Explain One Play: Jordan Poole breaks out of slump with speed and fakes against Pistons
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Explain One Play: Jordan Poole breaks out of slump with speed and fakes against Pistons
A very efficient 32
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The Warriors took care of business against the Detroit Pistons in the 2021.11.19.GSW-DET game, barely hanging on to win while resting four key players. Jordan Poole had the opportunity and obligation to step up and cover the missing scoring power, which he did with a few threes and even more great drives which he carried off with speed, fakes and very creative and delicate finishes. The end result was an efficient 32 points on 22 shots and hopefully progress Poole can build on.
Co-starring Juan Toscano-Anderson as the mind-reading sidekick, Kevon Looney as the steady rock, Gary Payton II as the high flying decoy. Also with Cade Cunningham, Jerami Grant, Killian Hayes and Isaiah Stewart as the frustrated pursuers.
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Explain One Play: Jordan Poole breaks out of slump with speed and fakes against Pistons
Great E1P, as always. So delightful to see JTA and Looney excelling in these 2 man game moves with JP - and JP capitalizing. Could easily have not worked so the abundance of these plays gives me a lot of confidence in the growth of the team.
It seemed pretty obvious that zero points from the floor in the last 3+ minutes meant that the Dubs were pretty gassed from their extended playing time. But exhaustion cut both ways and the guys held on. Looney is going to need a night off soon!
Player grades on the celebrations! Hilarious. I think you're generous to upgrade Draymond's hip shuffle thing to B-tier, definitely no higher than C+. Agreed Porter's salute the clutch thing was A-tier. And what a shot worth celebrating! It looked great in game but it looks even cooler with the way you pause the action to show the instant the shot blocker is still attempting to swat away the ball on the left side of the basket, when actually it's no longer there because Poole is about to put that sweet one high on the glass on the opposite side!
I love the way the "zigzag relocate with out-of-bounds acrobatics" play worked, and there were a couple others in this game too where guys looked like they'd made a mistake and lost the ball, but actually came up with it again and coolly continued to play with the usual principles. It's amazing how effective simple screens and backcuts can be when the defense is distracted by what looks like an error. Dribbled the ball off your knee? Don't worry, that's normal, just pick it up and you can make the pass to the cutter while the defender is trying to decide if he should dive for a steal. Kind of the same principle as air balls go to the offense, maybe.
Also: I learned from this E1P that "causing friendly fire screens" is yet another one of the Curry skills that Poole has been studying. Who knew!