PG (vs. Bos): Anybody have the number to Dominos Pizza?

[ForeverTFC]

and who plays PoA defense with IQ/Gradey? Let's say Ochai or Mitchell defends the opposing PG.

Now your undersized at both SG/SF with IQ and Gradey, who are already weak at their respective positions, nevermind moving them up a notch. You want IQ guarding SG's and Gradey guarding SF's? Is that really a recipe for success?

Or do you think IQ will do a good enough job at PoA defense and we'll just ride with both IQ and Gradey guarding dribble drive penetration paired with a large defensive SF to guard wings?

Which one of IQ/Gradey can provide defensive value to the level of what RJ provided against Brown yesterday?

Teams don't really defend like that. You can mostly hide 1 guy and generally 2 in the regular season if 1 of them is a good team defender. IQ qualifies as the latter. Can he be paired with either on a championship team? Probably not. But it can work at a high level.

Add a POA defender along IQ and Dick and you have something. Hide Dick, move IQ on to the spot up back court player. RJ is a better defender than Gradey today, but his fit on offense with a Barnes/IQ pairing is abysmal. I really see no path for RJ if IQ/Barnes is the pairing going forward, and IQ/Barnes is the highest ceiling pairing we have.

Hide Dick AND move IQ to the spot up back court player? So basically hide both?

RJ's fit with Barnes seems fine to me. They've been competitive throughout the year with RJ and fans started getting antsy around the time Olynyk/IQ came back.

IQ's a weak defender who seems to be having trouble consistently hitting his floaters as a starter..has trouble getting to the basket, not much of a mid-range game either. Outside of 3 point shooting,I'm having trouble identifying one thing that IQ does that's above average for a starting PG. Doesn't sound like a recipe that screams high ceiling. Not only that, putting IQ on ball seems to take away from one of Scottie's strengths. Scottie's assist numbers dropped below 5 APG when IQ back.

No. Like I said, IQ is a good team defender and has long arms to get into passing lanes. You don't need to hide him, you just need to move him off the main ball-handler. For reference, IQ is a much better off-ball defender than Barrett.

And RJ's fit with Scottie may be fine (though not ideal given neither can hit a pull up 3). The issue arises when it's all 3 of them. The NBA is a lot of 2-man games, which means one of them needs to space. So not only does it mess up the offense to have 3 non-shooters on the court (+ Poeltl/the average C), one of our 3 scoring options is redundant and doing little outside some cuts when IQ is involved in the action.

Finally, if you think all IQ can do is shoot the 3, not sure what to tell you. First, he's the only real pull-up threat on the roster. Second, he is the only player on the roster that can bend defenses and force rotations. And finally, he has the ability to play both on and off ball, which is more rare for starting back-court players than you would think.

And perhaps most important in all of this is that the only major limitation IQ puts on your roster building is that he needs to have a strong POA defender beside him in the back-court. RJ puts a bigger hole in your defense because he's below average in all facets of defense, and he limits the roster further on the offensive side because he can't shoot and is not a particularly good passer (even though his assist numbers look good in the box score on the Raptors). Scottie needs as many shooters as possible around him. we don't need to make it even more difficult by pairing him with another guy that has the same need.

[RoteSchroder]

No. Like I said, IQ is a good team defender and has long arms to get into passing lanes. You don't need to hide him, you just need to move him off the main ball-handler. For reference, IQ is a much better off-ball defender than Barrett.

You got any proof of this great off-ball defense? Is there a specific stat or some gametape?

Also, many teams have more than one on-ball threat from 1-3.

Finally, if you think all IQ can do is shoot the 3, not sure what to tell you. First, he's the only real pull-up threat on the roster. Second, he is the only player on the roster that can bend defenses and force rotations. And finally, he has the ability to play both on and off ball, which is more rare for starting back-court players than you would think.

being a pull-up threat from 3 is still outside the 3 point line

Sounds more like RJ in terms of bending defenses..he's a much bigger threat at the rim, whereas IQ has trouble getting there.

IQ averages 3 attempts at the rim per game at 48.1%. RJ averages 8.5 attempts at the rim at 57.8%. Not even close. Both aren't great at the mid-range, although RJ is still much better there (over 10% better). Same thing last year..I mean based on their games alone, we can see that RJ's a much much much bigger driving threat. Not sure why teams would be more scared of IQ's drives.

