matched up with Lebron more? Why does it take a team to stop Giannis (???)....I mean #1 that's a coaching decision and #2 I've said it before, it takes a team defensive effort to limit MVP level players.