The most likely explanation for the difference of 1 percentage point in TS% is just random variation since they’ve only played each other 23 times.
Also, during the time Jrue was on the Bucks, they played each other 3 times and Dame averaged 26.3/3.7/5.7 on 63.8% TS%.
So, if you’re feeling down about the Celtics getting Jrue, don’t feel that way. He’s obviously a good player but he doesn’t solve their offensive problems and doesn’t have magical Dame clamps. Also probably isn’t as good of a help defender against Giannis as Smart was. Smart chop-blocks Giannis better than anyone! Speaking of Giannis…No idea what the plan is for the Celtics now when it comes to stopping Giannis with a front court rotation of Al and KP.
(Stats for this post from various StatMuse prompts: [Damian Lillard Stats Vs Jrue Holiday | StatMuse](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/damian-lillard-stats-vs-jrue-holiday#:~:text=Damian%20Lillard%20has%20averaged%2025.5,Jrue%20Holiday%20in%20his%20career.))
by FuzzyBucks
8 Comments
Anyone who’s concerned needs to calm down a bit. The Pelicans series 5 years ago had a direct affect in changing how Dame trained and re-modeled his game in subsequent off-seasons. Dame is twice the player now than he was in 2018 lol.
this notion of Holliday somehow being a lockdown defender just reminds me of Ruben Patterson claiming he was the ‘Kobe Killer’. And Patterson was actually a good defender.
Dame had 1 bad series in his career, on the worst playoff lineup of his career, and some of you ppl seem to think Jrue Holliday is some S-Tier defensive powerhouse. Leave me with that shit lol
Jrue is by all accounts is perhaps the toughest guard defender in the league, just by player statements. Going against him for a series is a huge battle.
With that said, it still only means so much because in significant moments, you’re still just going to screen off that defender.
I love Jrue, but I think our offense will be much better in playoff crunch time, and I see the Celtics having similar issues the Bucks did at the end of games. No true point, and a bunch of guys playing ISO. You know, “Play Random.” Jrue is a great player, but I feel like he would have been a better fit on other teams like the Mavs or Knicks.
Listen. Dame is the pro typical guard type that Jrue locks up. Jrue fits better with Boston because they don’t need his scoring like we did….when Jrue was locking him up it was jrue/AD vs dame/nurkic….now it’s dame/giannis vs. jrue/KP…this isn’t the 2018 playoffs or whenever it was. Dame had no help and the whole entire pelicans defense was shifting twords him giving Jrue helping everywhere. Jrue may be good against dames style but were talking about the second greatest shooter of all time with the a top 25 player all time at age 28. I’m not worried one bit
Man can we just all agree a Dame and Jrue Backcourt woulda been the dream. I would have gutted the team to have giannis/jrue/dame/lopez
Jrue is a fantastic defender but if we should have learned anything from our time with him on our team it’s that great offense will always beat great defense. Even during the championship run Jrue was playing elite defense and the other teams stars were still scoring at a pretty high clip, great players always find a way to get theirs
It really hinges on coaching.
With Bud I’m not sure I’d be convinced that the offense would be leaps and bounds better if the defense needed to be so entrenched in whatever system was being used.
The hope and belief is the changing of coaches will inject new thoughts and life into the systems to make it all click.
The hope is new coaching will allow younger talent to develop and become effective.