But I'll repeat the question, what does he do that's above average for a starting PG inside the 3 point line? Also, can you name all the lead guards of every team that can't play both on/off-ball in the league? I know you're having trouble with the first Q, but you can answer one of them first if you like.

[Tripod]

Maybe we just worry about these things once we actually have guys BETTER than what we currently have.

This year....who cares because the wins are not the main goals. So keep throwing things in the blender, get info on what works and what doesn't.

[HiJiNX]

If Barnes can do this consistently then he’s an all nba player. It’s in him. He just has to bring it consistently.

I don't know that I'd go quite that far. He had a great 4th quarter but that was still 18 points on like 53% TS, blowing from 3 even on the wide open shots, not drawing fouls (and split his only pair) and being a no-show as a scorer in the 1st; the 3rd Q I get, the rest of the team was clicking really well. Still, he scored fully half of his end-game total points in the 4th, in a game where we were -4, +6 and +4 prior to that quarter. And then Boston laid a 15-point egg in the 4th, helping us get away with it.

"All-NBA" off of this performance seems a little bit aggressive to me for one quarter's worth of particularly interesting play, although obviously there are a bunch of positives to take away.

Jrue, Derrick White, Horford and Hauser combining to go 4/23 from 3pt range was a big deal for us, and in general Boston shooting 6/20 during the 4th quarter seemed to be the narrative-changer on this one.

That said, the passing looked good. Mostly pretty basic, but a couple slick passes to Poeltl were particularly nice (especially that behind the back bounce in the 3rd), and that toss to Barrett. Threw a bullet to Ochai that would have been nice if he'd caught it, and in general was moving the ball well all night long. Couple of nice blocks. Scoring-wise, he had a nice bump-and-fade on the right block. Had a nice drive on the right side that he turned into a pull-up. Didn't fall, but it looked smooth and in control. Loved the drive from the right baseline he finished with his left hand. Nice and low on the drive helped him explode a bit more, and the mismatch. Middie was on, so that was helpful. Turnaround was looked good at the foul line and in the bottom of the circle. Slow but basically nothing they could do about it, which was nice.

We got the W. He controlled the game. Stats aren’t reflective of everything.

[tsherkin]

We got the W. He controlled the game. Stats aren’t reflective of everything.

Can't say I agree. When you're talking about a given player's individual level, the end team result isn't everything. Yes, we got the win and that was good for us on a team level. But Scottie was a no-show in the first quarter while Boston established a lead and then the rest of the team carried us through the 2nd and 3rd. Showing up in the fourth means only so much to me when we're discussing whether or not he's an All-NBA guy. Further, he IS consistently providing the sort of inefficient offense that he produced in this game. He'd need to be showing up like he did in the fourth quarter, but on the balance of the game, to be an All-NBA guy. That was the thrust of my point. All-NBA approaches some important and significant territory in the league, and Scottie stepping out there and scoring 4% below league average while no-showing as a scorer for a half isn't a type of performance I'd want to see consistently repeated, personally. He played a decent overall game and he showed up at the end, but that means only so much.

I want to be excited about Scottie, and I loved seeing the 4th quarter version of Scottie vs. Boston. But the game overall was not an All-NBA-level game, IMHO. And it isn't just about the stats. I mean his box score, efficiency notwithstanding, was pretty nice overall. He'd been passing well all game and the rebounding wasn't the thing in this one because everyone was crushing the glass, as I noted.

[MEDIC]

No. Like I said, IQ is a good team defender and has long arms to get into passing lanes. You don't need to hide him, you just need to move him off the main ball-handler. For reference, IQ is a much better off-ball defender than Barrett.

You got any proof of this great off-ball defense? Is there a specific stat or some gametape?

Watch on YouTube

Off ball defense depends a lot on defensive schemes though.....and Thibs is a much better defensive coach than Darko. Is IQ a great off-ball defender under the right system? yes.

[HangTime]

We got the W. He controlled the game. Stats aren’t reflective of everything.

