MyUniBroDavis wrote:ShotCreator wrote:...I don't understand your motivation to even try to be involved in this discussion if you: 1.) don't even fully understand what I'm trying to convey or what I actually believe from your very first response to me, and 2.) are just this....pitifully wrong about even the little you tried to contribute the discussion here.
Slashers? What are you on about? How many slashers has Jokic ever even faced? It's a league of guys who design their entire games on pull-up shooting and everything the comes before and after a pull-up jumper, or a hesitation to look to pull up.
Booker, Paul -- you know the series where a 36 year old Paul did 25/10 to the tune of 74 TS%, Lillard, Curry, Edwards all primarily pull up shooters with just different approaches to getting the shots and leveraging defensive attention.
You know who weren't pull up shooters on this caliber and would prefer to slash? Butler and LeBron, the least impressive outputs of anyone Jokic faced.
I never would've implied something as dumb as Jokic struggles with slashers, I never thought that. He struggles in space where he has to pick up a ballhandler on the level of Lillard or Edwards 30 feet out. Any scheme trying to hide him from that scenario will allow the absolute ridiculous onslaught that his team has faced in a very outlierish fashion. I just remembered the insanity of Donovan Mitchell's series against him too. Probably the strongest slasher but still relied on over a dozen 3p attempts a game against Denver in the playoffs.
I'm not into this dumb idea of everything being a 1 on 1 scenario. It's the schemes.
Let's just stop here, I don't want to see another disgusting interpretation of what you think is a an opportunity to make a point. I know you don't agree with the rest of my post but it's funny how that goes hand in hand with your inability to understand it as well.
Lmfao I hate it when people talk about things they don’t know about. I appreciate you at least try to watch games but don’t speak on stuff you don’t know
First of all, I think it’s fair to say Jokic was genuinely an awful defender in 2021, and over the past 2 years is where the question is how that’s improved or not.
Let’s be clear, you don’t understand basketball scheme lol.
Any scheme that attempts to hide him? Are you talking about literally EVERYTHING THAT ISNT A SWITCH!?
You’re literally talking about screen coverages lol. This is what I hate about people on here some times. Using buzz words they don’t understand. Aggressive screen coverages and if they pretotate or not lmao. Those are the relevant actions here, don’t hide under a general term if you don’t know what you’re talking about
Now if you wanna say every aggressive screen coverage is doomed to fail no matter what, well, that’s really stupid lol. If you wanna say something along the lines of Jokic cant execute aggressive screen coverages well because of his lateral quickness, while that technically goes against data where he ranks very well in that regard. Also, you know how you beat aggressive screen coverages, as a ball handlers? You turn the corner or split the D lol. So you slash.
There are ways to attack them as a team but if you are genuinely saying that aggressive screen coverages are basically inherently bad (hopefully you don’t think this is only trapping but you might unfortunately) then you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Went through the Booker games real quick, so maybe I missed some but I think I counted 2 possessions where Jokic was involved in a Booker three lol.
I went through the ant games, a few more but still not nearly as much as you make it out to be… also they were fully in drop for a few of the ganes, because, you know,
ITS ANTHONY EDWARDS!??? Jokic was not constantly picking up ant 30 feet out.
How many times they drove through aggressive screen coverages or even just past him in drop? Ant, it was pretty noticeable, Booker, it wasn’t really Jokic’s fault at all honestly, happened a few times but nothing really crazy at all.
Also, you’re talking about, Lebron who has one partially torn foot and another bad one that couldn’t score on anyone this past postseason, and Jimmy with a bum ankle who struggled against jokic’s size? Who drove 2 more times per game than Ant?
Lebron who went from averaging 23-10-5, in the first two rounds, to 28-10-10 vs the Nuggets, and who had 31 at the half of game 4 before his foot gave out?
If you genuinely think it’s impossible to guard guys with strong pullup games without switching you know nothing about how basketball works. Jokic was not constantly picking up ANT and Booker 30 feet out, and we’re talking about this run now that he has actual human beings around him on defense instead of an assortment of traffick cones
Jokic isn’t as good at aggressive screen coverages as the data probably says. He’s good positionally and has good hands, but some of the more athletic guys can turn the corner.
