Bar Fight wrote:He cannot **** around in the NBA Finals. We won't win if he doesn't bring it every night. Absolutely zero duds.
I just don't understand it. He makes the game so much harder on himself than it needs to be. Where the hell is the coaching?? These people have been in the game their whole lives and know infinitely more about basketball than I do. There are basic corrections that need to be made to his offensive game that frankly should have been done years ago.
1. Post-ups - I've been pushing for these FOREVER. Finally, this year he's incorporated them a little bit into his game. But it's still way too little. He is a very good back to the basket player. He doesn't take advantage of this nearly enough.
2. Cutting - where the hell is the off-ball movement. Every drive to the basket has to start with beating his man and then getting it over the rim protector. If he cut 5-10 times per game, he'd have his man already beat and usually the rim protection is late in rotation.
3. Transition play and speeding things up - he is a very good transition player (maybe not quite at Brown's level, but still elite). He doesn't take advantage of beating the defense down the court nearly enough. These are all free baskets at VERY high efficiency. Why aren't they more part of his game? Additionally, he needs to go right away when he receives the ball in the half-court set. Every second that he holds on to the ball makes it that much easier for the defense. If he starts early in the clock, the team will be able to run 3+ sets if the first or second one go nowhere. And he (and his teammates) will end up with a higher percentage shot.
4. Removing 3's and midrange off the dribble shots - he's simply not efficient enough at these. Some players rely on these types of shots for a substantial portion of their game. Tatum can't. He isn't consistent enough with them. Instead, he should get his 3's from catch and shoot opportunities from actions that he may well have initiated himself. Any off the dribble jumpshots should only come in end of clock situations.
5. Develop a stopping in the paint/just short of the basket move - Brown is the champion of these. Every Tatim drive to the basket always ends up in a lay-up or dunk attempt. This makes it so much easier for the rim protector to anticipate where the ball will go and therefore to contest Tatum's shot. If he stops short and pump fakes once, the defender will go flying by. He'll end up with an easy standing jump lay-in. This will also make his moves to the basket much more effective because the defender won't know which move he will attempt. Again, Brown does this consistently throughout every game.
These are some very basic concepts that are completely missing from Tatum's game. Many of them are the reasons why Brown's shooting percentages are so much higher than Tatum's these playoffs. Tatum had MUCH more talent than Brown. Brown at his best is a top 10-15 player in the league. Tatum at his best could be top 3. He just has to change his game. And the first step is coaching. I just don't understand why these principles haven't been hammered home by now. Bizarre.