Can't say I agree. When you're talking about a given player's individual level, the end team result isn't everything. Yes, we got the win and that was good for us on a team level. But Scottie was a no-show in the first quarter while Boston established a lead and then the rest of the team carried us through the 2nd and 3rd. Showing up in the fourth means only so much to me when we're discussing whether or not he's an All-NBA guy. Further, he IS consistently providing the sort of inefficient offense that he produced in this game. He'd need to be showing up like he did in the fourth quarter, but on the balance of the game, to be an All-NBA guy. That was the thrust of my point. All-NBA approaches some important and significant territory in the league, and Scottie stepping out there and scoring 4% below league average while no-showing as a scorer for a half isn't a type of performance I'd want to see consistently repeated, personally. He played a decent overall game and he showed up at the end, but that means only so much.

I want to be excited about Scottie, and I loved seeing the 4th quarter version of Scottie vs. Boston. But the game overall was not an All-NBA-level game, IMHO. And it isn't just about the stats. I mean his box score, efficiency notwithstanding, was pretty nice overall. He'd been passing well all game and the rebounding wasn't the thing in this one because everyone was crushing the glass, as I noted.

I don't think Scottie's first quarter was no-show, he was being a like helper.
The First half, was a like tutorial for Mogbo.

I think that's what Darko is envisioning for Mogbo, so Scottie took on a teaching role. That first video is a good teaching tool for Mogbo.

This is the way I saw it.
I think people would call it a dumb idea/thought, but this is the time to be unconventional.

[HiJiNX]

We got the W. He controlled the game. Stats aren’t reflective of everything.

Can't say I agree. When you're talking about a given player's individual level, the end team result isn't everything. Yes, we got the win and that was good for us on a team level. But Scottie was a no-show in the first quarter while Boston established a lead and then the rest of the team carried us through the 2nd and 3rd. Showing up in the fourth means only so much to me when we're discussing whether or not he's an All-NBA guy. Further, he IS consistently providing the sort of inefficient offense that he produced in this game. He'd need to be showing up like he did in the fourth quarter, but on the balance of the game, to be an All-NBA guy. That was the thrust of my point. All-NBA approaches some important and significant territory in the league, and Scottie stepping out there and scoring 4% below league average while no-showing as a scorer for a half isn't a type of performance I'd want to see consistently repeated, personally. He played a decent overall game and he showed up at the end, but that means only so much.

I want to be excited about Scottie, and I loved seeing the 4th quarter version of Scottie vs. Boston. But the game overall was not an All-NBA-level game, IMHO. And it isn't just about the stats. I mean his box score, efficiency notwithstanding, was pretty nice overall. He'd been passing well all game and the rebounding wasn't the thing in this one because everyone was crushing the glass, as I noted.

It’s funny because he scored below his ppg average and overall efficiency in this one yet I feel like his scoring in this game was more impactful than many of his more efficient 20+ point evenings. I think for me it’s the way he produced his points, when he produced them, and what they meant for the ebb and flow of the game and momentum. I think for me that’s what impressed me about his performance. At key moments he put his mark on the game and personally that’s what I think the best players in the league are about. With Scottie, as he has had more responsibility this season, there have definitely been times where he just wasn’t impacting the game whether or not the stats looked good. So to see the impact and the win, that’s huge for me. The point totals and efficiency will go up and down, but if he can bring this consistent impact (and more) then I’d be very happy.

The Boston game helped restore some optimism for me. Well his recent stretch of midrange work has done that in general. He’s got a lot to figure out still if he will be the player we would like for him to be, but I think he’s starting to show more signs. It looks like he’s still learning how to play tbh. Like he’s always been good because of instincts and physical tools but now it feels like he’s learning how to play.

[tsherkin]

We got the W. He controlled the game. Stats aren’t reflective of everything.

Can't say I agree. When you're talking about a given player's individual level, the end team result isn't everything. Yes, we got the win and that was good for us on a team level. But Scottie was a no-show in the first quarter while Boston established a lead and then the rest of the team carried us through the 2nd and 3rd. Showing up in the fourth means only so much to me when we're discussing whether or not he's an All-NBA guy. Further, he IS consistently providing the sort of inefficient offense that he produced in this game. He'd need to be showing up like he did in the fourth quarter, but on the balance of the game, to be an All-NBA guy. That was the thrust of my point. All-NBA approaches some important and significant territory in the league, and Scottie stepping out there and scoring 4% below league average while no-showing as a scorer for a half isn't a type of performance I'd want to see consistently repeated, personally. He played a decent overall game and he showed up at the end, but that means only so much.

