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Game Thread 2020-21 Season | Game #17 | Lakers @ Cavaliers | January 25, 2021

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Not much you can do there. When LeBron has a fluky game where he shoots about 80% on a high volume of contested jumpers, you are getting beat. Normally, I would say you beat him up on drives and try to take away his will to bully you off the dribble, but when he is raining jumpers, there’s really nothing you can do. You want him taking those shots and he just nailed them all tonight.

Only real gripe was again Drummond and McGee trying to do too much. Don’t take any jumpers. Don’t cross anyone over. Don’t dribble between your legs and behind your back. Don’t try to throw cross court passes. Just be big and make the easy plays. Drummond actually worked AD over pretty good, but there are always a handful of key points in a game against a great team where you have to get the decision right and we got sloppy and forced bad shots or turned it over trying to do too much in almost every one of those times.
 
kidduck said:
League is reacting to Sextons' strengths. It is his turn to make the adjustments.

My money would be on him getting it done. Vision, control and experience. He is
not perfect but however short he ends up on that impossible standard, it won't
be for lack of effort and practice.
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If we had another good scoring option, life would be alot easier for Sexton.

Also playing 30 minutes a game doesn't play to Sexton's strengths. The more he plays the better be plays. Long stretches sitting usually hurt his flow. He probably should be averaging 36-38 minutes a game.
 
Los216 said:
Darius Garland is the best passer and ball handler on the team. He is by far the best setup man we have. He has to share the bulk of the ball handling duties with Sexton though.
Click to expand...

He's not the best passer. Not even close, actually.

He may have some fancy dribbling skills, but a point guard that doesn't make.

He's timid. He can't finish around the rim. He gets into the paint and largely isn't sure what to do with it. He doesn't take command of the team when it's just him in the game and instead gets down on himself.

He's, currently, not a lead guard.
 
JBB obviously told the team to crank up the tempo. Problem is when Sexton does that, instead of going at his normal 110% speed, he cranks it up to 150% and loses all composure and like @Alec Zander said, he gets into trouble by not being able to go east/west. Basically just needs to dial it back a notch. Normally it works because he's so damn quick.

And when he tells the team to crank up the tempo - which was effective - he needs to be clear to Andre and McGee to not do stupid fucking shit.

Drummond is really starting to tick me off and I almost regret defending him, again you look at the box score and think yeah great game, but damn...it's not just the obviously boneheaded plays but he has no feel for the game. He decides what move he is going to go to regardless of how the defender reacts. He establishes good post position only to take himself out of it. For a strong big athletic dude he's the weakest finisher. Gather, power dribble if needed and SLAM. Instead he thinks "I'm going to go right to left crossover on the next possession!" and completely fucks it up by dribbling into the defender. I think a cardboard cutout would be just as good defending against him because it doesn't really matter what the defender does, Drummond has a 50/50 shot of dribbling right into you.

I'm irrationally mad that we lost a close game to the defending champs so that's a good sign, but you also get the sense LeBron probably could have ended our hopes much earlier.
 
IWantAKouki said:
JBB obviously told the team to crank up the tempo. Problem is when Sexton does that, instead of going at his normal 110% speed, he cranks it up to 150% and loses all composure and like @Alec Zander said, he gets into trouble by not being able to go east/west. Basically just needs to dial it back a notch. Normally it works because he's so damn quick.

And when he tells the team to crank up the tempo - which was effective - he needs to be clear to Andre and McGee to not do stupid fucking shit.

Drummond is really starting to tick me off and I almost regret defending him, again you look at the box score and think yeah great game, but damn...it's not just the obviously boneheaded plays but he has no feel for the game. He decides what move he is going to go to regardless of how the defender reacts. He establishes good post position only to take himself out of it. For a strong big athletic dude he's the weakest finisher. Gather, power dribble if needed and SLAM. Instead he thinks "I'm going to go right to left crossover on the next possession!" and completely fucks it up by dribbling into the defender. I think a cardboard cutout would be just as good defending against him because it doesn't really matter what the defender does, Drummond has a 50/50 shot of dribbling right into you.

I'm irrationally mad that we lost a close game to the defending champs so that's a good sign, but you also get the sense LeBron probably could have ended our hopes much earlier.
Click to expand...

Drummond is the only reason that game wasn't a 25 point blowout in the 1st half though. He was IT. So you have to keep that in mind.

RIght now, and it pains me to say this...he's the teams best player.
 
Rich said:
He's not the best passer. Not even close, actually.

He may have some fancy dribbling skills, but a point guard that doesn't make.

