They do a switching scheme and the scheme sucked because the defense sucked since they’re giving up a shit ton of points.
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The one issue with Livers is that he’s a tweener. I feel okay with him guarding anyone between 6’4" and 6’8" but last night he was on Giannis some (a likely 7’1", and 250), and Portis (6’10" 250). He may have found himself against Brook Lopez, as well, plus some guards. He gives max-effort and is effective against similar-sized players.
I mean, the Pistons up front are too short, as a whole. Jerami Grant was a minus-rebounder, but he was a good defender and had length. They’re missing him on that end of the court. It was still worthwhile to trade him, to wind up with Duren, but it’s going to hurt a bit in the short-term.
Livers is a smart defender, plays with high effort, and works well within a team structure. He has his own limitations physically like you said - he’s a tweener. As a bench player, I think that actually helps his role in the NBA - come in and hit threes while trying to guard a 3 or 4 for 50% of the minutes.
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I’d like to see him get a look as a starter. He would add a little more defense to that unit, and Saddiq could be the alpha scorer for the bench unit. I’m not entirely sure it would work, but he’s probably more comfortable with being the 4th or 5th option as a starter than Bey might be.
You can trust Livers to be in the right place on defense. He’s not going to lock anyone down one-on-one but he rotates on time and gives an honest effort to contest every shot.
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Duncan was 5/8 from 3 and scored 17 on 10 shots vs the Warriors (Poole not so good)
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20 points and 7 assists for Franz tonight, in a loss.
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Yeah - still rough from 3, but a good game.
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I used to think Beilein would come back to coach college somewhere but now I am not so sure. He’s teaching basketball at the highest level even if he isn’t on the bench, he seems happy, and at this point he gets to see his former players pretty often in the NBA.
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Franz one of four Magic(ians?) in double figures at the half (with 15) and 4 dimes in a growing rout of the kings
Houstan DNP-CD so far
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Living in FL I get to watch every Magic game on cable. Franz Wagner is so good and his future is so bright. That is all.
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Franz keeps scoring from 2 - his 3 point percentage is down from 34% to 25% so far, but his true shooting is up slightly (and 4 more ppg) because he’s unstoppable inside 3 feet.
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No question, he is a prime timer and an Alpha defender. His rebounding is not indicative to how good of a defender he is. We had a discussion about Jett and his defense/rebounding, but for Franz it is expected not to rebound extremely well, especially when he defends wings who take jump-shots from the outside. He is usually out of position to rebound long misses, or even being unable due to boxing out, which is something he does very well. Jett will have plenty of time and coaching to get into good habits defensively,
I don’t have the resources to find out who was primarily guarding Luka in that game, are you able to tell me?
To my eye, it was mostly Chuma Okeke.
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Not sure if I’m doing this right but attempting to embed:
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For some reason Instagram doesn’t play nice with the forum software.