@@New York Knicks

Last night Jayson Tatum shot 20% when defended by RJ Barrett, and shot 70% when defended by the rest of the team.

  • October 26, 2023


When RJ was matched up again Tatum in the 3rd and the 4th quarter, he was able to hold him to [1 for 5 shooting](https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1629628/head-to-head) to help get the Knicks back into the game. RJ always seems to play great defense against Tatum and was a lot more effective than Grimes last night as Tatum [shot 5/5 (100%)](https://www.nba.com/stats/player/1628369/head-to-head?Matchup=Offense&dir=D&sort=MATCHUP_FGA) when defended by Grimes. Should we have RJ be the main Tatum defender for future matchups?

Nice to see RJ start the season off strong on both sides of the ball. Hope he can keep it up for the rest of the season.

8 comments

  1. RJ played great man. Really was impressed with his play last night all around. Really hoping he can keep this up to start the season.

    Was the only starter that came to play last night

  2. RJ really should be doing more on defense. I love Q but he just gives up so much size to these bigger wings. He does a good job regardless, but RJ should be the one guarding them and Q should get a few more looks with the ball on offense. RJ can’t get over screens, though, which is the bigger problem. He’s fine in isolation, but until he can reliably navigate screens you can’t make him the primary defender against the opponent’s best player

  4. Rj is the only one with size at that position and he’s strong. Until we get a better replacement we can’t just trade him just because without have a strong sf at that position. I love grimes and iq defense but they are too little compared to to all the great wings in the league

  5. If RJ can get his defensive game up to 2021 levels again, would be huge. Efficiency is the most important for him to improve, still needs to take some smarter shots, but this is very encouraging.

  6. I’ve hated the Grimes-on-Tatum, RJ-on-Brown matchup since the beginning of last year. Tatum is just too big for Grimes and Brown is a good offensive player, it’s not a situation where you’re wasting your best perimeter defender by sticking him on somebody that’s not a scoring threat. RJ has the strength to guard Tatum down low and the size to contest his shots. If anything, I feel like I’d even rather have Randle on Tatum if the Celtics aren’t in a double big lineup

  8. Look RJ deserves his props but I don’t want people to discount Grimes defense here

    Grimes played some insanely good D and was killed by Tatum just being better on offense on some plays. It’s just how it goes sometimes. Grimes did a solid job

    What didn’t happen tho was on Randle vs Jrue his offense winning. Holiday basically shut him down and Randle could never get going because of that.

    In the playoffs you’re gonna see similar type frustration defenders like that and Randle has to figure out how to get going. The season is young and I don’t doubt Randle will have a good regular season but he’s gotta figure it out vs the best teams so it translates to the postseason

    Whatever it’s game 1 no biggie right now

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