“Where he hits the defense on the pick-and-roll – it has to be the bottom side. His players won’t always make the shots, of course, and they may not even make the right decisions about which shots to take.But in a game with thousands and thousands of offensive possessions every year, gravity’s pull starts to make a real difference. It’s rare that a team this good still has something prove.With these improvements in mind, the question of whether this regular season or last year’s postseason should be key when evaluating the Bucks can be revisited.The four postseason losses did highlight one weakness and the Bucks’ defensive trade of opponent three-point attempts in exchange for a closed paint often left them susceptible to streaky shooting.
“Well, then we’re going to shoot threes.”Instead of running to the basket in transition, bigs were told to stay outside and keep the lane clear for cutters. However, because there are no answers, we’ll just have to see who fits best with what they want to do.The Celtics could potentially have a lot going for them when the postseason arrives. Matt John explains why many seem higher on Boston than they were before, and why that train may still need some brakes.Excuse me while I do my best Carnac the Magnificent impression. I was able to follow my own shot and put us up for good.”James didn’t shoot particularly well, only 31.6 percent from the floor, but he did finish with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists. His older brother D'Antoni is a dual citizen of the United States and Italy, making him the first Italian to lead an You’ll forgive D’Antoni for a singular, fleeting moment of bravado.“Somebody’s going to be open,” D’Antoni tells me. Sure, they can be beaten by a barrage of three-pointers, but those are few and far between and could happen to any team. He can be found on Twitter at @Ben_Dowsett.Sources: Eric Gordon Out Two Weeks with Left Ankle SprainNBA Daily: The Return – 6 Situations – Pacific DivisionSources: Thabo Sefolosha to Opt Out of NBA Restart, Rockets to Sign Luc Mbah a MouteDavid Yapkowitz revisits a thrilling first night back in the NBA, all thanks to LeBron James and Anthony Davis.It’s been about four months since the Los Angeles Lakers last took the court. From Jan. 28 to the hiatus, he was averaging With the hiatus, Kemba’s had the time to heal up. Marc Gasol, Fred VanVleet and Norman Powell drained dagger after dagger.Of their 12 losses this season, eight came when the opposition hit 16 or more threes. Teams ran in transition a bit more opportunistically, looking for chances to catch the defense off-balance. Marvin Williams, acquired midseason, gives the Bucks another consummate professional on the wing.However, the most important new teammate has been the other half of the Lopez set. Brogdon and Nikola Mirotic, two players no longer on this roster, also suffered through ugly shooting slumps.Some of that is expected: Role players tend to regress as defenses tighten and scouting becomes more detailed.
That’s a big difference from the league average of 14.8 seconds in 2016-17 and actually dead even with the 16-17 Warriors, the league’s fastest offensive team. My guy is simply more talented than your guy, the thinking goes; you’re either going to have to bring your guy some help while opening things up for someone else on my team, or I’m going to keep pushing that edge.This isn’t to say there was no teamwork in prior decades of NBA basketball, or even that those approaches were necessarily bad. Watching one of these elite teams, it feels almost laughable to go about playing offense in basketball any other way.Curiously enough, though, this hasn’t been anywhere close to the norm for the vast majority of the game’s history. Even as they pushed movement and spacing themes harder than anyone in the world had to that point, they weren’t thinking in those sort of terms.“I’m not sure I ever heard the term ‘gravity’ used,” says Doug Eberhardt, a part time assistant coach and longtime confidant of D’Antoni.Defining the word in the way it’s used in today’s game, though, is exactly what D’Antoni and his group were getting at.“You can use all the terminology you want – ‘gravity,’ whatever you want to call it,” D’Antoni tells Basketball Insiders today. A two-on-one is still a two-on-one no matter where it is on the court, and it’s still going to force exploitable rotations from the defense.
But he also has the footspeed and discipline to match up with wings on the perimeter.Against the Clippers, Davis started out guarding Leonard on the perimeter.