Stratmaster wrote:Yep. As someone who always has qualified Jimmy as a "borderline" superstar, his play the last few games has been "elite" superstar, not borderline. I was a little worried early last night. He was getting caught in the lane and committing turnovers trying to pass back out. He just diodn;t seem as sharp. I have to admit I was thinking "it's not going to be Jimmy's night to save us this time". But sure enough, Q4 rolls around and the guy starts leaping tall buildings in single bounds.
I was glad to see Niko and Doug hit a couple big shots. They missed a couple as well but kept shooting with confidence. Jimmy can't do this ever Q4 (can he?) and we need to know that those guys can step up, especially when Jimmy has already exerted all of that energy to carry the game into overtime.
He can't because he even admitted to being tired earlier in the week, but the team keeps throwing him the ball. Even Wade! A couple of those possessions I was thinking can't we start the ball with Wade in a PnR then get it back to Jimmy later.
Because remember, he's also guarding the opponents best player by this point usually (last night Lowry).
It is a good sign that Doug is getting much more active moving off ball, I think Niko still needs work here. It was only cuz Jimmy made a couple of super second efforts that Niko was able to get the ball in a scramble situation and hit a big dagger.
It's so obvious how the spacing of having 2 shooters helps Jimmy (and even Wade, to cut), but while this is an ideal setup offensively, we need to find a Doug or Niko that can also play better defense, and do a little more creative playmaking. Both of them out there really taxes our defense, they kept targeting Niko in the PnR.
