One thing I was hoping for is Caleb's game to really emerge. Tonight was a good opportunity but it did not happen. Worse yet, VT when on runs twice in the first half when he was in. Rooting for a breakout soon.
Good game from Gillis. Would love for him to take his game to a level closer to last year's 6th MOY performance, operative word here being 'closer' as he's the 7th or 8th man in this rotation.
The way Jon is developing depth is unique. I just looked at the play-buy-play metrics and here are the line-up combos he used in the first half alone:
Flagg, Maluach, Proctor, James, Kon
Flagg, Brown, Proctor, Foster, Kon
Flagg, Brown, Evans, Foster, Kon
Gillis, Brown, Evans, Foster, James
Gillis, Maluach, Evans, Foster, James
Gillis, Ngongba, Proctor, Kon, James
Flagg, Ngongba, Proctor, Kon, James
Flagg, Brown, Proctor, Kon, Evans
Gillis, Brown, Proctor, Foster, Evans
Gillis, Maluach, Proctor, Foster, Evans
Gillis, Flagg, Proctor, Kon, James
Brown, Flagg, Proctor, Kon, James
I don't think there were any repeat line-ups in the first half, but maybe my eyes just aren't seeing them. We never got the starters back on the court together on the first half. I feel like this is being done on purpose beyond trying to find combos that click. How do you prepare for a team that plays this way? Was he tinkering so much because he was trying to find some offense due to the early drought? Patrick was brought in clearly because Kaman failed to hustle back on defense so maybe we saw him early when we normally wouldn't? Is this a way to keep kids, like Foster, engaged and ignoring calls from other teams tempting him to enter the portal due to losing his starting spot? It's probably a little "all of the above" because the second half saw much less rotation dynamism/chaos. But, watching this team there is a feeling of "who is out there now?" and it feels deliberate...because the opposition must be asking the same questions.
I quoted simplyluvin's post because it highlights two guys who are part of the great mass of supporting players. Caleb played 19 minutes in a game we won by 20+ and was a -1. Similarly, Gillis played 10 mins and was a -7. Not surprisingly, many of their common line-ups did not feature Flagg who was _+30. Right now, this team feel like it's Cooper and Proctor that are going to get 30 mpg, and Kon was in that group, but everyone else is going to get 10-30 depending on how they are playing, and it feels like s strategy supporting many diverse goals tied to both winning and player retention.
By Torvik’s adjusted defense metric, this was our worst defensive game this year. But it was our 3rd best offensive game of the season.
That really surprises me because it felt like the D was stout.
I remember having a debate about whether Proctor (or Ryan Young) would have more than one dunk all of last season. He had three in this game! Love to see him aggressively attacking the rim more over the last few games.
Proctor has been SO AWESOME this year, and him punching it on people yesterday got me really fired up!!!! I love those finishes because I think he's getting more confident in them and it will lead him to drive more.
love Brown and his game so much, but man, he does NOT look to shoot, even when the net is almost touching his head.
This is truly confounding because, when he looks to score, he seems to have an excellent touch and feel around the rim.
Other quickies:
-50% of our shots from 3 and a really slow tempo - those are consistent features of this squad that continued in this game.
-Cooper was magnificent. As brevity's post highlighted, Scheyer was glazing him like crazy in the post-game. I love the variety of the ways he was scoring. 6 assists led the team, it was also nice to see Proctor with 5.
Great win, we head to Dallas with a lot of momentum and, I hope, a mindset to send a message that we intend to destroy everyone we face in the conference, whether home or on the road.