Patrick Patterson Problem?

[S.R.]

Other teams know that they just have to run him off the line and he'll struggle because driving isn't really in his game at the moment (although he had a nice one recently).

This is compounded by the fact that he's nothing but a spot-up shooter to Casey. Which is ridiculous seeing as he's kind of the prototypical pick/pop big who could give opposing bigs fits. but we never run anything smart, so i'm not surprised.


Put him on the list of guys who we need to see play under a real coach before we make a final judgement.

Random thought: at some point the stretch four is just going to be a normal four - maybe it already is? What traditional bigs still play 25+minutes at the four? Z-Bo, Gortat/Nene, Asik, etc.

You still get the floor-spreading benefits of having a stretch four out there, but you rarely get the skill/size mismatch anymore.

[ceez]

PPat would thrive in the pick and pop game that Atlanta runs. We actually ran that a bunch last year and I loved knowing it was going in whenever he got a clean look. But this year, as you guys pointed out, we just use him as a spot up 3pt shooter.

yeah this is a good point too

if we had some semblance of an actual offense with sets and stuff he'd be more effective

[Cody73]

yeah this is a good point too

if we had some semblance of an actual offense with sets and stuff he'd be more effective

Very true.... people don't realize how bad the offense has been this year.

[Mack North]

Pretty sure Matt Devlin read this thread today!

[psrs1]

Pretty sure Matt Devlin read this thread today!

You mean the poster formerly know as Matt52.

[psrs1]

Patrick Patterson is the new Primo Pasta. He's been missing lots of open looks. He also gets outmuscled and outrebounded by true bigs. Hopefully, he'll snap out of it, cuz he's gonna be needed in the playoffs.

Hopefully DC can recognize this and adjust come playoff games if it is clear 2PT is hurting us. Alternatively perhaps 2PT can pass more and shoot less.

[Beagle]

This might be off-topic, but I noticed the Miami commentators pointed out several times that Toronto has the highest scoring offense in the East and is only the second team in NBA history to have five players score over 100 three-pointers. Patterson is one of those five, along with Lou, GV, Lowry and Ross. That's something. I think it's just Casey's strategy to favor threes over pick-and-roll. It sort of seems to be working, doesn't it? If the defense picks up, the Raps should be able to outscore most any team most nights.

[magoon]

Random thought: at some point the stretch four is just going to be a normal four - maybe it already is? What traditional bigs still play 25+minutes at the four? Z-Bo, Gortat/Nene, Asik, etc..

Asik and Gortat play the 5 pretty much exclusively so they don't count, but: add David West, Derrick Favors and Tim Duncan.

[iblastoff]

Very true.... people don't realize how bad the offense has been this year.

really? then please explain to us whats been wrong with it.

[S.R.]

really? then please explain to us whats been wrong with it.

At times this year several guards have approached career lows in FG% combined with career highs in FGA and career lows in AST. That's one major issue.

Inefficient ISO ball is pretty defendable in the playoffs - last year Brooklyn held the Raptors below their season average PPG in 5 of 7 playoff games.

The other point is that a relative #3 ranking does not in anyway mean things are pretty much fine - you don't compare yourself to other teams with something like this, you measure yourself against your own potential. Interesting that it's so rare to have 5 players shoot over 100 three's in a season. Toronto doesn't have a single MVP-candidate talent, but they do have deep offensive talent spread throughout the roster. Anyone "complaining" about this season's offense basically thinks this team's offense could be better than it is. Key player strengths (e.g. efficient forward scoring, PP's lost 3P%) are overlooked in a relatively simple offensive system that ranks nicely but isn't maximizing the roster's potential.

If the Warriors were happy with a pretty nice team that compared well to most other teams, they never would have replaced Jackson with Kerr.

All that said, there are bigger defensive issues than offensive issues. The offense is relatively effective, though ugly. We'll see if it can be locked down in the playoffs.

[Primer]

really? then please explain to us whats been wrong with it.

Wanna know what's crazy, our high Off Eff is almost exclusively due to the addition of Lou Williams.

Let's get more basic and look at Pts scored and Pts scored against.

Toronto is 4th in the league it Pts/g with 104.1.

Unfortunately, we are 19th in the league in Pts allowed per game at 101.1.

Let's compare with Washington, our likely 1st round opponent.

98.4 Pts/g (18th in league) and 97.6 Pts allowed per game (9th in league).

Seems like the series will come down to defense vs offense. We're going to need a lot of those nuclear games from Derozan, Lowry and Lou to pull out the series win.

[iblastoff]

At times this year several guards have approached career lows in FG% combined with career highs in FGA and career lows in AST. That's one major issue.

yet we're still 3rd in the league in offensive officiency and have been consistently around that mark for the entirety of 81 games so far. the knicks have an overall assist rate thats better than cleveland. who cares.

derozan and lowry seem to be doing fine in the assist category, with derozan matching his output from last year that many doubted he could repeat (caveat being he also missed 20 games of course)

as for career lows in assists for specific players, who are we talking about here? the only one thats significantly dropped off is lou. but he has a different role as an SG rather than a bench PG with the hawks. thats in exchange for a career HIGH in points, career low in turnovers, near career high in FTA's and makes.

trashquez assist rate dropped from 6.2 to 5.4. not too significant to me, especially since the bench offense clearly goes through lou.

Inefficient ISO ball is pretty defendable in the playoffs - last year Brooklyn held the Raptors below their season average PPG in 5 of 7 playoff games.

i dont seem to recall joe johnsons isos being defendable in the playoffs.

and you can't compare a regular season game vs a playoff game. the game obviously slows down a lot more in the playoffs. plus theres NO correlation between the stats of playing 29 other teams with varying defensive ability vs 7 games against ONE single team.

wizards scored WAY below their season average in the playoffs last year and yet still went to the second round.

The other point is that a relative #3 ranking does not in anyway mean things are pretty much fine - you don't compare yourself to other teams with something like this, you measure yourself against your own potential. Interesting that it's so rare to have 5 players shoot over 100 three's in a season. Toronto doesn't have a single MVP-candidate talent, but they do have deep offensive talent spread throughout the roster. Anyone "complaining" about this season's offense basically thinks this team's offense could be better than it is. Key player strengths (e.g. efficient forward scoring, PP's lost 3P%) are overlooked in a relatively simple offensive system that ranks nicely but isn't maximizing the roster's potential.

If the Warriors were happy with a pretty nice team that compared well to most other teams, they never would have replaced Jackson with Kerr.

jackson was dumped because he was clashing with the front office. don't think anyone could argue that he did a poor job on the court.

All that said, there are bigger defensive issues than offensive issues. The offense is relatively effective, though ugly. We'll see if it can be locked down in the playoffs.

thats probably the main takeaway from this. just because someone doesn't like it, doesn't mean its bad. and i'll take statistical results over aesthetic results any day.

[GLF]

It looks like we will have outscore teams to win and THAT isn't going to translate well in the playoffs. If we let Washington get whatever they want, us being top 3 in offense won't mean a damn thing. Defense wins games and Washington at least does that well. I hope iblastoff's confidence is correct this year because it was last year against the Nets. I don't think you guys are getting how bad our defense is. It's gives me Triano days vibe. That can't win shit in the playoffs. Good for them for making a crappy looking offense become top 3 in the league but I wish our D was top 3 instead.