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Conley Benched

This whole debate about whether or not Conley should start will continue into next season. Obviously. Let’s not let the current moment cloud two important things: Bogdanovic’s absence (which makes including Conley in the starting lineup easier to reconcile), and the much less physical nature of these bubble playoff games from a regular playoff game (the physicality of a Conley-Mitchell-Joe-Royce combo isn’t great, to say the least, and this is being papered over right now).

Starting both Joe and Royce was hugely important to our starting lineup this year. You can’t do that if you’re also starting Bogey and Conley.
 
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This whole debate about whether or not Conley should start will continue into next season. Obviously. Let’s not let the current moment cloud two important things: Bogdanovic’s absence (which makes including Conley in the starting lineup easier to reconcile with), and the much less physical nature of these bubble playoff games from a regular playoff game (the physicality of a Conley-Mitchell-Joe-Royce combo isn’t great, to say the least, and this is being papered over right now).

Starting both Joe and Royce was hugely important to our starting lineup this year. You can’t do that if you’re also starting Bogey and Conley.
Next year may be substantially different from this year. Perhaps Mitchell has really taken a big step forward as a playmaker and we can afford to move Joe to the bench. Perhaps Conley is finally more comfortable and we can increase his ball-handling duties. But one of the big storylines of this year is that, try as we did to decrease our dependence on Joe, all those changes netted no difference. Moving him to the bench didn’t work. And I’m not betting that next year will be different. If we retain JC and let him gun off the bench, then Joe becomes a wallflower in that role. And do you really think someone besides Joe is magically going to step forward and learn how to feed Rudy at a similar rate and effectiveness? And it’s Rudy’s threat as a rim runner that’s opening Joe’s layup line (nobody on the bench has anywhere near Rudy’s impact).

In combos that include Conley and Mitchell, Royce is needed for some length and physicality defending the perimeter. It’s best if he isn’t slid down to the 4 in these scenarios; we need him to disrupt guys like Murray. Moving him to the bench neuters his primary value to the team because he won’t be matched up against the best offensive players. I also think we learned that while Royce can guard bigs, he is clearly better on guards and wings (at this point of his career, at least). That puts Bogey on the 4s.

Most of this is rehash. Just so we don’t forget.
 
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So what happened on the athletic report? How did tony and sham screw thus up?
 
I'm doubting that Conley actually gonna be the Murray stopper on D, and the way that the Nuggets are calling screen after screen to take O'Neale out of his front in exchange of Mitchell, Ingles, Clarkson, Niang and Conley kinda suggets me that they're more than happy with him beating everyone of that group out of the dribble. Murray success doing that also gets as a hint.

That being said, i don't think that cutting Conley out of the rotation is the right call to the way the Nuggets adjusted their defense, and how i think is the better defensive change.

They're packing their paint to take out our free drives and the Gobert pnr with basically everyone attacking Porter and Jokic (both by cutting Porter minutes, playing Grant more and making him close more inside than outside) and giving the space for who in hell be on the perimeter to shoot, while also giving bigger pressure on the ball handler to shoot of the dribble and/or make the right pass. Conley been the only guy out of Mitchell that consistently find his shot off ball, and made shots on drives or went to the line, and also took the right passes to Gobert and back to the perimeter, something that both Ingles and Clarkson weren't able to do (at least consistently), while not being better defenders than Conley, so yeah, he's clearly ahead of these two on earn his playing time there.

On defense, the strategy of play 2 on 2 with O'Neale and Gobert on Murray and Jokic ain't working. They're finding ways to get Murray out of O'Neale, and when Royce gets to avoid the switch, they're making us pay with Joker hability not only to make threes, but of taking whatever we give when Gobert is pulled out of the rim, both in lack of rim protection or rebounding. My best answer is release the Morgan, play less of Ingles, Clarkson and especially Niang when they're not earning their time on the floor on offense (cause sincerely at this point are we really believing they'll earn it on defense ?), use his defensive skills to be better equiped to switch, to play 3 on 2 defense on Murray and Jokic two men game (and isolating the worse off ball Nuggets player on the floor out of them) and not be so damn small and unathletic down there on the boards.

Malone made his adjustments to what Snyder called the Jazz to do to get a 3-1 lead. With game 7 on tuesday, If we run the same thing, we better hope that O'Neale, Clarkson, Ingles and Niang be hot all game long from downtown, and or insane nights from Mitchell and Conley, and that if it be enough, or they could even pack up their things before the game.
 
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scoring 20 pts a game simply isn't enough for this series. other PG can simply destroy him on the pick n roll and drop 30+ point night in and night out. we need Conley to match Murray with 30+ points on his own to reinforce DM if we wanna have a change in G7
 
Conley got 21 on 7 of 13 shots, 4 of 6 from 3, 6 assists to 2 turnovers, minus 8 on a 12 point loss, playing 34 minutes.

