Monster game from Banton tonight. And yeah, he took 27 shots, but he’s the only one who can create his own shot besides Ant.
Also, Kris had a 12/11/7 night. He’s so solid at everything except making open threes. I sure hope he figures it out this offseason.
Piano9717
Here are some of my thoughts from this game:
Positives:
• Ant had an up-and-down game, but I guess it’s good that his shooting slump seems to be behind him. It’s really unfortunate that we couldn’t capitalize on his scoring gravity because we just didn’t enough shooters healthy for this game (more on this later).
• Speaking of generating open shots when he’s on the floor, the spacing Reath generates with his shooting ability is amazing. I also like that he’s capable of putting the ball on the floor and attacking a closeout. Also, his short-roll decision making continues to be really solid.
• I’ve been pretty critical of Chauncey’s zone defense throughout his entire tenure with us, but I like something that I saw tonight that I haven’t seen too often before –the matchup zone (and also switching between man and zone within a single possession). A few times, we would play in a zone “shell” defense but each defender would guard the closest Rockets player to their zone, instead of guarding space like a normal zone. Against a team like Houston with a good facilitating center who can shred a zone defense from the middle, I like the matchup zone and I hope we go to it more often.
• Banton provided his normal playmaking, length, and good defense. And his shot has been looking pretty solid lately – I would never have guessed he was like a 28% career shooter with how he’s been playing here.
• Nothing out of the ordinary for him, but big shout out to Camara’s tenacity on defense. It’s refreshing to watch.
• Murray impressed me with his length on defense, and footwork in the paint. He’s also been looking really solid with his decision making and connective passing ability. Hopefully he can put together his shot at some point, because some of the bricks he puts up are insanely ugly (I think if he even had a league average jump shot, he could be a 25 mpg player right now).
• Not trying to turn this into a Chauncey thread or anything, but the fact that we’re one of the worst teams in the league but have a cohesive locker room and everyone is playing hard, should be a testament to Chauncey’s leadership and the culture the organization has instilled here.
Negatives:
• Really missed Ayton’s size and strength, and Jabari’s toughness and physicality on defense. Sengun was basically getting whatever he wants in the paint unless we double teamed, which presents a lot of problems on its own (Reath held up on a couple plays, but in general he was getting manhandled).
• Our halfcourt offense is insanely uncreative. There was a stretch in the third quarter where we kept turning the ball over when Houston started to switch everything 1-4. No motion, no movement off the ball, just 4 players standing and watching Banton and Ant run high PnR. This works when you have proper spacing and a good short-roll decision maker, but with zero shooting on the court in the non-Reath minutes it gets extremely ugly extremely fast. I understand that we have zero NBA level scorers next to Ant and one NBA caliber shooter (Reath) on the court, but watching our offense in the second half was like ramming your head into a brick wall over and over again expecting something different to happen.
• This has been a major problem with us for most of Chauncey’s tenure – but for whatever reason, his teams have always sent multiple guys to crash the offensive glass which is just bad fundamental basketball.
• Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of things Banton does, and I think he’s super intriguing. However, he’s going to have something like a 31% usage rate after tonight’s game (by comparison, Ant has around a 27.8% usage rate this season and Dame was around 30-31% for most of his career here). I get it, all our other scorers/ballhandlers are injured, but Dalano Banton trying to take over the entire offense like Luka is really hard to watch. Also as an aside, Banton has a bad habit of standing at halfcourt when he doesn’t have the ball, like Luka or Harden or someone. With his length, athleticism, and feel, I wish he was a bit more active cutting/moving/screening off the ball. Especially when we have some real NBA players healthy on this team, Banton is going to have to find ways to fit in as a role player and contribute to winning on the margins.
toadtruck
I miss Scoot and Shaedon. Hell I missed Walker tonight
TheRipCity
I like how Rupert put in 22 minutes of cardio before getting up his first shot. Gotta Respect his warm up routine
be__bright
Got tired and stopped playing team ball. Still managed to stay in control for almost three quarters with the bench mob. Overall a win.
Zmoney743
I honestly hate seeing Moses Brown play basketball. Please come back Jabari or DA
PDXtoMontana2002
Banton taking 27 shots is something I never want to see again. Guy must be sub-50% TS after tonight. He does some other things well but that was kind of hilarious to see him just chucking.
Funny-Cricket-1001
Sengun is probably the closest thing to Jokic in NBA, he did not Play good, but he still dictated the game, he did whatever Playmaking he wanted.İt is not coincidence that they call hım Baby Jokic, he is a generational big next to Vic and Chet.
ValhallaPDX
Man, I dont care how many points Banton scores. Watching him on offense playing selfishly was frustrating. Id expect any player taking 27shots a game to get atleast 30 points. It really made watching the game not worth it.
uther_von_nuka
How many did dame score?
Status_Many_9092
Thybulle might be the worst offensive player in the league. Great defender and overall usually a plus on the court but he is so useless and is genuinely a negative on offense
BetsonStennet69
Why in the hell do we keep bringing in players that are not part of our future and just let them chuck? There is no reason to ever let a player like Banton go 10-27 while players that will actually be on the roster in a year get insanely low usage. He even had twice as many shots as Ant, it’s insane and a waste of time.
Sucks to see an entire year pass with essentially zero growth.
feralda
It’s sad Kris Murray can’t shoot. He’s actually really good but fuck if he could shoot like Keegan he would be absurd for us.
