No Love for Shump? Thought he did a great job guarding PG. Got a key steal too.
Much love for Shumpert. His D tonight and the last game too looked like when he was looking like an all-nba defender in the 14-15 playoff run.
He's contesting shots well, he's draped all over his man, he's navigating screens all over the court, double screens, back-screens, moving screens etc.
When George is going at him, he's holding his ground, he is in a proper defensive stance, he is not allowing dribble penetration and he is getting his hand directly into the headspace of George on shots.
And it seems as if he has rediscovered that he has super quick hands and has been poking the ball away, swiping at the ball and stealing it, knocking it off their guys out of bounds, disrupting entire possessions if he doesn't get the turnover, forcing shot clock violations....refusing to get picked, especially when weaker defenders are put in a PnR with him, he is refusing to allow a switch/mismatch to occur.
If he can play this kind of D, with this kind of effort, and remain fundamentally sound, Shumpert is an elite defender who will be absolutely vital for us going forward regardless of if his shot is going in or not. He's also not forcing any offense or turning it over. He's setting great screens too, making very solid contact.
Shumpert has been inconsistent his entire career, and especially this year. The one thing that gives me hope, is that has been mostly inconsistent offense and shooting. Defensively, he was pretty average all year except when the effort was bad, and then he was terrible.
If he can maintain this play we will have a much better chance at winning it all this year.
Interesting question for me is this....if Shump does keep it up and is elite the entire playoff run...question is...do you trade him in the off-season?
I know everyone is going to say yes, and I am leaning that way too. But I'd need a consistently great defender(Thabo...Tony Allen....not necessarily either one of them but somebody of that stature)