Atlantic Hoops - NBA Blog

Right off the bat, I love SGA and I fully went aboard the train last season. For as fun as the Poku experience is and how much we can appreciate Giddey missing a lay up only to get a rebound and hit a perfectly placed no-look bounce pass, Gilgeous-Alexander has been the only guarantee of true competency as an engine for their offense - and he's been achieved far beyond that baseline. Playing in  isolation, Shai specialises in blowing by opponents. Employing a mix of a  super explosive first step, which he uses seemingly out of a pure standstill position,  and delightfully unorthodox timings to take off, the fact he goes off in between the usual  beats means he catches defenders off-guard and mid-shifting their feet,  as beautifully pointed out on a By Any Means Basketball video. He’s used his  technique to leave even elite defensive pests like Thybulle behind him and beyond reach of recovery with considerable  consistency. It’s small-guard li...

1st HALF Right away, Curry’s gravity was making damages. Smart is going to stay airtight following him and, when Steph screens for Bazemore, Tatum is trying to contain Curry sprinting out so there’s no one to cover Bazemore and it’s an open layup from the Draymond feed . And Kerr will always fall in love with players that can make the most of these windows . And Dray has taken part in so many of these that he smells it if you try to give one back . On the other side, Boston is trying to get Curry chasing Kemba around screens . In the first one, the Ojeleye screen forced Curry, as the only perimeter player, to engage in the chase. Kemba does hit Thompson for the roll but Draymond has no problem helping away from Sami to force Thompson back into Looney’s path. The second play, Curry started on Smart so they tried to switch - the first of many such plays -  but the Warriors defenders were in the same page, called it and Bazemore stays parallel to Tristan to stop any curl and they prep...