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Knicks vs Cavs 1st Round Series (Mitchell Getting *** Whooped by Brunson Season 2)

Saint Cy of JFC said:
Jazz built around them great. The reality is that Bojan injured his hand before the bubble, that really hurt Utah that year. Then Conley had his hamstring happen. Then too many of the key pieces aged out.

Utah had a small window because that's how the NBA works unless you have generational stars and they missed the window due to injury and choking. That's on the players more than anything IMO.
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They built a lineup with 3 bad defenders, whatever you want to call Royce at the end, and Gobert. It was a one man defense where Bogey was the primary perimeter defender in the playoffs. Even a fully healthy Jazz team would get toasted on the perimeter.

They boofed 3 MLE signings in a row (Davis, Favors, Gay) and their best solution to the perimeter defense problem was.....Miye Oni? Or maybe it was signing House out of the massage parlor. There was a complete disregard for the obvious issues. It was top to bottom collective failure. Major misteps by the FO, Quin, and the players. The FO didn't build a team to win, Quin wasn't versatile enough as a coach, and the players absolutely choked.
 
Don was awful today.

I don't put all the blame on him with that team though.

Bickerstaff is one of the worst X's and O's coaches in the league and his lead assistant Luke Walton is no better. They don't have a single NBA caliber wing/SF on their roster. Even a mediocre Royce type would be a huge upgrade for them. Garland and Don were stepping on each other's toes as they just take turns with the ball in their hands. Neither is much of a defender either. Jarrett Allen looked awful and grabbed a paltry 4 rebounds in 40 minutes today. It's kind of a mess.

Maybe some of their personnel issues are fixable over the next 1-2 years. We shall see but they are on the clock with limited assets unless they want to eventually break up the backcourt or their 2 bigs.
 
HeatCheck said:
Don was awful today.

I don't put all the blame on him with that team though.

Bickerstaff is one of the worst X's and O's coaches in the league and his lead assistant Luke Walton is no better. They don't have a single NBA caliber wing/SF on their roster. Even a mediocre Royce type would be a huge upgrade for them. Garland and Don were stepping on each other's toes as they just take turns with the ball in their hands. Neither is much of a defender either. Jarrett Allen looked awful and grabbed a paltry 4 rebounds in 40 minutes today. It's kind of a mess.

Maybe some of their personnel issues are fixable over the next 1-2 years. We shall see but they are on the clock with limited assets unless they want to eventually break up the backcourt or their 2 bigs.
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I can feel it, Don will leave when that contract is up.
 
KqWIN said:
They built a lineup with 3 bad defenders, whatever you want to call Royce at the end, and Gobert. It was a one man defense where Bogey was the primary perimeter defender in the playoffs. Even a fully healthy Jazz team would get toasted on the perimeter.
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It's the curse of being Rudy Gobert. He was second in DPOY voting in 2017 and it was obvious to anyone this was a generational defensive anchor and one of the best interior defenders the league has ever seen.

Our FO responds by getting rid of (and/or not acquiring) anyone who can defend, because we've got Rudy. And the remaining players also stopped playing defense, because hey, we've got Rudy.

It seems absolutely surreal reading Mitchell's pre-draft overview on nbadraft.net and seeing that it says "Probably the most appealing part of Mitchell’s game lies on the defensive end."

He was supposed to be a freaking defensive stopper who would struggle to score in the NBA! And he was actually an above average defender his rookie year, but his advanced defensive metrics just got worse every year here. Who cares? Rudy will defend.

And wouldn't you know it, the same thing happened in Minnesota. They traded away perimeter defenders to get Rudy(I really don't think that deal hinged on JVB and Patterson as far as Ainge was concerned) and basically told KAT and Russell they can now play even less defense than before. That's okay, Rudy will defend for all 4 of the rest of you. Worked amazingly in SLC so how could it fail to work in Minneapolis?
 
Brunson/Mitchell would be lethal together, but it would still have issues with how much trouble Mitchell has not falling into hero ball mode.
 
Because most teams guard Brunson with the bigger guard. That would force the smaller guards on Don, or vice versa. They would probably be very dominant. Knicks fans would love it. IDK how it would do in the PO.
 
Elizah Huge said:
Sounds like a layup line on defense.
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I could see Thibs getting the most out of Donovan, especially with his pride of playing for NYK.

Not saying it would win rings, but they would be a team the Knicks fan would love and they would win a lot of games.
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
I could see Thibs getting the most out of Donovan, especially with his pride of playing for NYK.

Not saying it would win rings, but they would be a team the Knicks fan would love and they would win a lot of games.
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Isn’t that wild?

Knowing how he has all the tools to be a really good defender, and showed it in college, to then turn out to be a turnstile in the league when everyone is watching.

Humans are weird.
 
Bodhi said:
Isn’t that wild?

Knowing how he has all the tools to be a really good defender, and showed it in college, to then turn out to be a turnstile in the league when everyone is watching.

Humans are weird.
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To be fair, defending in college and defending in the NBA are two completely different beasts.

Unless you are Walker Kessler of course, because for some reason he is even better in the NBA than in college. . .
 
framer said:
To be fair, defending in college and defending in the NBA are two completely different beasts.

Unless you are Walker Kessler of course, because for some reason he is even better in the NBA than in college. . .
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I don’t think many would argue Don has the tools to at least be a better than average perimeter defender, NBA or not.

Skill, no will.
 
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