I want to be excited about Scottie, and I loved seeing the 4th quarter version of Scottie vs. Boston. But the game overall was not an All-NBA-level game, IMHO. And it isn't just about the stats. I mean his box score, efficiency notwithstanding, was pretty nice overall. He'd been passing well all game and the rebounding wasn't the thing in this one because everyone was crushing the glass, as I noted.

I don't think Scottie's first quarter was no-show, he was being a like helper.
The First half, was a like tutorial for Mogbo.

I think that's what Darko is envisioning for Mogbo, so Scottie took on a teaching role. That first video is a good teaching tool for Mogbo.

This is the way I saw it.
I think people would call it a dumb idea/thought, but this is the time to be unconventional.

We can agree to disagree on that. *shrug*

[SFour]

Our perimeter D is weak because we were trying to play Quickley, Dick, and Barrett at the same time and not one of them is a plus POA defender. And IQ is more starter material than either Dick or Barrett; only problem being that IQ hasn't been able to consistently stay healthy for whatever reason. But if all are healthy, it's one of the wing players that needs to be replaced by going to the bench or being traded.

and who plays PoA defense with IQ/Gradey? Let's say Ochai or Mitchell defends the opposing PG.

Now your undersized at both SG/SF with IQ and Gradey, who are already weak at their respective positions, nevermind moving them up a notch. You want IQ guarding SG's and Gradey guarding SF's? Is that really a recipe for success?

Or do you think IQ will do a good enough job at PoA defense and we'll just ride with both IQ and Gradey guarding dribble drive penetration paired with a large defensive SF to guard wings?

Which one of IQ/Gradey can provide defensive value to the level of what RJ provided against Brown yesterday?

you play IQ with Ochai (starters), and Dick with Davion (bench)....that's the best balance of offense/defense. Seems like a no brainer.

Dick hasn't solidified himself as a starter

[RoteSchroder]

No. Like I said, IQ is a good team defender and has long arms to get into passing lanes. You don't need to hide him, you just need to move him off the main ball-handler. For reference, IQ is a much better off-ball defender than Barrett.

You got any proof of this great off-ball defense? Is there a specific stat or some gametape?

Watch on YouTube

Off ball defense depends a lot on defensive schemes though.....and Thibs is a much better defensive coach than Darko. Is IQ a great off-ball defender under the right system? yes.

So he’s helping out or closing out on scrubs like Shake Milton, Gordon Hayward (who drove past him), Toppin, Clarkson and directing Brunson to triple team Seth Curry…lmao

Only advanced indicator he provides is team’s on/off stats where he’s playing against bench players and his defensive numbers also got worse from the prior year.

Video concludes that IQ should come off the bench as a 6th man given his role. I’m fine with that, he can play good defense as a bench player against other bench players with a lesser offensive role.

[RoteSchroder]

Our perimeter D is weak because we were trying to play Quickley, Dick, and Barrett at the same time and not one of them is a plus POA defender. And IQ is more starter material than either Dick or Barrett; only problem being that IQ hasn't been able to consistently stay healthy for whatever reason. But if all are healthy, it's one of the wing players that needs to be replaced by going to the bench or being traded.

and who plays PoA defense with IQ/Gradey? Let's say Ochai or Mitchell defends the opposing PG.

Now your undersized at both SG/SF with IQ and Gradey, who are already weak at their respective positions, nevermind moving them up a notch. You want IQ guarding SG's and Gradey guarding SF's? Is that really a recipe for success?

Or do you think IQ will do a good enough job at PoA defense and we'll just ride with both IQ and Gradey guarding dribble drive penetration paired with a large defensive SF to guard wings?

Which one of IQ/Gradey can provide defensive value to the level of what RJ provided against Brown yesterday?

you play IQ with Ochai (starters), and Dick with Davion (bench)....that's the best balance of offense/defense. Seems like a no brainer.

Dick hasn't solidified himself as a starter

That's basically my argument. Dick is the 6th man, not RJ.

Dick/IQ is a worse defensive fit than RJ/Dick, RJ/IQ.

[bballsparkin]

Theyre completely unrelated

darko is ass

Hmmm, maybe. He's leading the team to a high draft pick and that's what matters to me. To me a big part of being an NBA coach is managing the players personalities. He's doing good at that considering the situation.