I think our identity is a mismatch hunting team where our top scorers will score when they get advantages. We still run pick and rolls and place an importance on spacing, but our recent run is due a lot to Kawhi feasting on mismatches.

Does anyone care what PJ Tucker has to say? I know that I don’t. He’s had a nice career. Let Tucker’s agent work the phones for the best deal available. I suspect it will be 2 2nd rounders.

TMann, keep shooting.

Kobe, Keep shooting and keep playing hard.

Leonard cancels out the best player on every other team.

Love Harden’s long touchdown passes.

Beat the crap out of the Warriors tonight.

Manage KL legs. PG injury a potential warning sign
Still long season ahead
I would prefer to lengthen rotation to 10-11 players – Bones, Coffey
Bones and Coffey can scrap and play defense also if given the opportunities
Conserve the wear and tear of James H
Conserve PG and KL’s also.

If we’re talking to the Bulls though, I’d throw in a lot to snatch Caruso from under the nose of a different playoff team.

Transition: 4th in frequency, tied 29th in efficiency. Turnovers slightly reduced to 11th highest but we suck in transition. 6.9 percentile.

Pick’n’roll ball handler: tied 19th in frequency, tied 4th in efficiency, 10th highest turnover rate, dropped to 82.8 percentile. –> I’m glad the volume didn’t increase because the turnover rate is too high for a play that generates 98 points per 100 possessions.

Pick’n’roll roll man: tied 20th in frequency, tied 18th in efficiency. This might not sound golden but it’s where we’ve improved by a mile, from 10.3 to 35.7 percentile (and further trending up). It’s a more efficient play than using the ball handler, however, we still have the 2nd highest turnover rate in the league on those plays. A work in progress.

Post-up: 14th in frequency, 16th in efficiency. Still the lowest turnover frequency in the league but other teams have caught up since the last time, indicating that we’ve had a significantly increased turnover rate (which makes some sense when we look at reduced minutes for Russ, his offensive struggles compared to pre-trade and the reduced spacing without RoCo and Nico). Overall, a drop from 58.6 to 48.3 percentile and a play we either have to use less or execute better.

Spot-up: tied 25th in frequency, tied 9th in efficiency, 14th in turnover rate, 69th percentile, up from 51.7. Improvement

Hand-offs: 29th in frequency, tied 3rd in efficiency, 2nd lowest turnover rate, 93.1 percentile –> my biggest beef with Ty Lue’s offense. 108 points per 100 on a far lower turnover rate with a roster that’s almost perfectly suited to run DHOs – and we prefer isos even when we face teams that rank 1st in defending them (Portland) or in the top 10 (Sacramento) while sucking at defending DHOs and even when we clearly lack ball movement. We are seeing some improvement but this category is such a clear indicator that the offense is far from maximized.

Cuts: tied 8th in frequency, 15th in efficiency (very close to 5 other teams ahead of us). Tied 7th lowest turnover rate, 51.7 percentile. There’s more cuts run and the efficiency is about the same while the turnover rate is lower. Given that cuts are among the most efficient plays, this is a significant positive.

Off-screens: 5th in frequency, tied 15th in efficiency, 3rd lowest turnover rate, 50.0 percentile. Because of the very low turnover rate, a strength of ours.

We are trending in the right direction. However, incorporating DHOs (much) more, especially when the matchup calls for it or isos and pick’n’rolls aren’t effective/create too many turnovers, could potentially lift our offense to a whole different level/make it more versatile.

A main goal is achieved by reducing the turnover rate a lot. There’s room for improvement with the roster, the spacing, the play-calling, transition offense and the (mostly offensive) game-planning.

Also regarding trade possibilities for PJ, I would be ecstatic if we could somehow turn PJ into Patrick Williams. I realize his numbers are down and he hasn’t blossomed into like a PG13-type of F Chicago was hoping for, but dude is only 22, is 6’8″ w/ a 7’0″ wingspan, and is a career 40% 3-pt shooter. Plus, and I suppose this could be looked at as both a positive and a negative, he’ll be a restricted FA this summer. So if this doesn’t work out and he’s asking for some exorbitant/unjustifiable contract number the Clips have options.

Another team I’d be eyeing is Detroit. They’re in a free fall yet again and have a glut of young big guys. I’d love it if we could pry Isaiah Stewart away from them – he’s on a long-term, really cheap contract and provides the rebounding and toughness from the PF spot we haven’t had in a long time. I wouldn’t want Bagley unless we could recoup some draft capital along with him.

Our strength of schedule so far, according to basketball reference: 2nd easiest. We gotta factor that in a bit.

Defensive stats look good (last 13 games, since Mann starts): 3rd in defensive rating, 1st in opponents points off turnovers, tied 9th in opponents second-chance points, 9th in fastbreak points allowed, 8th in paint points allowed. Over this stretch, we have had games to pat defensive stats (Spurs twice), games where we failed to do that ,(Portland, Denver missing 3 starters) but also games where we defended strong offensive teams well (Mavs and Kings, full strength Nuggets). The latter part is why I think these stats are trustworthy and our defense will turn out to be legit. While we are only tied 8th in steals over this stretch (down from 1st before the trade and one of the negative consequences of reduced Westbrook minutes), Zu has been great, we added Theis, Mann is healthy and Harden has had some very effective defensive games, not just bad ones.

Playtype changes that focus on offense in the next comment.