Camden wrote:
Ricky Rubio's first 8 games: 17.5 PTS, 6.5 AST, 4.9 REB, 2.1 STL, 43.7 FG%, 37.2 3P%, 91.9 FT%
Ricky Rubio's last 8 games: 15.9 PTS, 7.1 AST, 5.6 REB, 1.1 STL, 50 FG%, 50 3P%, 84.4 FT%
The 35 games in between: 9.7 PTS, 4.3 AST, 3.8 REB, 1.5 STL, 37.2 FG%, 26.4 3P%, 86.1 FT%
This is a tweet from a day ago from a Utah writer. That's... quite the difference in players.
It seems to me that this tweet was trying to make Ricky's current streak of good games to be longer than it really has been.
His first 4 game averages of that 8 game period were:
9.8 PTS, 5.8 AST, 6.5 REB, 1.3 STL, 38.2 FG% 33.3 3P% and 3.0 TO
and averages over last 4 games are:
22.8 PTS, 10.0 AST, 4.3 REB, 0.8 STL, 56.9 FG% 61.5 3P% and 2.3 TO
So he has been terrific during their four game streak when they have beaten their opponents with 23.8 points margin.
Since I'm currently in sick leave and had some time to waste, I watched couple of Jazz games mainly to better idea whether Q's theory about Snyder giving Ricky more freedom as ball handler would be true, which would explain Ricky's higher assists numbers.
I watched New Orleans and Warriors games and it seems that against New Orleans, Ricky had probably more pick and roll ball handler opportunities than earlier but I assume it was mainly because Mitchell was coming off minor injury and played much less minutes than normally and handled also less ball. In Golden State game, Ricky was pretty often stretching the floor in corners while Mitchell was playing pick and roll with Gobert. So one reason behind Ricky's high assist totals in last couple of games has definitely been MItchell missing one game and playing just a little in another. Another reason for higher assists numbers has been that Utah has been playing with clearly higher pace during that streak. They had averaged 97.1 possessions per game but during last 4 games they have had 101.7 possessions per game. So higher amount of fast break opportunities obviously helps a lot Ricky's assist numbers.
Last but not least reason has been that Utah has been unbelievably hot behind three point line. In those four games they have hit 54.5% of their three pointers. So it has been unlike in many times when Ricky was in Wolves uniform and people were wondering how many assists he would have had if other players would have hit their open shots. At least in Golden State and New Orleans games it looked like every open three pointer that they took went in. So I'm not expecting his current surge even in assists to continue much longer even if Utah would continue to play higher pace. But since early this season he was horrible with his passes and averaged more TOs than ever before despite getting much less assists, I think his play cannot continue as horrible either. Maybe it has just took some time to get used to offensive system where he doesn't have ball in his hands that much in every offensive possession.
But still I see Utah legit possibility for 8th seed if Gobert stays healthy. Their defense with Gobert is so good that they won't need to average over 120 points to have a shot for victory. With defensive rating below 100, much less will enough in most nights.
