On Draymond's suspension.. as a Warrior fan, sadly, I was prepared for this being a 5 game or so suspension. The league showed their hand citing "past history" with Green's suspension during last year's playoff run, and while I had no issue with Draymond jumping in to protect Klay initially, the 9-10 seconds he held onto Gobert made it clearly excessive. I was hoping for 3, but a lot of Dub Nation were ready for the league to give him the 5 gamer.
I didn't agree that Klay and McDaniels should have been tossed. Double Tehcnical? Yes. But Gobert putting hands on Klay (instead of pulling McDaniels off) and Dray then over-reacting probably affected the refs thinking.
I like Derozan's purely on the aesthetics and degree of athletic difficulty. Jokic was a head's up play, and, while 75' alley-oops are not easy by any stretch, I think it was more just the unexpected nature of it than a truly high-degree of difficulty pass.
A few other notes on fancy passes.
1) One of my favorite type of 'passes' is not a singular pass, but the bang-bang-bang, hockey-assist/harlem globetrotter like multi-pass sequence. The Warriors had one against Cleveland the other night, where Steph no-looked a dime to Dray in the paint, and Dray rainbowed the ball immediately over his defender for GP2 to climb the ladder and throw down a reverse slam. Washington had a really nice one, too earlier in the year where Denny Avidja made a nice cross-court bounce pass to Poole on a fast break, and Poole immediately lofted it towards the rim for Kuzma to finish the alley-oop.
2) Speaking of Avidja, he's one of those jack-of-all trade players, master of none, but if I were to single out one skill that stands out in his repertoire above all else, it is his passing. He makes a lot of no-look behind the back passes in transition that seem to come within the flow of the game (i.e., not flamboyant or risky), and his ability to see the floor leads to a lot of nice assists. It's a shame the Wizards seem lost on offense, as a whole, though, as within the right system, he might flourish with his IQ.
3) A few other passes I've liked this year include:
- Steph's no-look alley-oop from behind the 3-pt arc to a back-cutting GP2
- Marcus Smart diving to the ground for a loose ball (as you'd expect Smart to do), but then flipping it backwards to a teammate as he slid across the floor for an easy bucket.
- Kyrie Irving's literal 'touch' pass that re-directed a Doncic pass up towards the rim for Derrick Jones Jr. to slam home
As an old-school pass-first PG from way back, I love the focus of this piece.
Great call on #1, Yato. Those classic Spurs teams that aimed to move the ball every .5 seconds (or something close) are still some of my favorites for that reason.
On Draymond's suspension.. as a Warrior fan, sadly, I was prepared for this being a 5 game or so suspension. The league showed their hand citing "past history" with Green's suspension during last year's playoff run, and while I had no issue with Draymond jumping in to protect Klay initially, the 9-10 seconds he held onto Gobert made it clearly excessive. I was hoping for 3, but a lot of Dub Nation were ready for the league to give him the 5 gamer.
I didn't agree that Klay and McDaniels should have been tossed. Double Tehcnical? Yes. But Gobert putting hands on Klay (instead of pulling McDaniels off) and Dray then over-reacting probably affected the refs thinking.
I like Derozan's purely on the aesthetics and degree of athletic difficulty. Jokic was a head's up play, and, while 75' alley-oops are not easy by any stretch, I think it was more just the unexpected nature of it than a truly high-degree of difficulty pass.
A few other notes on fancy passes.
1) One of my favorite type of 'passes' is not a singular pass, but the bang-bang-bang, hockey-assist/harlem globetrotter like multi-pass sequence. The Warriors had one against Cleveland the other night, where Steph no-looked a dime to Dray in the paint, and Dray rainbowed the ball immediately over his defender for GP2 to climb the ladder and throw down a reverse slam. Washington had a really nice one, too earlier in the year where Denny Avidja made a nice cross-court bounce pass to Poole on a fast break, and Poole immediately lofted it towards the rim for Kuzma to finish the alley-oop.
2) Speaking of Avidja, he's one of those jack-of-all trade players, master of none, but if I were to single out one skill that stands out in his repertoire above all else, it is his passing. He makes a lot of no-look behind the back passes in transition that seem to come within the flow of the game (i.e., not flamboyant or risky), and his ability to see the floor leads to a lot of nice assists. It's a shame the Wizards seem lost on offense, as a whole, though, as within the right system, he might flourish with his IQ.
3) A few other passes I've liked this year include:
- Steph's no-look alley-oop from behind the 3-pt arc to a back-cutting GP2
- Marcus Smart diving to the ground for a loose ball (as you'd expect Smart to do), but then flipping it backwards to a teammate as he slid across the floor for an easy bucket.
- Kyrie Irving's literal 'touch' pass that re-directed a Doncic pass up towards the rim for Derrick Jones Jr. to slam home
Caught me by surprise but as a Wizards fan (😭) Deni's passing has definitely been a good surprise to witness these first few weeks of the season!
Thanks for adding these nominees for OTHER ...
As an old-school pass-first PG from way back, I love the focus of this piece.
Great call on #1, Yato. Those classic Spurs teams that aimed to move the ball every .5 seconds (or something close) are still some of my favorites for that reason.
Haliburton also holds the TO-less assist record for 3 games, 40 from last season.
The 2-game list doesn't prove Porter had no turnovers, as TOs are incomplete prior to 1984. And Lucas had 29, not 27.
Good editing. Thanks much ...