Lakers at Jazz Game Thread

[JazzyFresh]

I just don't see the need to label Mitchell anything at this point. Right now he's playing a little bit of both and weather we add another dynamic PG or SG he's still going to play a little of both. What he needs is someone in any position that can be another go to guy and take the pressure off.

 

[Sandman822]

I get what you are saying but Dwade was always the creator. JWill and Payton weren’t playing like pgs at that time Wade had way more creation responsibility... on the defensive end wade is bigger than DM.

We are being too rigid imo... he works with both types... need to focus on the attributes of the player we need next to him in the backcourt... those attributes are most often found in guys considered to be 2s.

I think my post in the "Start Mitchell at PG" thread would be my reponse to this, the tl:dr version is that Mitchell starting at PG isn't the issue, the issue is whether or not Rubio is the ideal PG to put beside Mitchell.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

man Kevin Huerter... only if Allen can play a game like that for us...

He's had plenty of bad games as well. It's the advantage of being a rookie on a tanking team, you get a lot of minutes. If Huerter was on the Jazz he might be in Allen's position now.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

No, Westbrook is an absolute athletic freak, and Mitchell should not try to do what Westbrook does. Jazz need a ballhandler for most of the game who is NOT Mitchell to keep Mitchell fresh and focused in the fourth. I would rather he play D than get all the usage on Offense.

He’s much better with more usage though. The more he touches the ball and involved the better rhythm he gets into, oh and he could’ve easily had 12-13 assists tonight.

royce oneale hitting 3s

Royce seems to be much better as a starter, and it helps when you have a pg that can drive into the paint at will and draw so much attention. Royce had a ton of wide open, basically practice type threes because the defense is so focused on Mitchell when he attacked.

huerter and shamet have gotten so much opportunity to play and learn; quin hasn't been near as flexible with grayson as lloyd pierce and brett brown have been with those 2 guys. even divincenzo has had alot of chances too even though he's played like crap most of the season. impossible to make judgments on allen w/ the garbage minutes he's gotten.

Allen played a ton early, Quin gave him the opportunity to play, and Allen showed he wasn’t ready. Quin even said “if you play defense, you’ll play, if not you won’t play” and Allen’s defense was painfully bad, and was hurting the team. Royce is an example as he played as a rookie because his defense was very good. If Allen was playing for the hawks, he’d probably be playing.

crowder getting fouled from 3 point line every game is hilarious.

He tends to jump forward more then most, and if the defender is going to lung at him, he’s getting fouled more often then not. Commentators even mentioned as much.

If you want Mitchell to be the next DWade you're not going to play him full time at PG

Couple problems with your post here.

1. Wade can’t shoot and not as good handling the ball

2. Mitchell’s future is at pg, as he’s at least two inches shorter than Wade, and Wade is more athletic IMO.

Mitchell is young and still developing his game. He will get more comfortable in pick’n roll with Gobert.

I know it’s a small sample size, but I don’t think Mitchell has had a bad game yet when he’s had to start at pg for a game.

The first half is a perfect example as to why he needs to be the starting pg’s. I can easily see him scoring 25 a night while consistently throwing up 8-10 assists nightly.

 

[Thee Idiotic Minivan K]

Mitchell could’ve had 13-14 assists. Gobert alone messed up two plays where he was set up perfect by Mitchell, but Gobert struggled to finish as he tends to at times.

Most of Mitchell’s upside is at pg.

 

[Nate505]

Smashing the Lakers is always satisfying. Hope all the jagwad Laker fans at the arena appreciated it as much as I did.

 

[NAOS]

He's had plenty of bad games as well. It's the advantage of being a rookie on a tanking team, you get a lot of minutes. If Huerter was on the Jazz he might be in Allen's position now.

You've been watching Stars games, right? Just how bad is Allen's defense? What's your expectation on his career as a defender at this point?

 

[Jingled]

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

You've been watching Stars games, right? Just how bad is Allen's defense? What's your expectation on his career as a defender at this point?

Havent watched a Stars game since Allen joined. No idea on his defense. It was so bad at the start of the year, but it seems like he should be a lot better given his athletic ability.

 

[seattlejazzfan]

Havent watched a Stars game since Allen joined. No idea on his defense. It was so bad at the start of the year, but it seems like he should be a lot better given his athletic ability.

Defense sucked for 4 years at Duke, tough to improve that as a rookie nba player.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Defense sucked for 4 years at Duke, tough to improve that as a rookie nba player.

Yeah, but he didn't have to at Duke. Now he has to.

 

[Bawse Dawg]

Fun game. Over .500.

Can’t wait to read the quotes. There are a billion Laker fans. And their talk about their young dudes compared to Mitchell will be glorious.

 

[Sandman822]

Couple problems with your post here.

1. Wade can’t shoot and not as good handling the ball

2. Mitchell’s future is at pg, as he’s at least two inches shorter than Wade, and Wade is more athletic IMO.

Mitchell is young and still developing his game. He will get more comfortable in pick’n roll with Gobert.

I know it’s a small sample size, but I don’t think Mitchell has had a bad game yet when he’s had to start at pg for a game.

The first half is a perfect example as to why he needs to be the starting pg’s. I can easily see him scoring 25 a night while consistently throwing up 8-10 assists nightly.