He's timid. He can't finish around the rim. He gets into the paint and largely isn't sure what to do with it. He doesn't take command of the team when it's just him in the game and instead gets down on himself.

He's, currently, not a lead guard.
Click to expand...

He is the best passer on the team. He's the only guy we have who can pass off the dribble and in traffic.

He's petty good at that little floater he has.

He doesn't get caught in the paint with nowhere to go. That's Sexton.

Why doesn't he take command of the team? Well look at our approach to offense. Garland can only play the PG position but we're stunting his growth by taking the ball out of his hands so that Sexton can go off.

Look at this roster. He is clearly a lead guard for us.
 
redscoon said:
Not much you can do there. When LeBron has a fluky game where he shoots about 80% on a high volume of contested jumpers, you are getting beat. Normally, I would say you beat him up on drives and try to take away his will to bully you off the dribble, but when he is raining jumpers, there’s really nothing you can do. You want him taking those shots and he just nailed them all tonight.

Only real gripe was again Drummond and McGee trying to do too much. Don’t take any jumpers. Don’t cross anyone over. Don’t dribble between your legs and behind your back. Don’t try to throw cross court passes. Just be big and make the easy plays. Drummond actually worked AD over pretty good, but there are always a handful of key points in a game against a great team where you have to get the decision right and we got sloppy and forced bad shots or turned it over trying to do too much in almost every one of those times.
Click to expand...


I hope you're playing around when you say this.
 
Rich said:
He's not the best passer. Not even close, actually.

He may have some fancy dribbling skills, but a point guard that doesn't make.

He's timid. He can't finish around the rim. He gets into the paint and largely isn't sure what to do with it. He doesn't take command of the team when it's just him in the game and instead gets down on himself.

He's, currently, not a lead guard.
Click to expand...

Hopefully Delly can get healthy soon, I feel like Delly might be able to get Garland confident in his shot while developing him off the ball. Alot of the time, it feel like Garland has no clue what he does well or where his shots the best. Let someone like Delly make those decisions for him and show him how he needs to shape his game.
 
Los216 said:
He is the best passer on the team. He's the only guy we have who can pass off the dribble and in traffic.

He's petty good at that little floater he has.

He doesn't get caught in the paint with nowhere to go. That's Sexton.

Why doesn't he take command of the team? Well look at our approach to offense. Garland can only play the PG position but we're stunting his growth by taking the ball out of his hands so that Sexton can go off.

Look at this roster. He is clearly a lead guard for us.
Click to expand...

Brother, you have a habit of seeing what you want to see with players you like. So, I'm not gonna have this fight with you.

He's shown nothing that warrants being handed the keys to the car at this point. I hope he becomes the point guard. He isn't it yet.
 
People complaining about bigs pushing the ball up court but when they grab rebounds our guards need to stay back and come get the ball. If they start running out the bigs are going to take the ball across half court to avoid an 8 second violation.

Sexton does this a lot. The big will grab a rebound and he will run up court asking for the ball. Come back to the ball so that the big doesn't even have to dribble.
 
Rich said:
Drummond is the only reason that game wasn't a 25 point blowout in the 1st half though. He was IT. So you have to keep that in mind.

RIght now, and it pains me to say this...he's the teams best player.
Click to expand...
We'll the other reason is the Lakers refuse to play Caruso for big minutes because they have too many guards but that is a story for another day. No one likes to admit the guys who looks like he should be a nerd from sixteen candles is an elite defensive guard.

The Lebron/Caruso PnR is also one of the best PPP plays in sportstrac lol
 
Los216 said:
He is the best passer on the team. He's the only guy we have who can pass off the dribble and in traffic.

He's petty good at that little floater he has.

He doesn't get caught in the paint with nowhere to go. That's Sexton.

Why doesn't he take command of the team? Well look at our approach to offense. Garland can only play the PG position but we're stunting his growth by taking the ball out of his hands so that Sexton can go off.

Look at this roster. He is clearly a lead guard for us.
Click to expand...

To get the best out of both Garland and Sexton they need to be able to play both on and off the ball. They took Sexton off the ball for a long time and are just starting to let him run the offense again. If Delly was healthy, I bet they would take Garland off the ball and play him with Delly alot.

They need to figure out a way to get Garland confident in his shot. I don't feel like he is like Sexton at all in terms of trying to develop himself. If they let Garland just play as a pure point guard, I think he will just do what is easy and never really push himself to get better. Maybe they are just making things uncomfortable for him so he works on different aspects of his game.
 
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