monsterpile wrote:I'm not sure how bad Wiggins was the 2nd half of the season but the searing image of him for a chunk of the season (and some of his rookie season) was him sorta running into a screen and looking like a video game character that hit the edge of the boarder of the video game world and can't go anywhere and looked udderly helpless. Bazz was pretty bad also but Wiggins just looked so helpless at times it was sad and the effort...it was like he just gave up.
To me a HUGE part of fighting through screens is doing work to stay connected to your guy because you can easily get through screens that aren't good enough by just sliding past them. You also can create offensive fouls this way because the screener has to basically slide into you to set the screen. It's not always possible to stick that close but a lot of players at any level don't do this and it's surprising how well it can work. Rubio was doing this more as the season went on and it was a big reason for his success as a defender. Tyus putting pressure on ball handlers helped him in this aspect as well. This is the type of stuff Jim Pete is referring to when he says the true but cliche "be hard to play against" line.
Yes, this! And frankly, none of our guys are great at it, including Rubio at times.
By the way, this applies to the other side as well. One of the nuances of the game that LaVine struggles with is knowing how to use a high ball screen. I can't tell you how often he jumped the gun on those things and went too early or too wide, thus allowing his guy to easily navigate over the top of the screen.