Spacing on this team is terrible.

Lonzo has been shooting the ball pretty well, though.

I just realized he is only shooting .302 from deep. Not great, Bob. I suspect he will improve to over .350 within 10 games, though.

Too many bail out shots from Lonzo causing his percentage to drop early on when they were overpassing the ball outside of Zion and Ingram.

After tonight, he's up to 34.6 percentage from deep. Steadily climbing back to his expected range.

He also up to 13 ppg now on 42% which is promising.

He’ll never have space unless they get really elite upgrades. I did the math in a thread before the season and you need like a 46% 3 point shooter to be the same threat Zion is at the rim. The math says unless you turn Bledsoe and Lonzo into Steph and Klay, teams should sell out everyone to stop Zion.

Space is a pipe dream with Zion. I think that makes the focus on defense important. The Pels should have beaten a good Indy team that was hot from 3 comfortably last night. They just fell to pieces in the last 2 minutes.

And I’m not saying the Pels should ignore shooting, they should get as much as they can, but I think it only buys you limited space unless it’s elite so they need to make sure the defense stays good while adding shooting.

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It allows everyone to collapse and double Zion

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They are going to do this regardless of who is on the court with him. It's up to him to make the correct passes in those situations.

I feel like this may have been mentioned this offseason.

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Space is a pipe dream with Zion.

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I don't think so.

our biggest issue is not having enough guards that can break the defense down. Once you get past that first guy, you force the defense to react to it and make them start scrambling. We just don't do that enough. No one cares if Lonzo blows by his man, and Bledsoe hasn't been anywhere near as aggressive as he's been in the past. In the first 5 games Bledsoe took 6 free throws total. 3 years ago in Phoenix as the lead guard he was averaging 6.9FTA per game. That number went down playing with Giannis who became the lead ball handler, but he needs to get back to attacking. We are a better team when he can attack the rim. Someone has to be able to attack the rim other than BI. Our problem is no one cares if we shoot 3's, and no one cares if we drive to the rim unless it's BI or Zion, so all teams are doing is focusing on clogging the paint and forcing kick outs when BI or Zion has the ball.

Hard to make the right pass when the open guys he is going to swing the ball to can’t hit shots reliably.

Teams are selling out to double and triple Zion and smother Ingram, which maybe they will do no matter what without another superstar here, but they are often finding success because no one can reliably hit shots, get to the rim, or reliably create their own offense/playmake off those passes and in the half court besides Ingram.

We are like 13th in the league in potential assists but 21st in actual points off assists. So we are doing a slightly above average job of finding guys, but doing a below average job turning those into points.

And not saying Zion doesn’t need to improve, but he’s actually averaging an additional potential assist this year compared to last year but fewer points off assists total, so when he makes passes people are hitting them at a less frequent rate.

And considering we are attempting to replicate Milwaukee, I think one of the troubling early trends is that Milwaukee works not just because of defense, but offense as well. They may give up threes, but they also lead the league in attempts and 3P%. 3rd in made threes last year. Top in overall FG’s made. We are near the bottom third of the league in all those categories. We still maintain an overall positive net rating right now, and I know SVG mentioned offense got the short end of the stick because of time constraints of the schedule, but I think it’s something we are going to have to figure out internally or through personnel moves by Griffin in the coming seasons. Because this may be basketball that can eek you out 40-45 wins or so in a normal season if you remain disciplined and don’t play down to your schedule, but it’s going to be exploited by the better teams in the league IMO.

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our biggest issue is not having enough guards that can break the defense down. Once you get past that first guy, you force the defense to react to it and make them start scrambling. We just don't do that enough.

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I agree 100% with this. Obviously hitting more 3’s helps but I actually think we settle for too many. If our guards attacked the rim help would have to come leaving Zion open or at least in a 1 on 1 scenario. Problem is the only guard that really attacks consistently right now is BI and he’s not looking to pass

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think SVG need to give Zion the reigns a bit more on the perimeter to create. Since he's not going to receive ideal spacing, SVG gotta mix it up a bit more and let Zion play that Giannis role from the perimeter.

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I also agree with this post. Zion isn’t a horrible 3pt shooter, there are much worse shooters taking 3’s on other teams. Let him get the ball on the perimeter, look to bulldog his way to the rim, and if they sag off why not let him shoot a few 3’s? If he’s hot that night he becomes unguardable, if he’s not, Zion with a full head of steam barreling to the rim is hard for a defense, even if they know it’s coming

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Spacing on this team is terrible.

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Yep.

Zion not being a good passer yet is struggling when the wall is built, as well as, as much as we all love Steven Adams, I just don't like the fit with him and Zion. Every time Zion drives to the rim he is met by Adams' guy just sliding over a step or 2 and it's an easy double team.