Clarkson went 5 of 14 on his shots, 1 of 6 from distance to get his 11 points, 2 assists for his 2 turnovers, playing 30 minutes and ending it on minus 24.

Niang played 20 minutes, shot 3 of 6 fg, 2 of 4 of his threes, and still weren't impactful enough to suggest that his minus 19 were harsh (sincerely, is his production at least even if he's not shooting like this on volume ?)

Ingles played 30 minutes, got 5 points, went 1 of 4 for the game, all being three point attempts, to a better than previous two minus 4

Conley not been helping on defense, and i don't expect that. But of these four performances, all being poor defenders, the defeat is on Conley defense and not enough impactful offense ? I strongly disagree.
 
yeah, i'd trash on JC and Niang for their poor perfomances too. but these guys aren't getting paid 30mil a year to do what they do. they are just specialists who are filling the minutes. The argument with Conley always has been us getting way less than what we paid for.

The idea of Conley was to help DM so he doesn't have to carry the entire team's offense by himself. and here we are. DM dropping 40 points a game and we still lose. just imagine what this series would look like if DM didn't score the way he did. Just look at tonight when we took DM out for a breather, instead of having Conley carrying this team's offense on his shoulder, we collapsed.
 
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Well, Clarkson getting 13 mil and Ingles 12 mil, they're not on as friendly deals as O'Neale and Mitchell been for this season, so if the money the player makes is what matters, these two should play up to what they get too.

Conley were way closer to his 32 mil than the 25 mil combined duo did. He literally got more points, threes, and even one more board than the two decently paid role players combined,
tying their combined assists and turnovers, and a better average of +/-

And also Snyder should earn his payday and not allow Malone to run circles around him, that should help too.
 
or maybe save a couple of bucks off of Conley and use that money to buy some players who can actually rebound or stay in front of their opponents on the perimeter.
 
like i said. Conley hasn't played bad. but he needs to do way better than just "not bad" for us to compete right now. DM's done his part. Conley gotta do his.
 
Or we have two more 3nD (like both their 3 and their D were off) role players alongside a productive backcourt and actually have more defensive answers to Murray than hope that we have two guys going for efficient 40 instead of just one.
 
Or we have two more 3nD (like both their 3 and their D were off) role players alongside a productive backcourt and actually have more defensive answers to Murray than hope that we have two guys going for efficient 40 instead of just one.
yeah, that's why I said i wish we hadn't paid 30mil on a player who is "not bad" and instead could use those extra bucks to bring in a few more 3D guys
 
Conley got 21 on 7 of 13 shots, 4 of 6 from 3, 6 assists to 2 turnovers, minus 8 on a 12 point loss, playing 34 minutes.

Clarkson went 5 of 14 on his shots, 1 of 6 from distance to get his 11 points, 2 assists for his 2 turnovers, playing 30 minutes and ending it on minus 24.

Niang played 20 minutes, shot 3 of 6 fg, 2 of 4 of his threes, and still weren't impactful enough to suggest that his minus 19 were harsh (sincerely, is his production at least even if he's not shooting like this on volume ?)

Ingles played 30 minutes, got 5 points, went 1 of 4 for the game, all being three point attempts, to a better than previous two minus 4

Conley not been helping on defense, and i don't expect that. But of these four performances, all being poor defenders, the defeat is on Conley defense and not enough impactful offense ? I strongly disagree.
What's conleys salary compared to the others you mentioned and what did we give up to get Conley vs what we gave up to get the others? Unfortunately that **** has an effect on expectations and perception.

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Well, Clarkson getting 13 mil and Ingles 12 mil, they're not on as friendly deals as O'Neale and Mitchell been for this season, so if the money the player makes is what matters, these two should play up to what they get too.

Conley were way closer to his 32 mil than the 25 mil combined duo did. He literally got more points, threes, and even one more board than the two decently paid role players combined,
tying their combined assists and turnovers, and a better average of +/-

And also Snyder should earn his payday and not allow Malone to run circles around him, that should help too.
We also gave up players and picks to get Conley.

Oh and we have been better when Conley isn't there. Which is really all that matters.

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Well, Clarkson getting 13 mil and Ingles 12 mil, they're not on as friendly deals as O'Neale and Mitchell been for this season, so if the money the player makes is what matters, these two should play up to what they get too.

Conley were way closer to his 32 mil than the 25 mil combined duo did. He literally got more points, threes, and even one more board than the two decently paid role players combined,
tying their combined assists and turnovers, and a better average of +/-

And also Snyder should earn his payday and not allow Malone to run circles around him, that should help too.
Thing is Clarkson, and Ingles are role players who are paid like role players. Role players often play a role and little else. Clarkson has been pretty amazing this season at his role. Joe has been pretty good at his role for years. But they are role players who are paid like role players and will also suck somewhat often (that's what role players do and why they get 10-20 million rather than 30 plus)
Conley is on rarified air with his salary. Dudes making that money are supposed to make the team much better. Instead he seems to have made us worse in the win loss column.

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