(07-22-2021, 12:13 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: I think he's referring to the time that Lopez was pulled and Giannis was moved to the 5. That tactic seems to be what turned the tied from down 0-2. Made Ayton into a complete negative for the rest of the series and completely annihilated PHX's pick and roll stuff.
I agree with you that Giannis isn't "small", and that's why I never thought the term "small ball" worked in every situation for which people use it.
Ya I think that was a smart move tbh … but it was just a temporary adjustment in that specific situation more than how they succeeded overall. Even generously labeling Giannis as a “small” for the sake of this topic, they still had 7-foot Lopez logging top 5 starter minutes overall in the regular and post season.
So it’s prob better to look at bigger picture stuff for team-building and then just make sure a coach has the tools to make these adjustments for niche situations as needed in a playoff series (and also hope the coach actually makes the adjustments). If we’re talking about just a handful of games against 1 team to win a title, Dallas putting JJ Barea in the starting 5 was also an excellent move but it’s probably not a good idea to build a team around consistently starting a JJB type player.