Memokerobi wrote:Now that the roster is done, I can say that I'm pretty **** excited to watch this team.
Me too!
Memokerobi wrote:-How will these lineups compare? Jrue-White-Jaylen-Tatum-Porz vs Jrue-White-Jaylen-Tatum-Horford. I think there is a good chance that the latter is a really good five and might close games in the playoffs
Hmmm, interesting. Maybe. But I feel like (especially with the way Brad, Mazzulla and company have talked about Porzingis) they really see him as a guy who can help fix the late game offensive execution issues we have had ever since the 2018 playoffs. They've talked about how Porzingis gives us this added dimension offensively, how he changes the geometry of the court, how he can shoot the 3 but also post up, can diversify our offense, create different looks to give a defense, exploit mismatches, etc.
Then you have Jrue, a PG who can be the one to settle us down, be the calm, cool collected guy running the offense, getting us into the right set, the guy who will go and get the ball if it's late in a close game and the possession starts breaking down.
I think they will both be in there late in games.
IMO, it comes down to whether it's white or Al in the game late. I think (at least in the playoffs) it will probably be Al, a lot of the times. Depends on who we're playing, but if we're facing the Bucks, we'll want Al defending Giannis, if we're facing the Sixers, we'll want Al defending Giannis. If we're facing Miami, we'll probably want Al defending Bam. If we're facing Denver, we'll probably want double bigs to match up with Jokic/Gordon. Plus, I saw a stat the other day that indicated Al has posted a crazy high shooting percentage during the clutch over the past few years.
Memokerobi wrote:-Can Pritchard and/or Hauser make the leap to be in the playoff rotation consistently? Can we scheme our defense so that we can survive with these guys out there in big games?
Yup, definitely a key question to watch out for.
Also, this leads to a point I was thinking of - can we play both Pritchard and Hauser at the same time? Think about it. 2 years ago, Hauser was in g league and pretty much never got any meaningful minutes. Last season, Hauser was in the regular rotation for the first couple of months, then he started to shoot cold to Pritchard got those minutes. Then Hauser was put back in the rotation and Pritchard was benched again (and asked for a trade).
We never really saw them both in the rotation at the same time. If we did, it was only a game or 2 here or there - it wasn't consistent (unless I'm remembering wrong). I feel like we had our top 7 guys..and then we had either Grant, Hauser or Pritchard as the 8th man and that's it. And early in the season when Rob was out, we had both Hauser and Grant in the rotation but not Pritchard.
There may have been some games here and there where Pritchard was in when 2 (or more) of our guards were out in the same game..and perhaps Hauser was also in the rotation. But I feel like a lot of those games (where Pritchard was playing because we had guards out) was when Hauser was benched during mid-season.
So the question is, given the limitations that both Hauser and Pritchard have defensively (and in terms of their athleticism) will we play them at the same time off the bench consistently this season? I think many people are penciling in Hauser as the 7th man and Pritchard as the 8th man. I'm not so sure Mazzulla will do that, given what I just mentioned.
I don't want to overthink it, but spit balling here..perhaps in the rotation we have 1 guy from the good shooter but questionable defense and might also be lacking in size/athleticism/strength/rebounding (Hauser, Pritchard, Svi) and we have 1 guy from the questionable shooting but good in other areas such as defense, strength, athleticism, size, playmaking, rebounding (Banton, Walsh, Brissett, Stevens).
So maybe 1 guy from the shooting bucket and 1 guy from the defense bucket. Those are your 7th and 8th man. Then whoever wins the battle for the 3rd big spot between Gabriel and Kornet (Queta as the darkhorse) is the 9th man. And that's it - those are your 9 rotation players. Everyone else can fight for minutes and get a shot at some minutes here or there as the season goes on and as additional depth is needed due to injury, guys resting, etc.
