(11-21-2021, 06:16 PM)Thukydides Wrote: [ -> ]All I can say: There will be no playoff basketball for Luka Doncic in year 4 unless Kidd is being sent away before allstar break. This is unwatchable offensive basketball
I completely disagree. It's absolutely shocking, with the level of usage that Luka has had, that they are doing much at all, imho.
This is one of the reasons that we need to get the ball out of Luka's hands some. 1) We don't need to wear him out with that usage rate. 2) We need to find a way to score without him some.
I think, looking at this team, the last three losses without him actually give us something to build on. Each game, the crunch time has been where we've had problems, and that is where Luka excels. The best strategy for our team is to be able to exist with multiple people scoring through 3 to 3.5 quarters and then go exclusively Luka driven, james Harden style at the end or KP/Luka pick and roll...if not exclusively, a heavy percentage of it.
We can't do that throughout the game because a) we wear Luka out and b) the other team gets the most looks at it in real time and usually has their optimum shot figured out against it by the end. They may not be able to stop it, but if they make it hard enough for long enough, that may stop it in crunch time by sheer fatigue.
You can prepare ahead of time a lot, but there's something about seeing it in real time, getting to try different things and then honing in on your best shot. I feel that the way we've run the offense the last couple of years, that's exactly what good teams have done. It's drastically different to be able to compete and score at a decent clip through the first 3 then bring on the closer to take them out.
The closer is EXACTLY what we've missed in these games....every one. Both Phoenix games and tonight. I firmly believe that if Luka had played, seeing how the other players played, we'd be 2-1 in these games. Heck, we'd have been 2-1 if we'd simply had shooters shoot their normal percentage on open shots...really.
We literally had only TWO PLAYERS in double figures tonight...that's nuts. We've only had 1 other game (the Denver blowout) that we've only had 2 players score in double figures. I mean, we have had like 3 or 4 times as many times where we've had 5 people in double figures (even with Luka or KP being out) than we have had only 2 players with double figures.
