[Weiss] Joe Mazzulla on Sam Hauser coming a long way on defense since he first coached Hauser at summer league: “A white shooter that most people think can’t defend. Yeah, I said it.”
Joe Mazzulla on Sam Hauser coming a long way on defense since he first coached Hauser at summer league:
“A white shooter that most people think can’t defend. Yeah, I said it.”
— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) January 14, 2024
by 1337speak
9 Comments
😂
This is hilarious considering he said something a long the lines of “I’m not gonna say what it is…” on this very same topic.
You can see when a guy gets Hauser isolated and decides to go for it. Brooks did it a few times tonight.
After saying he wouldn’t say it, he’s finally mad enough to let it come out
How can you not love Joe
Joe’s comedic game truly has been insane this past week or so.
He does what Marcus does, and its amazing how few defenders do this. When the ball handler dribbles towards him and tries to drive past him he moves backwards and laterally, keeping his arms up and uses his midsection to keep contact to stop the penetration. He understands defense can be played using your midsection. Refs are less likely to call a foul when you do this. You don’t want your arms down or sometimes even out.
Rasheed Wallace was actually really good at doing this with post defense too.
I thought it was a weird call from Houston because Ime would have seen Hauser handle himself firsthand. I’m fairly sure he’s praised Sam’s defense in the past, might have even made a similar comment tbh (although I could be wrong on that last part).
He’s not wrong. Hauser *did* lead the league in some defensive metric last year, I forget what exactly, but you can’t do that by accident. Other teams attempting to iso Hauser on defense gives serious “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me” vibes. He’s a very good defender.