DA’s lack of 4th quarter shots


DA’s lack of 4th quarter shots

9 comments
  1. I’m really sick of seeing DA not being given opportunities in the 4th quarter of games. When we got him more involved and he subsequently crashed the offensive glass harder in the 3rd, we got up by double digits.

    Then, when he comes back into the game in the 4th, he got one shot attempt up within 30 seconds of him reentering the game and then never got passed the ball within the 3 pt stripe again for like the final 6 minutes of the game.

    Some of y’all claim he gets “timid” and doesn’t want it. As shown in the screen grabs, he sealed his man several times and called for it. We didn’t pass it to him, though. Instead, we settled for a missed TC mid range jumper or a Mikal turnover that led to a Heat dunk the other way.

    I’m sick of it. I don’t want to see Cam Payne playing iso ball for several plays at the end of games when he’s shooting 4-17. There’s no reason why Payne should be playing iso and trying to take his guy off the dribble when he’s shooting so poorly. And there’s no reason why he should be shooting 17 times to DA’s 10 times in such games. At the end of games, if it isn’t Book taking the shot, it should be DA or Mikal. Not cam Payne or TC. For the sake of this team’s future, they have to be the ones given the opportunities.

  2. cause he soft, ball just slips out of hos hands or he will do a quick catch and shoot cause he don’t want to get contact

  3. Yep. Had good post position the entire game. No pass. Booker has never really embraced DA and that looks unlikely to change.

    Monty refuses to address it and make adjustments. Doubt Monty wanted DA back after the Mavs series blowup.

    Too much ego from leadership is stunting this cores growth

  4. You know the passing lane is blocked in the first 2 photos and Craig sure as shit isn’t making that 3rd pass easily.

    Edit: Since Ayton stans seem to think anything is open which explains a lot lets explain these pictures more.

    First photo, Payne drives and kicks to Bridges where as Mikal is about to load up the pass to Ayton 2 help defender sprint and put up their arms to block the passing lane. As he tries to re adjust to get an angle within half a second Ayton has already changed position and the position and pass is gone, Bridges now has to move on to other option.

    The second photo i can’t believe i need to explain this but apparently people are completely blind. Payne is inbounding the ball with the defender jumping up and down and Ayton is literally directly behind the defender. There is no physical way to make the pass, because in classic Ayton fashion instead of posting up where he has a chance for a pass, he is posting up directly behind a defender on an inbound play. Fucking horrific positioning.

    The 3rd photo is just as impossible, Craig is running towards Payne, receives the ball not facing Ayton with the defender trying to steal the ball while Ayton is constantly trying to fight for position unsuccessfully while Craig is trying to currently find space for a pass or a dribble because of the aggressive defence he is facing.

    You literally picked 3 screen grabs, where the right play was made not passing to Ayton because it’d have been 3 turnovers.

  5. Lol I like how you post the Payne one like he should pass it yet you also posted a picture from one second later where Butler would have clearly stole it had Payne tried based on positioning.

    Screenshots clearly do not show movement. Did you actually watch any of these? He is not open, or if he is it was just barely long enough to even find these frames.

  6. You can be mad at Payne for sure. But the other two, passing would have been a terrible idea. Especially the Craig one. DA and Craig basically had a triangle of defenders around the passing lane.

  7. this is very misleading OP. When you look at pictures of a frozen frame, you cannot look at it “as it is.” you instead need to have foresight of how things would follow, if that makes sense. if I take an aerial picture of a freeway, it might appear like a car is in the clear to switch lanes, but if you saw a video clip instead of a pic, you’d see that other cars are in the process of merging towards the lane that you thought was clear in the pic. the video would show that the car would be at high risk of collision if he were to switch lanes whereas the picture made it seem safe.

    In all 3 pics the heat are playing man to man help defense. ayton is in position but what happens when he gets the ball? He catches it, the help defender comes over and swarms ayton and he turns the ball over. sound familiar? that’s because it happens every game several times

    1st picture looks like ayton has good position but Adebayo actually has him right where he wants him. ayton is in the high post and a post defender never fronts the guy they are guarding in the high post. you stay between your man and the basket in the high post, otherwise an easy lob near the rim allows the big to catch in a wide open restricted area. ayton is not a high post threat in one on one situations. If bridges were to feed ayton there in the high post, he’d go one on one vs Adebayo which isn’t the ideal shot the suns are looking for.

    2nd picture is an inbounds pass. you rarely see guys lob it into the post on an inbounds play. they draw something up and go through reads to get the ball in bounds first before getting the ball down low into the paint.

    the 3rd pic you see bridges running towards the corner. that is so he can clear space to open up a driving lane in the paint. when a perimeter player like craig attacks a driving lane in the paint it opens things up even more for a post player. the post defender is forced to choose between stepping up to help the on ball defender, or let the ball handler go one on one to keep a body on the big in the post. either scenario is better than feeding ayton here because it prevnts ayton from being swarmed by smaller guards who strip the ball away if they feed him. It takes the help defender out of the picture which gives ayton a better shot. if Craig did lob it to ayton here, strus would come help and swarm ayton which is exactly how we see him turn the ball over several times a game.

    this is basketball 101. I’ve played enough ball to have an eye for this stuff.

  8. Why can’t Craig throw it over the top towards the basket where only DA can get it…? DA has 6 inches on Butler. He can definitely outjump him. Mikal threw a similar pass from much farther earlier in the game and DA caught it over a guard and scored.

    And Mikal could’ve taken a dribble and passed it around Martin. Or lobbed it over the top. There were lanes.

  9. Now post screenshots of every hand off at the top of the key because he’s in his fifth year and has yet to develop a dribble game.

    All those offseasons, so little attempt at actually building that part of his game. Did it once last year in a game we won and even the king of the freezeout himself, Devin Booker, said “I’ve been waiting three f’ing years for him to do that”

    Way it’s going he’s gonna have to wait another three years to see it again. But yeah it’s everyone else’s responsibility to make sure he gets the ball in the exact spots Ayton feels comfortable, and only those spots, how dare they expect some kind of effort to attack on the dribble.

Leave a Reply