Late game offense is still a problem

We scored 9 points in the last 3 minutes.

Well part of the problem is Willie having Nance in instead of Jonas. Nance isn’t providing elite defense to compensate for the black hole he can be offensively. When Jonas isn’t in late game, we’re basically playing 4v5 offensively. Go watch how basically every time Zion drove he ran into both Giannis AND Lopez. Lopez especially. He gave so much space to Nance because all Larry did was park it in the corner and get out of the way. They’re not the only team that does this. When Z was healthy last year, teams did it and we struggled offensively then too.

Jonas just gives you more offensive options late game. Yeah his D isn’t stellar but the point is Larry isn’t THAT much better to make up for the lack of offense he provides. In fact, he actively hurts us. Until Willie realizes that it’s better to sacrifice that D for more effective offense late in crunch time games, we will continue to struggle. Considering Willie is going to be here at least another year or two, it’s imperative we find another option besides Jonas because Willie just doesn’t trust him

the offense still wasn't good last night, but more importantly the defense was excellent.

WHile our offense has been shitty in the clutch this season, our defense usually has been just as shitty. Was nice to see us get some stops and force some turnovers.

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Also I absolutely hate the run down the clock prevent offense we play- that’s directly on Willie. Completely throws our offense off and we end up with a bad possession. Whats crazy is how early we play prevent offense its like almost at the 3 minute mark- to me this Willies idea and its completely messing up our offense. They need to get into sets sooner instead of draining the clock.

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That might be the most frustrating thing for me. We can play 45 minutes of good team basketball with a ton of movement, and then 3 minutes left in the game and we go hero ball. At the end of the game last night we had a few bad possessions in a row and Joel and AD at the same time say "gotta start moving the ball, they stopped moving the ball." AD said that Willie was yelling at them to move the ball. On that possession CJ just danced at the top of the key, and drove in the the lane wildly. Zero movement.

Not saying this is always CJ and CJ has been great this year, but if the coach is screaming on the sidelines to move the ball, and the players just go Melo/Kobe iso ball and don't listen, then it's hard to see the late game boneheaded plays changing. Coming off the OKC loss, you would think that the players would realize that that type of basketball isn't going to win you games late, but they reverted back to the same thing. Thankfully Zion was being aggressive and getting to the line.

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That might be the most frustrating thing for me. We can play 45 minutes of good team basketball with a ton of movement, and then 3 minutes left in the game and we go hero ball. At the end of the game last night we had a few bad possessions in a row and Joel and AD at the same time say "gotta start moving the ball, they stopped moving the ball." AD said that Willie was yelling at them to move the ball. On that possession CJ just danced at the top of the key, and drove in the the lane wildly. Zero movement.

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So you guys are starting to see this isn't a BI thing that everyone likes to blame on him, even though he is the only guy on the team capable of having any sort of success at it, even though that success is much less efficient than if we just ran a nice set and started moving the ball earlier.
WHo cares if you get your shot off with 8 seconds left or 2. Getting a good shot off is more important than 6-8 seconds comign off the clock.


Willie can yell all he wants to move the ball. If you don't call a play, and you got 4 guys spread out on the 3 point line not moving while a guy dribbles at the top of the key, what the hell are you expecting him to do? His only option is to take his man 1 on 1 b/c he can't "move the ball" to anyone if they aren't open.


The closing possessions should be about 1 on 1, but it should be from positions on the court that are advantageous to us. Like getting Zion or BI the ball at the elbow, or JV the ball in the post, or Trey setting a pick for Zion, a play that has been highly successful this year when run.

Bad take. The defense clamped down and the Pels made tough shots and their free throws down the stretch.

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The closing possessions should be about 1 on 1, but it should be from positions on the court that are advantageous to us. Like getting Zion or BI the ball at the elbow, or JV the ball in the post, or Trey setting a pick for Zion, a play that has been highly successful this year when run.

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Whats concerning is this doesn’t seem to get addressed. We were having issues in November and now it’s basically April. And I agree its not on BI, CJ or Zion- this is something Willie needs to fix. This is not a players issue. There are no set plays or identity. It’s basically one on one. We won last night because Zion went 1 on 1 and got fouled. Not sure if that strategy will work every game. Whats concerning is Im not sure that Willie is self aware thats its his responsibility. He continously puts it on the players- but this is something that head coaches should do.

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but the offense was bailed out because Zion drove and the refs called fouls

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I mean, that is exactly what the gameplan should be down the stretch of games. Zion driving and scoring or passing to open dudes.

It wasn't perfect and it wasn't every possession, but we were much more intentional with running through Zion down the stretch, and it worked.

The late game offense wasn't perfect, but it was fine.

We scored 14 points in the final 5 minutes. It was before late game where we had issues. We had 8 points in the 1st 7 minutes of the 4th quarter.

But overall, in the final 3-5 minutes, it was fine.

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I mean, that is exactly what the gameplan should be down the stretch of games. Zion driving and scoring or passing to open dudes.

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Its just Zion going 1on1. Don’t get me wrong I prefer that over BI and CJ going on 1on1. But I’m not really sure how sustainable that is? Personally, there should be some actions going to the rim for him or anything that would free him up better than just ramming himself into a wall of defenders.

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I think people need to be realistic here. We aren't suddenly going to be the Warriors or the Heats running all kinds of sets and actions all of a sudden especially this late in the season.

This isn't going to be fixed this year. What people need to expect is the team being smarter about who gets the ball in crunch time. With BI out, it should be dominantly Zion which was exactly what we did last night with a good degree of success like we all suspected.

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This

The "set" should be intentional to give the ball to Zion at the FT line in triple threat position over and over and over and over. Let Zion go to work, drive and shoot or drive and kick, and I'll live with the results.