06-10-2021, 08:04 PM
(06-10-2021, 07:03 PM)ReunionMav Wrote: My first thought is that many playoff series bring both under performing and unplayable players. We rendered Zubots and Pat Bev to that status. These things always are hard to overcome yet sometimes the same players rise up in the very next series.
Indeed. Who can ever forget the great JJ Barea and his over performance against Miami!
That said, I would expect a player or two to match up particularly well or badly in any given series. It is the (forced) general abandonment of the strategies and a sizable number of the players who have been fundamental to the season that I don't think you necessarily expect in a playoff run. Having to resort to players/tactics that weren't deemed worthy of relying on in the season. Not saying they shouldn't have gone to that, at all. But the necessity of it may have caught them by surprise. If so, why is that? If not, could it be better planned for, during/before the coming season?
The Clippers have a large variety of experienced and youthful depth. We don’t but we will need to to avoid playoff teams from killing our bench.
Yes, the failure of the non-Luka units was one of the most gut-punching things.
Our perimeter players like Klebur, DFS, KP, etc need to become much more of an offensive threat when the defense runs them off the 3. Brunson and THJ are threats to go to the basket or to step in and hit pull ups and floater. We need more guys who do far more to punish aggressive perimeter defense. Some of our guys might be able to develop those skills after being beaten in this playoff.
Most of them have these skills, to one extent or another. But it often looked more like a pick up game than a coordinated, well-oiled-machine attack. Of course, those skills could be honed, as you suggest.