06-05-2021, 06:55 PM
(06-05-2021, 06:42 PM)omahen Wrote: Imho, Maxi needs like 7 seconds to shoot it. He is only shooting wiiiiiiiiide open threes and can't really put it on the floor, never mind couple of surprises in this series. This is good enough for regular season where defense is a bit loose and there are a couple of instances with Maxi completely open each game. But as defense tightens in the playoffs, those wiiiiiiiiide open looks are mostly gone and time you have to shoot it is greatly reduced.
Agree that his slow release is a problem, and probably accounts for a lot of why his defenders feel comfortable helping off him, despite his regular-season percentage. (KP needs much less time to get off a shot, and his defender correspondingly normally sticks to him, even though he is generally less efficient on the more difficult shots that he takes.) But Maxi is actually getting open looks, and intentionally passing them up. Looks like he has totally lost his confidence, although maybe he has an undisclosed injury or something, who knows.
If Maxi can't or doesn't want to shoot, it is puzzling that he is being used like he can and does. I was really taken aback at the Maxi-Willie combo in the fourth, and even mildly surprised that he was in the closing unit. Maybe this is all easy for me to say with the benefit of hindsight, but I really did wonder about it in real time.