2024-25 NBA Season

[burninmylight]

PAOerfulone said:

Nuvendil said:

Yep, Kevin Durant went crazy.

And coach Budenholzer had a cunning strategy for this occasion. Recognizing he had a former DPOY and All Defensive First Team forward on his team, he took the innovative strategy of having him guard Durant precisely 0 minutes throughout the game.

It was a bold strategy for sure Cotton. Can't see why it didn't pay off.

On one hand, you don’t want your best player guarding the other team’s beat player for an extended period of time because you don’t have want to risk him getting into foul trouble. But during the stretches when KD was clearly heating up, then I agree, why not put Giannis on him for a few possessions to try and slow him down?

Giannis actually isn't that great of a perimeter defender (not bad, just not his strength and not the reason he won DPOY). He can have trouble with guards/wings that force a lot of lateral movement out there.

This is not really a knock on Giannis or coming to the defense of Coach Bud, what I'm really saying is that there is no good answer for Kevin Durant.