Lillard is absolutely an athletic slasher lol. Yes, he’s one of the greatest shooters of all time, but an athletic slasher. Wasn’t he literally in the dunk contest lmfao. He’s gotten incredibly good at attacking aggressive screen coverages after the bubble where he got messed up by that and nurkic being poor on the short roll
Anthony edwards is like one of the most athletic players in the nba
What Jokic is good at, is he has good hands, has great positioning especially when prerotating, and is big as hell
Against a guy like Jimmy, especially a Jimmy with no lift, that works pretty well since he’s not finishing over you or blitzing past you.
But some guys he’s just not physically capable of contesting at the rim effectively even he’s at the right spot
The idea that Jokic is some absurd liability because he cannot check the premier guards in the nba 30 feet out is idiotic because literally even the goddamn Lakers with AD ran a high drop vs Curry lol.
I think there are issues with him defensively but the can’t defend in space issue is applicable with aggressive screen coverages against guys who can slash from that lol. There’s a reason he’s generally one of the higher ranked bigs in mobile coverages this year, he has attributed to do so but lacks the quickness against specific matchups
notice how you took out “athletic”, you’ve never seen Ant do anything in your life you just saw his pullup frequency without realizing this dude is one of the most athletic guys in the nba, and with Booker you clearly didn’t see the game if you’re creating a narrative that Booker was getting picked up from 30 feet out. If you wanna argue the aggressive screen coverages didn’t work, although for the most part their defense with Jokic on the floor was fine iirc, that’s fine, but that’s not on him and thinking aggressive screen coverages don’t work mean you don’t know how basketball works
You’re just spewing narrative pretending to have watched the games lmao. A quick look through on YouTube shows it pretty definitively. Anyone who reads through this, check those games out and see how utterly ridiculous the idea that Jokic was constantly picking up Booker 30 feet out is
Or even more so, that he was doing that to edwards even though bro was literally in drop for the first few games. Did Edwards even hit a 30 footer this year? (Edit yes! He hit 1).
I don’t mind when people are ignorant about the schematic aspects about basketball, I don’t claim to know everything about it, and I respect the people who try to watch and understand it, but the people who talk about just literally always know absolutely nothing while acting like they know something lol. It’s absurd
Don’t say scheme, not use random buzzwords because you don’t know the specifics of what a defensive scheme is, obviously it’s deeper than the type of help and the type of coverages but that absolutely does entail what you’re talking about for the most part. Be specific if you want to be taken seriously.
If the argument was, Jokic struggles against some ball handlers when partaking in aggressive screen coverages because lacking lateral quickness means he is more susceptible to turning the corner or splitting the screen, that’s fine, I agree that’s his biggest weakness, and you would have a point
But,
1. this doesn’t apply to all ball handlers
2. These players are still good at lashing
3. Jokic is not picking these people up 30 feet out, Booker and Ant, the relevant examples this year
4. Aggressive screen coverages aren’t inherently bad it’s about your personell
5. Absolutely is not what you were saying
It’s absurd how many people act high and mighty and just spout absolute nonsense lol, most people are nice about it but you acting all condescending doesnt work if you don’t know what you’re talking about
He struggles in space where he has to pick up a ballhandler on the level of Lillard or Edwards 30 feet out Any scheme trying to hide him from that scenario will allow the absolute ridiculous onslaught that his team has faced in a very outlierish fashion..
You know how ridiculous of a quote this is?
It’s not that the conclusion is wrong, Jokic does have limitations and was really bad defensively in those series. I also do think that Ant did kind of kill him, and there are certain really tough matchups for him.
HOWEVER, the implication here is Jokic is bad because he can’t pick guys up 30 feet out… you know how absurd that is? What kind of baseline for a defensive big is “can guard Anthony edwards 30 feet from the basket” lmfao. AD couldn’t guard Ant 30 feet from the basket lol. Hell I don’t think jrue could either. Not to mention this isn’t even a thing because bigs don’t step up to guard Ant 30 feet from the basket and if they do it’s dumb lol.
Genuinely, anyone watch film of Ant and Booker and say “darn! Jokic really couldn’t stop these guys from taking threes!” It’s ridiculous.
“Your inability to understand it well” FOH with that condescending nonsense when ur out here saying Jokic HAD TO pick up Ant 30 feet out lmfao. Nearly as dead of a take as the mike conley one lol