re: The key to this series - Jonas Valanciunas

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The dumbest thing Willie has yet to figure is, jv is a legit threat down low.

Why we don't work him to be that post player when zion isn't on the court is beyond me.

In a world where you can get 35mins of zion and 25 mins of zion with only about 10 mins overlapping together...

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Jonas may be at a point where he can't log 35+ mins per game.


Jonas can absolutely dominate the offensive glass against OKC.

There are three big areas of concern when JV is on the court:

-while he should dominate Chet in the post, OKC will probably send double teams and Jonas is just average when playing out of a double team.

-OKC's 5 out system is going to give Jonas and CJ hell. Especially when they put those two in pick & roll actions together.

-OKC may very well run Jonas off the court with pushing it on the break. We've seen many teams use this strategy against us, because Jonas (he's too slow), Zion, and BI suck at getting back on D.

The hope is that Jonas will absolutely punish OKC with paint points, offensive boards, and getting Chet in foul trouble early on.