Outside of the loss and poor shooting I wanted to make some observations to monitor for moving forward. In my opinion, if these aren’t fixed it will be the difference between a round 1 exit and a deep playoff run. This isn’t an overreaction post, merely things to monitor if they’re trends, or just a poor showing.

• Offensive scheme
  • This was a problem last year with Finch and was still a problem game 1. Objectively our spacing looks off, we’re taking contested jumpers, and the ball is not moving enough to find open looks.
  • There are minimal back door cuts and off ball screens
  • Off-ball movement is basically non-existent in our current offense (Watch Naz Reid and Mike Conley for two guys that do this well though)
• Rotations
  • This was also a problem last year with Finch and was still a problem game 1.
  • Naz Reid does not pair well with Gobert. Naz is an exceptional ball handler with an explosive 1st step and a great 3 point shot. When Gobert is in the lineup at the same time, it eliminates Naz’s ability to draw his defender to the perimeter and then use his superior ball handling to attack the lane because Gobert and his defender are clogging the lane.
    • This issue is not as problematic with the Kat+Gobert pairing because KAT is a better passer when Gobert rolls and KAT is less explosive, so the play style is slower.
    • Kat+Naz is a good pairing because KAT’s defender needs to respect his 3 point shooting and can’t cheat into the lane if he’s aligned outside
  • When Conley+Ant were on the floor together, I am still unsure who is supposed to be the primary ball handler. It felt like Ant was acting as our primary guard, but our offense last year looked much better when Conley handled those duties when they’re out there together and Ant handled them with Slomo when Conley was resting.
  • Down 6 with 11 seconds in the 4th Q and Gobert is on the floor? Situational awareness necessitates a quick 3 attempt followed by inbound defense. Why was our lineup not Slomo inbounding under the rim with Kat, Naz, Ant, and Conley providing spacing and 4 three point shooting options?
    • Monitor Finch’s ability to recognize game state and ensure we have the correct rotation of guys on the floor moving forward.
• Transitions and Urgency
  • Our fast break looked abysmal and it seemed like the team did not have an understanding of “roles” - Finch needs to establish who the guys are from each rotation that are breaking out into the fast break and give the boys some direction
  • Defensive transitions looked terrible.
  • Toronto outscored us 34-12 in fast-break points.
  • Similar to offensive scheme, everything about our pacing looks SLOWWWW. We had 9 guys in our rotation and have the deepest team that I can remember. We should be playing fast and pushing the tempo causing mismatches for Ant, Kat, and Naz, in transition.

There were some really great positives this game from last year to this year. We have the tallest team in the league and we showed it on the glass by outrebounding Toronto 62-47. We struggled with rebounding last year despite our height, so it’s nice to see improvement there and we should continue to watch and ensure that remains a strength. Our free throw shooting looked improved as a team (18-22). Gobert and Kat each had 4 blocks and made defenders think twice about attacking the paint. We’ve struggled with paint protection and still had some breakdowns, but they were mostly in transition. In the half court defense our guys looked elite.

It sucks we lost and I think Toronto is a team we need to beat 99 out of 100 times. We struggled to beat inferior competition last year and it was the difference between going through the playin stage and being a top-5 seed.

TL:DR - Poor rotations, offensive schemes, pacing, and transitional play are things to monitor. I put all of those categories into the “coach” bucket and it’s on Finch to figure these out. Rebounding, rim protection, free throw shooting was improved and we should watch to ensure it stays that way.