Please just lock him in the gym this summer shooting 1k 3s a day.
13 Comments
Monster game from Banton tonight. And yeah, he took 27 shots, but he’s the only one who can create his own shot besides Ant.
Also, Kris had a 12/11/7 night. He’s so solid at everything except making open threes. I sure hope he figures it out this offseason.
Here are some of my thoughts from this game:
Positives:
• Ant had an up-and-down game, but I guess it’s good that his shooting slump seems to be behind him. It’s really unfortunate that we couldn’t capitalize on his scoring gravity because we just didn’t enough shooters healthy for this game (more on this later).
• Speaking of generating open shots when he’s on the floor, the spacing Reath generates with his shooting ability is amazing. I also like that he’s capable of putting the ball on the floor and attacking a closeout. Also, his short-roll decision making continues to be really solid.
• I’ve been pretty critical of Chauncey’s zone defense throughout his entire tenure with us, but I like something that I saw tonight that I haven’t seen too often before –the matchup zone (and also switching between man and zone within a single possession). A few times, we would play in a zone “shell” defense but each defender would guard the closest Rockets player to their zone, instead of guarding space like a normal zone. Against a team like Houston with a good facilitating center who can shred a zone defense from the middle, I like the matchup zone and I hope we go to it more often.
• Banton provided his normal playmaking, length, and good defense. And his shot has been looking pretty solid lately – I would never have guessed he was like a 28% career shooter with how he’s been playing here.
• Nothing out of the ordinary for him, but big shout out to Camara’s tenacity on defense. It’s refreshing to watch.
• Murray impressed me with his length on defense, and footwork in the paint. He’s also been looking really solid with his decision making and connective passing ability. Hopefully he can put together his shot at some point, because some of the bricks he puts up are insanely ugly (I think if he even had a league average jump shot, he could be a 25 mpg player right now).
• Not trying to turn this into a Chauncey thread or anything, but the fact that we’re one of the worst teams in the league but have a cohesive locker room and everyone is playing hard, should be a testament to Chauncey’s leadership and the culture the organization has instilled here.
Negatives:
• Really missed Ayton’s size and strength, and Jabari’s toughness and physicality on defense. Sengun was basically getting whatever he wants in the paint unless we double teamed, which presents a lot of problems on its own (Reath held up on a couple plays, but in general he was getting manhandled).
• Our halfcourt offense is insanely uncreative. There was a stretch in the third quarter where we kept turning the ball over when Houston started to switch everything 1-4. No motion, no movement off the ball, just 4 players standing and watching Banton and Ant run high PnR. This works when you have proper spacing and a good short-roll decision maker, but with zero shooting on the court in the non-Reath minutes it gets extremely ugly extremely fast. I understand that we have zero NBA level scorers next to Ant and one NBA caliber shooter (Reath) on the court, but watching our offense in the second half was like ramming your head into a brick wall over and over again expecting something different to happen.
• This has been a major problem with us for most of Chauncey’s tenure – but for whatever reason, his teams have always sent multiple guys to crash the offensive glass which is just bad fundamental basketball.
• Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of things Banton does, and I think he’s super intriguing. However, he’s going to have something like a 31% usage rate after tonight’s game (by comparison, Ant has around a 27.8% usage rate this season and Dame was around 30-31% for most of his career here). I get it, all our other scorers/ballhandlers are injured, but Dalano Banton trying to take over the entire offense like Luka is really hard to watch. Also as an aside, Banton has a bad habit of standing at halfcourt when he doesn’t have the ball, like Luka or Harden or someone. With his length, athleticism, and feel, I wish he was a bit more active cutting/moving/screening off the ball. Especially when we have some real NBA players healthy on this team, Banton is going to have to find ways to fit in as a role player and contribute to winning on the margins.
I miss Scoot and Shaedon. Hell I missed Walker tonight
I like how Rupert put in 22 minutes of cardio before getting up his first shot. Gotta Respect his warm up routine
Got tired and stopped playing team ball. Still managed to stay in control for almost three quarters with the bench mob. Overall a win.
I honestly hate seeing Moses Brown play basketball. Please come back Jabari or DA
Banton taking 27 shots is something I never want to see again. Guy must be sub-50% TS after tonight. He does some other things well but that was kind of hilarious to see him just chucking.
Sengun is probably the closest thing to Jokic in NBA, he did not Play good, but he still dictated the game, he did whatever Playmaking he wanted.İt is not coincidence that they call hım Baby Jokic, he is a generational big next to Vic and Chet.
Man, I dont care how many points Banton scores. Watching him on offense playing selfishly was frustrating. Id expect any player taking 27shots a game to get atleast 30 points. It really made watching the game not worth it.
How many did dame score?
Thybulle might be the worst offensive player in the league. Great defender and overall usually a plus on the court but he is so useless and is genuinely a negative on offense
Why in the hell do we keep bringing in players that are not part of our future and just let them chuck? There is no reason to ever let a player like Banton go 10-27 while players that will actually be on the roster in a year get insanely low usage. He even had twice as many shots as Ant, it’s insane and a waste of time.
Sucks to see an entire year pass with essentially zero growth.
It’s sad Kris Murray can’t shoot. He’s actually really good but fuck if he could shoot like Keegan he would be absurd for us.
Please just lock him in the gym this summer shooting 1k 3s a day.