Should Poeltl close out games despite beeing a bad Free Throw shooter?
Yesterday it was clear as day, that his Defense is much more important than people want to give him credit for. The Way he limited Jokic and Millsap was great. (you cant stop them)
Which makes me wonder why he only plays 20 Mins. He and Aldridge have learnd to play together. It also would help Aldridge if he does not need to defend Jokic.
What i especially did not understand that, while Denver had their run in the last 8 mins of the 4th, that Poeltl was not subbed in to stabilize the defense. I know he had 5 fouls (from which 2 were bad-calls), but if he is fouled out or sits on the bench for rest of the game does not make any difference. At least he could have given them some extra minutes of his defense.
Over the last two games it is apparent that he and White are the two most important Defenders, and Gay/Bertans are not up to the task to defend either Millsap/Jokic/Plumlee.
Do you think it would be good if Poeltl closes out games?
During the 3rd quarter run when we up by 19 again, he blocked a Jokic shot which led to a D White dunk and then he and Aldridge collapsed on Barton when he went to the basket. It was a foul but a hard foul. It felt like they were dominating the paint. I loved it.
I would have liked to see him at the end of last nights game. When it was obvious Gay was working out, gotta go with the guy who was doing well.
Last edited by TDomination; 04-17-2019 at 11:40 AM.
Gay is playing awful and Bertans doesn't appear to be able to guard Milsap. Moving LMA over to Milsap and letting Poeltl take Jokic is what I would have done last night. However, Milsap might not be able to play as physical as he was in San Antonio which could result in Bertans seeing more time down the stretch. All in all, I don't think having Gay out there to close games or in clutch situations is the answer.
Of course he should, but no one ever said poop was smart so he won't make any adjustments until it's too late. MVPoeltl should be closing out all our games and should play 35+ minutes tbh.
when everybody else is getting abused by Paul Millsap he definitely should
He should but obviously it's not possible. Not when Patty "coach's pet" Mills has a closing spot guaranteed, which bumps LMA to the center spot.
A closing lineup of Mills/White/DDR/LMA/Poeltl should work just fine against the Nuggets. You could put Forbes in place of Mills, but leaving both of them out in favor of Gay hurts the spacing badly, and Bertans isn't really equipped to run around on the perimeter on defense against the Nuggets wings.
Haven't looked for myself but apparently the net rtg for LMA and Poeltl lineups have been pretty bad, according to Zach Lowe. Closing with the starting lineup would likely hurt LMA given there doubles are a result of that lineup having one 3pt threat and Denver given White space.
I would wait to see if Bertans or Gay improves with adjustments before going that route.
It depends on the context. If we are behind I don't think he should close out, if we have the lead it may be worth a try to slow the game down.
Arguably he should close out if Spurs have a lead because the emphasis is getting stops.
Just not realistic in today's league. At some point, the Nuggets were going to get going offensively, no matter what lineup the Spurs played.
The Spurs' own offense is the bigger concern. They're not winning this or any series on the defensive end. Not only are they not constructed to do so, but it's exceedingly difficult to in today's league period.
They're 12-33 from 3 in the first 2 games. To put that in context, the Spurs averaged 25 attempts per game in the regular season and Nuggets game up 31. Some of it is the majority of the Spurs' attempts come from 4 players, 3 of whom are not playing quite as much as usual, but still. They are putting too much strain on their defense.
If the other option is GAY, then yes ...
he's basically the less skilled version of ter
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