The key to this series - Jonas Valanciunas

I was thinking about this early this morning in my pre-coffee ritual...I think not having Zion makes Jonas more palatable, because we get Trey and Herb on the perimeter to help JV at the rim. I'm talking about this from Willie's POV.

Being said, I would rather have Zion than not, but I think no Zion will unlock JV for us.

The fact that he can hit FTs at a high rate is also VERY important in a playoff series. Being able to put 5 guys out there who are all FT shooters can be devastating for late game strategy/outcomes.

He'll be tempted to go to Larry early and often because he's worried about OKC playing 5-out when JV is on the floor. Perimeter defense will have to be on point and we have to trust the SGA vs Herb matchup on defense for Willie to be comfortable leaving JV in the game.

I saw a stat that chet faced the most shots at the rim in the league. 2nd best % against. Im sure every team has intention to throw a big body at him

They will try to play Jonas off the floor. Every bucket he gets is traded off for a 2 or 3 at the other end. He cannot guard anyone on their team. I reckon OKC would welcome him to get heavy usage and minutes

Jonas just needs to come in and get his 20 minutes, rebound like a mad man, and get out of there. The key to this series is CJ McCollum and Murphy’s shots falling

In the past games when OKC has dominated us, Willie played a lot of Nance and a little JV. There is enough sample size to know that is a losing scenario. Why the frick would you keep doing it?

We need our bench to scorw too. Look at most of the teams who won so far, their bench are playing a huge part.

NAW, McBride, and Hauser

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Yea unfortunately you’re probably right. The issue is we are at a disadvantage regardless of who’s in the game when they go 5 out. May as well leave Jonas and have our own offensive advantage

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Yep. If you are screwed either way, might as well try to get them in foul trouble or physically break them

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Make Chet defend down low and it will show on the other end of the court. Jonas is built for this shite. People underage him but his defense has been good at the rim lately. He’s blocked some key shots and if he starts knocking down those mid range shots look out. I would pound Chet all game. He’s going to score because he’s a good shooter from 3 and Jonas isn’t a good defender on the perimeter but i’ll take that for Jonas to give us 17 & 14 every night.

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I agree with this. JV can wear him down but you have to live with JV and some of his defensive issues. I just don’t know if Willie has the patience for this gameplan. To me this is the best way to make this a competitive series.

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The dumbest thing Willie has yet to figure is, jv is a legit threat down low.

Why we don't work him to be that post player when zion isn't on the court is beyond me.

In a world where you can get 35mins of zion and 25 mins of zion with only about 10 mins overlapping together...

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Jonas may be at a point where he can't log 35+ mins per game.


Jonas can absolutely dominate the offensive glass against OKC.

There are three big areas of concern when JV is on the court:

-while he should dominate Chet in the post, OKC will probably send double teams and Jonas is just average when playing out of a double team.

-OKC's 5 out system is going to give Jonas and CJ hell. Especially when they put those two in pick & roll actions together.

-OKC may very well run Jonas off the court with pushing it on the break. We've seen many teams use this strategy against us, because Jonas (he's too slow), Zion, and BI suck at getting back on D.

The hope is that Jonas will absolutely punish OKC with paint points, offensive boards, and getting Chet in foul trouble early on.

You have to look at it this way. Can Dyson really defend Chet? Probably not. Can Chet defend Dyson? Easily.

While JV can't defend Chet on the perimeter, Chet also can't defend or out rebound him in the post. So you play to your strengths as they have the same weaknesses on defense on the other end.

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This series is already over if we are relying on CJ McCollum to perform in the playoffs.

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McCollum was 12/39 (30.7%) from the field, 6/18 (33% )from 3P in the two home losses to OKC


10/17 (58.8%), 5/8 (62.5%) in our lone win, which came in OKC

He can’t afford to have his shitty games with Zion out