Revived wrote:I disagree with this notion that Crowder should “keep shooting because his shots are all within the offense and he needs to keep shooting so he can find his shot again”.
Whenever Crowder shoots the ball, he shoots it as soon as the ball touches his hand without looking to see if there is another swing pass to be made or if a cutter came open. On one hand, it’s good that he’s decisive but on the other hand, it’s not good that he doesn’t even look to see if there is another pass to be made.
When role players are cold, their usually more hesitant to shoot and will look to pass more and look for easier shots closer to the rim like putbacks. If Steph Curry or Trae Young have a bad shooting game to start, sure their going to keep shooting it because they know their great enough shooters to probably find their shot eventually within the same game. But those are star players.
Crowder shoots without a conscience and again that’s a good and bad thing. Right now it’s extremely bad. He has Steph Curry confidence with Ayesha Curry’s jumper. Not a good combo.
There were at least two occasions in game 3 in the 4th QTR with game tied or Suns losing when CP3 dribbled up and saw Crowder wide open and then chose to not pass it to him and just keep dribbling instead. Because he knows Crowder will shoot if he has even tiny bit of space even if shot clock is at 20 seconds or something early. He also knows that it’s likely to be a miss. Then finally later in the qtr with a 2 possession lead, when all else failed and nothing was open and shot clock was running down, he passed to Crowder for that long 2 and he finally hit it.
Pelicans are starting to leave Crowder open and instead of just chucking away, he needs to set screens for others and force the switch so the space that the Pelicans are giving him will lead to an open jumper for the person he screens for.
Crowder has never in his Suns career started a game ice cold and then gone on to get scorching hot later on in the game. Never. If he starts 0-3 in the first QTR, it’s basically a guarantee that he’s gonna shoot like crap for the rest of the game as well. Crowder himself has to know this if he’s not stupid. And there’s one other person who also knows this…Willie Green. And if that’s the case, then why is Crowder continuing to shoot so quick without looking to pass even in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th qtrs?
I see a lot people defending Crowder here but these are the other points to consider.
So far in this series, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Crowder has been the Pelicans 3rd best player after Ingram and McCollum. Crowder has helped the Pelicans more than their prized rookie defender Herbert/Nance Jr/Val/Alvarado and anyone else. Every possession is valued even more in the playoffs and especially in a series like this one where it’s not just a back and forth fast paced high octane attack. And Crowder has wasted many of those possessions for us thus far. He’s due for a good game and might go 6-8 or something from 3 some game soon but that is going to lead to irrational confidence and have him shoot 1-12 in the very next game.
And I should add that he’s not helping us on rebounds much either. Last year’s playoffs he averaged 6 rebounds a game. So far in this series, he’s averaging 3 rebounds a game. He is averaging slightly less minutes this season than he is last season however he’s still averaging 30 mins a game in the playoffs. In the ‘18-19 season with Utah, he averaged just 26 mins a game and yet still averaged 6 rebounds a game. His rebounding percentage of 7.2% in the playoffs this season is a career worst mark for him in postseason.
So it’s not just his shooting that he’s worse than usual at, it’s his rebounding too.
Crowder started off last postseason 2-20 in his first 3 games and then missed his first couple in game 4, before turning around and finishing the last 3 games at 46% from 3.
Then in round 2 he was 55% from 3.
In round 3 he dropped to 34% and then went up to 41% in the finals.
He's averaged about 4 reb per game, but focused more on that the last two games with 10 total, but also has 5 ast, 3 steals and 3 blocks...along with a key charge taken and offensive board/putback in the last game.
Cam for example may have shot 33% from 3 but has averaged 2 reb per game and 0 ast, 0 blk, .7 stl, etc, so hasn't done much else besides hit an ok amount from 3 on fairly low attempts.
I don't like Crowder taking quite as many shots, but when they pass to him and he's wide open, he's supposed to shoot it. That's his role, for better or worse and we know he's streaky and cam alive big time the last half of the first round last year and the 2nd round. Even his 3rd round wasn't bad and the finals solid.
The previous year he shot like 44% overall from 3 in the playoffs.
Even with the terrible start last year he finished 37% in the playoffs or 43% after the bad start. 37% is good enough overall but 43% is elite...Cam Johnson regular season territory before he got injured.
