“Our Defense Was Elite.” | Kevin Hanson Summer League Sound | 07.15.25

“Our Defense Was Elite.” | Kevin Hanson Summer League Sound | 07.15.25

I told him it was going to be a gritty game, physical game. I I I wanted to dictate more of it. Um I thought they dictated it early and then we we kind of found a way. Um once we knew what the game was about, a lot a lot of turnovers early. I think eight in the first quarter or eight or nine in the first quarter. And then uh once we kind of figured out how to play against it, uh I thought we got better. But I mean, it really came down to our defense. Our defense really was elite in the second quarter and the fourth and that’s where we put the game to live both times. What did you make of the second half? Because at the end of the first half there was a little bit of a back and forth from some words and you could tell the intensity was starting to ratchet up a little bit. So I felt like it was going to be an interesting second half. Yeah. I mean at halftime we told them it’s like we’re the better team so let’s not let this stuff rattle us. Like I like the feistiness but it can’t take us out of our game, right? And um I thought we did a better job of that in the second half. We still had to get on some guys to you know calm down. Just get out. Stop talking. Stop talking about what you play. Do the talking. You know that’s really what it came down to. How hard is it to evaluate you know certain guys versus others? And what I mean by that is like a guy like Winner’s been here a few years versus you know guys like you know BJ that are just getting here. So, how do you kind of like look at each guy individually as opposed to just the overall team success of having a win? Yeah, I mean, first of all, Leonard Miller was huge for us. He had an awesome second half. I mean, we needed we needed that offense and he produced it. Um, it it was great to see cuz uh in the last game he didn’t have it. Um, but with Leonard, you know, he’s just naturally gifted and we we want to see the growth in other small areas. Um, and one thing I think he’s really done a good job of summer league is defend. And that’s what I told him before summer league started. I said, “If you want to play next year, you have to show you can defend.” Cuz his offense, you know, it’ll be there. It’ll come and go. You know, if he’s one for three in a game in that in a short stint, but he’s defending, we’ll live with that. We’re good with that. You know, but if you know, he’s one for three and he’s giving up back cuts and stuff like that, then we’re going to have a problem with him. And as far as Yan goes, he just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, right? The first two games, especially the first game, it was just kind of easy, free flowing, uh, playing against drop coverage. Today, they were up in coverage, so we haven’t even really worked on like opening up to the ball, you know, getting to the pocket, all that stuff. Um, so, you know, we didn’t really know exactly how they were going to defend us. I didn’t expect them to be that aggressive with us all game, but now I know. I mean, it’s a good game plan for us and uh you know, we’ll work on that. We’ll we’ll we’ll work through some things tough on a back to back, but you know, I thought everybody’s everybody’s doing their thing. You know, everybody’s contributing in every way they can. I was going to ask about Y because there were there were a couple of situations where or trips down the court where defensively where they caught a foul on somebody else or on him. It seemed like his teammates were kind of trying to coach him up about certain situations. Do you feel like the guys really have his back in that way and trying to help him? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve seen Rob take him to the side. seeing all kinds of guys sprinting along. Um there is a little language barrier, especially when the game’s going and you’re trying to tell them something quick, you know, or even like out of a timeout drawing something up. Um so we got to that’s that’s simple. I mean that’s that’s just going to take a little time. I mean he picked up uh English what like within the year so and he’s already has the grasp of it. It’s just like in the game, you know, it’s hard. It’s like when you’re in Europe and you think you have a good language and then you’re at a table and everybody’s socializing, you’re like, I don’t know what’s happening. So, you know, it’s like that. How do you feel Rob has kind of progressed over the three games that he’s played? First game, he had a lot of turnovers. Even this game, the first quarter, he looked kind of rocky at times. Just what have you been looking for out of him just development wise as games go on? Yeah, I mean just I just really want to see him run the team and start thinking about what we can run run for certain guys, run from, you know, himself, what their what their coverage is. I mean, they were, you know, they were trying to blow everything on the side so we couldn’t get over the top. So, what do you do? You pass and chase in that instance. These are all things that are just you get a ton of reps. These are all really NBA reps right here. This is, you know, good. This is good quality game here, especially against that team. They were really good defensively. So just seeing it all, seeing different coverages. Um, and he’s done a better job of trying to get us into different kind of plays, you know, it’s just like he’s going through the rolodex in his head and, you know, it’s it’s it’s getting a little deeper now. So how hard is that for like a young guard to just grasp? I mean, it’s it’s not like it was 20 years ago where it was just pick and roll entry passes. Now there’s multiple different defenses. Just how hard is it for a guy his age to just pick up on all that? I think I think it’s very I think it’s really tough. I mean, especially when you get into like the season and now you’re putting in plays every week and I mean that playbook gets massive. As a point guard, you got to know every you got to know them all. You got to know everybody’s spots on the floor. So, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of study. It’s like a quarterback. All right. All right. Thanks, guys.

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