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He's lost a step and Memphis's big front line was problematic for Tim.
Playing basketball in the post is a game of subtleties and smarts. As a rule, any bigman who can shoot with either hand over either shoulder is just about unguardable. Well...Tim can still do these things.
I'm sure most of you guys noticed this, but in the second half Tim Duncan caught the ball in the post on the right block, put the ball on the floor once, then shot a beautiful righty jump hook that went off the glass and in. At that moment my reaction was, "There you go, Tim! Why the did it take you so long to use that shot?" It was only the third time in the series that he had made a solid low post move.
Tim can still shoot over either shoulder, with either hand...on both blocks...so why did he consistently go away from those shots only to throw up pure trash on a consistent basis throughout this series?
Yes, he has much slower first step. Yes, he's a mediocre finisher around the rim, but so many of Tim's shots (the bank shot, the straightaway jumper, and the jump hooks) require relatively little lift and explosiveness. So why did he hesitate to take these shots?
Without a healthy Manu, Tim's ineffectiveness and inability to make Gasol work on the defensive end became even more glaring. I'm just not quite sure why he was so ineffective. I want to place it on the ankle injury...but after some deliberation I'm thinking that there was a significant amount of bad decision-making on Tim's part as well.
What are your thoughts?
He's lost a step and Memphis's big front line was problematic for Tim.
He seemed indecisive for most of the series when he got on the block, with the exception of the opening half of Game 5 when he went to work on Gasol. Memphis did an outstanding job of converging on him whenever he put the ball on the floor with his back to the basket, often times coming from his blind side, and cutting off the passing lanes. Throughout the series the general movement without the ball was pretty poor; when guys like Dice moved down the lane Tim was able to dump it off for high percentage shots, but it seemed those occasion were few and far in between.
35 Year Old Players have a nasty habit of not being as good as they were at 25 or even 30.
This is unavoidable.
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