Wade can't shoot as much as Mitchell couldn't shoot for most of this season prior to 2019. They're both streaky, difference being that Wade can get himself to the line too, and there was far less of an emphasis on the 3pt shot back in Wade's prime so now when he's shooting more he's around the same % as Mitchell for the season. I'm not sure you could unequivocally say that Mitchell's handle is better than Wade's as while Wade in his solo perimeter star days had way more TOs per 100 than Mitchell (5 - 6 per 100 for Wade vs about 4 for Mitchell), the numbers end up being similar when Wade played as a secondary ball handler with LeBron, which seems like a fairer comparison as Rubio is the primary ball handler for the Jazz until crunch time in the 4th.

I also don't buy that Mitchell has to play PG just because he's smaller. He's got basically the same wingspan as Wade even though he's shorter, and while Wade is much better taking off on one foot Mitchell is better than Wade as a two foot athlete. Both are fluid with their movements, Wade is more likely to take contact and finish through it while Mitchell is more likely to try and acrobatically get a shot off around defenders. In the modern NBA you can hide smaller players on defense by putting them on shooters on the wings and letting a bigger defender take the primary ball handler. Saying Mitchell should play PG because he's smaller is kinda like the inverse of Ben Simmons, as Simmons is clearly a classical type PG who literally can't shoot yet he has the size of a PF or C. You don't see the Sixers force Simmons to play PF just because he's bigger, you play him as your PG because that's where you maximise his strengths and then cross match defensively if you need him to guard bigger guys. You maximise Donovan Mitchell's strengths by allowing him to be a scoring guard who can secondary playmake, and you're more likely to get that out of him in Snyder's system at SG rather than at PG long term.

Also it was two games ago where he had a 1 assist/7 turnover game against Milwaukee. He's had an ast:to ratio of 1.42 over his last 3 games since he's been asked to play the PG which isn't great (Rubio's is 2.02 and Exum's is 2.33 for comparison). He's had stretches earlier in the season where he has had similar high USG rates while putting up much lesser performances with his poor shooting. 2019 Mitchell is an All Star level guy but it's been like 5 or 6 games, and not all of those games have been at PG.

I hope it doesn't happen but if Mitchell has a game at PG where he struggles I would be very interested to see how Jazzfanz reacts to his play, as if I'm being honest I didn't really like what I saw from Mitchell as a PG in the 3rd quarter. He played it a lot like he had done previously in his limited stints at PG before this recent stretch, and the only difference and reason why no one cared tonight (except for Cy I think who picked up on this too) was he was hitting the shots that he was missing in November/December and was keeping the Jazz' lead where it needed to be. He wasn't really doing anything to make his teammates better he was simply carrying them with his scoring, which is why I think his best position is still at SG who can play some PG at times and not full time at PG going forward.

He could figure all this out and make me look dumb as hell in a year or two tho.

 

[Sandman822]

Also just re-reading that post it's a bit of a ramble so I apologise if it's hard to read lol.

 

[Jazzta]

It’s perfect

The full time PG position would put more in his head than is needed. I’m glad he played like he did tonight but is Mitchell playing as a full time PG sustainable in the course of a season?

If he proves me wrong and it translates in many wins I’ll gladly eat crow but it’s a legit concern that I have.

 

[Et tu Brute]

Outstanding defensive performance! Wow. Don terrific and ironman O'Neale good job playing heavy heavy minutes..
Didn't let any Laker get going.

 

[RRJazz]

Rumor is next year NBA is going to penalize teams who purposely foul in transition.

2 shots regardless of team fouls.

Teams are going to score 150ppg. Defenders moving out of the way on fastbreaks. Players with the ball running against defenders and flopping 2x. Harden will score 50ppg. Yikes.


Crowder, Korver, and Niang combined to shoot 5/26 and we still won. Our defense right now is elite. I don't see the Bulls scoring 80, although the 4th quarter will probably be garbage time.

RIP McGee

 

[fishonjazz]

Rudy with a quite 12pt 18reb game

Rudy just being his ho hum consistently bad *** self


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[fishonjazz]

If you want Mitchell to be the next DWade you're not going to play him full time at PG

What if you want him to be the next dame, lowry, westbrook, harden, kyrie, prime all star level d will, mvp level derrick rose, pistons isiah thomas, etc?

What i really want is just for him to be as good as possible and also for the jazz to be as good as possible. Dont really care what position he plays but he seems better suited to having the ball in his hands and i think can guard shorter players better.

 

[fishonjazz]

Because it is much easier to find a stud pg than a stud 2 guard with range, especially one that will work with Mitchell. Good Rubio works well with Mitchell because he doesn't demand a lot of shots. Look at the Blazers. They get shots for their guards, but their bigs just wither away.

Could be that their (portland) bigs just are not all that good and you wouldnt want them getting shots no matter who the guards are.

When rubio is healthy are favors and gobert getting tons of shots? Do we want them getting tons of shots? I bet if we check the stats we will find that rubio shoots more than our bigs, and that when rubio is out there with mitchell we get shots for our guards and our bigs just wither away from a standpoint of getting them lots of shots from our offense.


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