(Previously posted on the General Board).
Domejandro wrote:First player
since Gary Payton on January 4th, 1995 to go 14/14 from the field, making him the only other player to accomplish this in the three-point era. Additionally,
trailing Mark Olberding in 1977 (who was three months from turning 21), Thomas Bryant is the second youngest player in NBA History to go without a miss while shooting ten shots or more from the field.
Multiple huge plays that clenched the victory for his team in Triple Overtime.
People immediately pointed toward Deandre Ayton as being the one to blame, so I thought I would individually watch each basket and dictate who is to blame for each one. Forewarning, this is relatively critical of Suns players, and only addresses the direct scoring output of Thomas Bryant; this is not a full-encompassing defensive breakdown. That said, here we go!
Basket 1: Mikal Bridges does not get through the screen, the team collapses, but Thomas Bryant finishes in traffic (that said, Deandre Ayton's weak reach was unimpressive from an optics standpoint).
Basket 2: Deandre Ayton gets caught ball-watching, completely losing his man on the baseline. Horrendous.
Basket 3: Mikal Bridges contests Bradley Beal, but completely neglects to box-out the shooter. Deandre Ayton does an excellent wall-up, which leads to Bradley Beal dropping off to Thomas Bryant for the dunk. Deandre Ayton made the right decision on this play, he showed good fundamentals.
Basket 4: ....Wow, gets pump-faked by a sub-24% three-point shooter. Terrible footwork, gets blown by immediately.
Basket 5: Goes for the rebound instead of staying in a proper box-out stance. Shamelessly ball-watches once he misses the rebound.
Basket 6: Deandre Ayton, T.J. Warren, and Devin Booker would have all been benched by me here if I was the coach. They should be **** embarrassed with themselves for being that lazy running back on defense.
Basket 7: Deandre Ayton stunts on the ball-handler (Bradley Beal) on the pick-and-roll action, but completely leaves his man in the process. Terrible recovery by Deandre Ayton on this play, this specific play (as seen later) is not a byproduct of switch-action, but rather poor fundamentals.
Basket 8: Deandre Ayton did and excellent job rotating and contesting the three-point shot by Bradley Beal. Jamal Crawford completely failed to help rotate into the paint for the rebound. Deandre Ayton's ball-watching after the shot comes into effect again though, with Bradley Beal disengaging down the court, Deandre Ayton has to run down court to try to establish the mismatch offensively in the future. That is not a defensive gripe, rather than an awareness gripe, to be clear.
Basket 9: Deandre Ayton switches onto Tomáš Satoranský and applies ball pressure, which is good, but his poor footwork comes in play again. He knows his man is rolling to the basket, Deandre Ayton should have walled-up on Tomáš Satoranský to deny the drop-off, rather than reaching. Additionally, Kelly Oubre did a terrible job helping the helper. Game-plan wise, it is not egregious to stay in range of contesting Bradley Beal (which is understandable), but Kelly Oubre is in this terrible "no-man's land" of not contesting the roller, while being out of position to flare back out to his man; you have to pick one or the other. That said, none of this would have happened had Devin Booker not lazily flopped, so this play is somewhat moot.
Basket 10: Horrible defensive stance by Kelly Oubre, which leaves Deandre Ayton out to dry. 100% the fault of Kelly Oubre, he was very fortunate to not be called for a foul. T.J. Warren also gets caught in the "no-man's land" I discussed earlier, but blaming him for this play would be ludicrous.
Basket 11: Deandre Ayton gets caught ball-watching again, jumping for no reason, allowing for Tomáš Satoranský to easily drop the ball off to Thomas Bryant for the wide-open dunk. Devin Booker shouldn't have jumped, but that has nothing to do with Deandre Ayton's mistake.
Basket 12: The play call is for Jamal Crawford to rotate from the weak-side to contest Thomas Bryant (which he did a terrible job of), so it is Kelly Oubre's job to double here, even if I 100% disagree with it. He should be switching in this scenario, in my opinion. I dislike this play-call, especially given that the defensively inept Jamal Crawford is the weak-side defender in this situation. That said, Deandre Ayton pushed off with his left hand on Thomas Bryant's shot attempt, he was very fortunate to not be called for his sixth foul there.
Here is my initial breakdown of the play, before I rewatched for the tenth time and noticed a pattern.
Free-Throws (at this point Deandre Ayton is fouled out): Dislike this play-call (this is what made me realize my mistake on Basket 12), nothing Devin Booker can realistically do in this situation, albeit he should have walled up better.
Basket 13: Kelly Oubre is allergic to boxing-out (Devin Booker should have helped as well), what a dreadful defensive display on this possession. Excellent defense by Richaun Holmes on Bradley Beal's drive though.
Basket 14: Disjointed play, so take the criticism with a grain of salt, but Kelly Oubre gets caught ball-watching on this possession, and T.J. Warren unfortunately ran up court (though he likely would have been out of the play anyways, this completely took him out of the possession). Not T.J. Warren's fault in that specific instance, that is just an unfortunate situation that ended in catastrophe because Kelly Oubre is a mess defensively. Excellent job by Jamal Crawford to not foul there.
