Everything Chris Boucher

[TheWaterboy]

One interesting thing to bear in mind about Boucher's unorthodox 3-point shooting style: at Chris's height, shooting the three from over one's head puts the ball further out of reach than most other shooters' 3-point shots. Add to that Chris's ability to set and shoot smoothly and reasonably quickly, and that shot becomes very difficult to contest if defenders sag off of him and/or track the rest of the action and forget to keep tabs on him.

[S.R.]

Couple great articles re Boucher’s dominance...

the first is particularly satisfying as it’s written by the enemy.

https://www.libertyballers.com/2021/...to-raptors-nba

https://hoopshype.com/2021/02/22/tor...nse-sixth-man/

Nice! That is fun, nice breakdown on the Philly blog. Favourite fan comment at the bottom "lol but srsly how often is Chris Boucher going to hit 5 3's in a row on you." Well, the man is shooting 45% from 3 this year so...maybe don't leave him wide open? Honestly he's shooting considerably better than Matt Thomas this season, and teams stick to Thomas like glue.

[G__Deane]

Nice! That is fun, nice breakdown on the Philly blog. Favourite fan comment at the bottom "lol but srsly how often is Chris Boucher going to hit 5 3's in a row on you." Well, the man is shooting 45% from 3 this year so...maybe don't leave him wide open? Honestly he's shooting considerably better than Matt Thomas this season, and teams stick to Thomas like glue.

Cause and effect?

[A.I]

Nice! That is fun, nice breakdown on the Philly blog. Favourite fan comment at the bottom "lol but srsly how often is Chris Boucher going to hit 5 3's in a row on you." Well, the man is shooting 45% from 3 this year so...maybe don't leave him wide open? Honestly he's shooting considerably better than Matt Thomas this season, and teams stick to Thomas like glue.

Its reputation. People know Matt has a 3 point specialist, he just hasn't gotten into a rhythm due to random minutes, Boucher has been killing it from 3 though.

[S.R.]

For sure, Matt Thomas is struggling because he gets no space and when he launches a shot now he's often moving and/or has almost no time. He doesn't get open catch and shoot attempts like a Joe Harris. One of the side effects of the Raptors not having a go-to bucket getter who demands doubles and breaks down a defence. You can run a bunch of screens like they do for Thomas, but if the defence is really dialed in you still don't really get open.

So you end up with Boucher at 45% and Thomas at 35%. So, at some point - maybe defences should also start paying more attention to Boucher at the 3 pt line. If you're the other team I mean, from the Raptors' perspective please go ahead and continue to sag off of/help off of Boucher, we'll take it.

[A.I]

It also helps Boucher is playing at PF/C. A lot of Centers' first instinct is to sag off to defend the paint and rebound. Dwight and Embiid did that, got caught sagging off on the pick and pops and Boucher punished them for it.

[DanH]

For sure, Matt Thomas is struggling because he gets no space and when he launches a shot now he's often moving and/or has almost no time. He doesn't get open catch and shoot attempts like a Joe Harris. One of the side effects of the Raptors not having a go-to bucket getter who demands doubles and breaks down a defence. You can run a bunch of screens like they do for Thomas, but if the defence is really dialed in you still don't really get open.

So you end up with Boucher at 45% and Thomas at 35%. So, at some point - maybe defences should also start paying more attention to Boucher at the 3 pt line. If you're the other team I mean, from the Raptors' perspective please go ahead and continue to sag off of/help off of Boucher, we'll take it.

Either way is good for us because if they start sticking to Boucher, that will really help Pascal's inside scoring, which has already rebounded nicely from his brutal start to the year.

[S.R.]

It also helps Boucher is playing at PF/C. A lot of Centers' first instinct is to sag off to defend the paint and rebound. Dwight and Embiid did that, got caught sagging off on the pick and pops and Boucher punished them for it.

That was in a few of the Philly blog clips. Sixers bigs playing defence in no-man's land because they're thinking about helpside blocks (for a drive that never happens) or rebounding (for a shot that never comes). Ball swings back to Boucher, wide open. Huge coaching frustration, players drifting around in no-man's land. You're not doing anything there except creating a 5 on 4.

[inthepaint]

Chris is now 23th in PER in the league. PER is a controversial metric, kinda skewed towards C's, but all in all the top 5 in PER by the all-star break typically get at least some MVP buzz (if their team is doing well). Here's the top 30 as of the all-star break (these are almost all sure-fire starters, and out of the top 20, 80% are all-stars this year):

1. Jokic
2. Embiid
3. Giannis
4. Zion
5. Kawhi
6. Lillard
7. McCollum
8. Doncic
9. RobertWilliams III (surprise here but he's actually a really efficient player)
10. Butler
11. Steph Curry
12. Durant
13. Beal
14. Harden
15. Anthony Davis
16. Lebron
17. Vucevic
18. Christian Wood
19. Kyrie Irving
20. Capela
21. Jarret Allen
22. Trae Young
23. Chris Boucher
24. Lavine (tied with Chris)
25. Paul George
26. Karl Anthony Towns
27. Harrell
28. Gobert
29. Adebayo
30. Kanter

As of now Chris also has the 9th highest TS% in the league, and leads the league in contested 3's per 36 (8th in contested 2's per game)

[Dvdvideo]

Interesting stat line, I think the only reason boucher isn't starting is his size/lack of bulk on defense, not so much his offense.

[Ebonhawke]

Interesting stat line, I think the only reason boucher isn't starting is his size/lack of bulk on defense, not so much his offense.

Also think that Nurse has realized that he needs some energy for the Kyle or Fred + bench lineups

[planetmars]

[slaw]

Well, could be worse. I suspect they will err on the side of caution here, though, so not sure if he will be back at all.

[MixxAOR]

as best as it could've ended. Glad it just sprain but he's probably out for this year

[007]

Hopefully this means he’d still be able to play for Canada if the Olympic qualifying tournament happens