'21 Season E1P Review: Our Guy Juan Toscano-Anderson
Juanito is so smart at the game
A list of all Explain One Play articles and videos is at The new Explain One Play index. Plus visit the 2020-21 Season Reviews Guide.
To get us in the mood for next season, I’m going to run some Explain One Play highlights of 2020-21. Many of these previously were subs-only articles, but are now free as a present to our faithful off-season readers.
Why would I make my first talking video about an obscure bench player on Christmas Day? Because this bandwagon won’t drive itself.
Explain One Play: Stephen Curry and Juan Toscano-Anderson Improvise a Hammer 3
Stephen Curry, Juan-Toscano-Anderson, Mychael Mulder, Damion Lee and Marquess Chriss work together to improve an open hammer 3 on a fast break. From the GSW-MIL game on 2020.12.25.
You might say, how in the world you could make a three part series about Our Guy Juanito? And I would say, I know, it was all I could do to keep it down to three parts.
Explain Juan Play 1: Juan Toscano-Anderson Runs Like Crazy, Gets Stephen Curry Open Threes
One of my favorite players, Juan Toscano-Anderson had a brilliant game against the Orlando Magic, 2021.02.11. He dominated the end of the game, to pull off a big comeback, combining all-out hustle, leadership and communication on defense and punishing Orlando’s ignoring him on offense.
Part 1 focuses on his hustle: specifically how his running the court created all kinds of chances and exhausted his All-Star opponent, poor Nikola Vucevic. Co-starring co-hustler Damion Lee, near-highlight partners Kelly Oubre and Andrew Wiggins, and Stephen Curry, the recipient (for a change) of passes for open shots.
Explain Juan Play #2: Juan Leads On Defense, Dominates Boards and Loose Balls
Part 2 focuses on his defensive leadership and his communication via talking and good old fashioned pointing. Lots of pointing. Co-starring his co-pointer-in-chief Draymond Green, good listeners Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins, All-Star colossal nemesis Nikola Vucevic and a frustrated Dwayne “My Cabbages!!” Bacon.
Explain Juan Play #3: Juan Toscano-Anderson gets ignored and punishes the Magic
Part 3 focuses on how the Magic gave Juan the Tony Allen treatment and tried to have his defender ignore him on offense to help on everyone else, and how Juan punished this treatment with game winning scores. Co-starring Draymond Green, Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins, and All-Star colossal nemesis Nikola Vucevic.
You may not believe this, but I’m aware not everyone wants every E1P to be about OUR GUY JUANITO. So I intentionally took a break from Explain Juan Play… and so did Kerr. He gave Oubre and other players extra time *cough* boost trade value *cough* and sat Juanito for a while. Finally neither of us count resist…
Explain Juan Play: Our Guy Juanito is so good at running the system
I've been praising Juan's decision-making for months and months. And you might counter me by saying, well, isn't his decision-making to throw the ball to Steph. And I would say that's because that's usually the right decision. But he doesn't just toss it to Steph and get out of the way. He may be the guy on the team who most faithfully runs Steve Kerr’s system.
Co-starring Draymond Green as the assist man, Steph Curry as the most interesting man in the world to the defense, and Jordan Poole as mugging victim (or is he?).
Less OT: I am one of the original JTA stans because I love how he plays Warrior basketball.
I found the pre-season last year to be very frustrating because he didn't have a very good pre season and I knew they were going to choose Mulder over JTA for that last spot. While I liked Mulder fine, it was evident that JTA really fit the team from his play the previous (non Steph) year and I had been looking forward to seeing him play with the core.
I can't remember exactly when all the changes from GSOM->LGW->DNHQ happened but I had been pretty new to GSOM so I just kept reading all the sites. It became pretty evident that the best writers (and commenters) had migrated to LGW (so now to here).
Anyway, my pain about knowing that JTA was perfect for the dubs and they might be blowing it (they didn't, as we know) was assuaged by all the shared Our Guy Juanito love here, so even though I've already seen alot of this video, I just enjoy the JTA repping going on. I am super curious to see how he does this season, assuming he has earned more of Kerr's trust and will get some important minutes,
I remember my first impression of Juan Toscano-Anderson being, "Wow, among all the random g-league call-ups, this guy alone really *gets* how to play in the big league." Like, yeah, he didn't score many points or even that many other counting stats but he was constantly making smart and impactful plays.
Then he went and improved to being a 40% 3P shooter and we found out that putting him next to Steph Curry was actually... kind of spectacular?? As demonstrated in some of the excellent E1Ps above. Still laughing at him running circles around Vucevic and then doing air guitar poses while Steph Curry shoots wide-open threes.
Honestly the only time I think I've ever doubted Juan's decision-making was when he dove over the scorer's table to save a ball (resulting in an open 3!) but missed the ending of the game because he injured his head in the process. Like, yeah, that save was awesome, but we really wanted you for the rest of the game there, Juanito.