Lowe: Scoring is up but don’t fret, Kawhi’s Sharktopus defense of old and the turnover-prone Warriors

In this week’s nine things I liked and disliked, your eyes don’t deceive you about scoring being up (but defense still matters!), Kawhi Leonard is doing his best 2015 through 2017 Kawhi impersonation for the LA Clippers, and Golden State’s foundational players continue to not be on the same page.

Jump to Lowe’s Things:
| Kawhi’s glimpses of old
Turnover-prone Warriors | Bright futures for Rockets, Spurs
Denver’s two-man game
Two unselfish Bulls | Blazers’ transition “D” | Isaac finally happening?

1. Don’t worry (too much) about the scoring explosion

Scoring is indeed way up on team and individual levels. Every season now, one or two teams shatter the record (usually set in the previous season) for offensive efficiency. In the past two weeks, four players have scored 60 or more points in a game.

Two broader trends are intersecting, and which you conceive as most powerful probably determines whether you think this is a big problem: Offenses have gotten smarter and league rules have made it harder to play physical defense on the perimeter.

In caveman terms, the most important change of the past 20 years is teams understanding how much more 3 is than 2 — and that realization trickling down to youth basketball. There is more shooting everywhere. Defenders cover so much more space. Teams hunt for smarter shots.

A scoring boom of some size was inevitable once the reality of math set in, even absent any rule tweaks. The individual scoring explosions are the result of more teams running everything through one alpha player.

Scoring being up does not mean playing good defense is impossible, that nobody plays good defense anymore, or that good defense does not matter. Two nights after Luka Doncic lit up the hapless Atlanta Hawks for 73 points, the schedule featured two games between contenders: the Minnesota Timberwolves against the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Milwaukee Bucks visiting the Denver Nuggets.

If you are fretting about scoring bursts and the alleged irrelevance of defense — or just seeking an antidote — watch those games. They were slow, tactical, relatively low-scoring — serious basketball. They were a reminder that teams still win in different ways and play different styles — and that when two serious teams get together, you’d better bring your defense.

Every possession felt important. That’s what is missing in the 145-140 games that happen more often. Scoring is easier, and everyone knows it. In lower-stakes games, which can manifest in teams holding back urgent effort on some defensive possessions — confident they can undo the damage once they get the ball back. (This has always happened over the grind of an 82-game season, but it is more pronounced now.) The real scandal in Doncic’s 73-point eruption was not his individual scoring or Atlanta’s defense against him (though it was not good).

The real scandal was how easily Dallas scored when the Hawks doubled Doncic. One pass from Doncic blew up the entire defense. Rotations were slow, confused, or nonexistent. No one below the trap really did anything. They just kind of watched the Mavs play offense. It was embarrassing. The Hawks shrugged, took the ball out of the net, and snapped back to attention: We can get it back on offense.

In big games, that won’t cut it. The best teams know that. The outputs may be higher, but your defense still has to be effective on a relative scale. Not every game is a big game, and some of those scoring bonanzas have a carnivalesque and almost gruesome feel.

So what’s the solution? There are two general areas the league could address: officiating and math.

On the officiating side, you can’t nominate the return of handchecking; no one wants that. Free throws are down. The NBA legislated away some of the ugliest foul-grifting: shooters kicking their legs out or jumping sideways, point guards slowing down to engineer collisions in the backcourt. Those are offensive fouls now.

There is still room to help defenses. Referees too often reward players for driving into defenders, flinging their bodies at them and barfing up some non-shot. More of those should be non-calls. The league might also discuss allowing minor contact on drives — a defender riding the ball handler’s hip with one hand, for instance. Some coaches want more stringent enforcement on illegal screens.

What about allowing defenders to hang in the lane for four or five seconds instead of three? Skeptics might counter that officials rarely call defensive three-second violations as is. Maybe so, but the threat of that call impacts how big men position themselves. The league might worry that defenders lingering longer in the paint might depress rim attacks — which are exciting!

If you turn to math, you are talking about more structural issues: eliminating corner 3s, making the 3-point shot longer, or something more dramatic. Math nerds might suggest making 2-point shots worth 3 points and 3-point shots worth 4 points so the gap between them is not as big in proportional terms — theoretically decreasing the incentive to hunt what are now 3s. To put it lightly, that amounts to a sea change.

— including his floater!

When players hit their mid-30s, it’s fun to go back and watch games from early in their careers. Aging is gradual. You almost don’t notice it until it becomes glaring.

But it leaps off the screen when you revisit games from 10 years ago: Chris Paul used to move like *that.*

If you want to watch maybe the scariest wing defender ever, dive down a rabbit hole of Leonard games from 2015 through 2017, when he won two Defensive Player of the Year awards and emerged as an MVP candidate. If Leonard was guarding an off-ball shooter during a pick-and-roll, the opposing ball handler had to rethink any pass toward Leonard’s half of the floor: Is the roller safe? No. What about Kawhi’s guy? Oh god, he’s there too.

And if you were not an expert dribbler — like a point-guard-level expert — you could forget about even trying to dribble anywhere within a 15-foot radius of Leonard. He would just take the ball. Sometimes he didn’t even need you to dribble. He’d literally just extend his massive arm and snatch the thing from your breadbasket. (Ask Ben McLemore. Real fans know.)

Leonard won’t regain that level, but for the second straight season he’s getting about as close as anyone could reasonably hope — at least with games in the balance. He is accepting some of the toughest defensive assignments from the opening tip. In crunch time, he might shift assignments if the Clippers need to shut off someone’s water. Against the Thunder last month, the Clippers moved Leonard onto Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the last few minutes — and Leonard promptly swatted a Gilgeous-Alexander layup off the glass.

Leonard is averaging 0.9 blocks and 1.7 steals — in line with his peak numbers. He’s seventh in deflections per game and recorded a preposterous 10 — one of the biggest numbers I can remember — against the Washington Wizards on Wednesday.

Leonard flies up from Jaylen Brown to snuff that Al Horford pick-and-pop 3; runs Horford off the arc; and veers back to intercept Horford’s dump-off. The whole thing is almost casual — a breeze!

On offense, Leonard has adapted more easily than anticipated to James Harden assuming point guard duties. He’s averaging 24 points and is a few free throw makes away from his first 50/40/90 season.

Leonard seems to have embraced how easy things can be with Harden as the point guard. He’s taking more catch-and-shoot 3s — strolling into 12 or 15 points every game. With less heavy lifting to do on offense, Leonard can conserve more energy for his Sharktopus defense.

The Clippers mix in vintage Leonard midrange artistry. He runs a lot of offense when Harden rests, and the Clippers hunt mismatches for him even when all their stars are on the floor. They have moved Leonard off the ball more without making it feel like a demotion. That’s good coaching, and a sign that L.A.’s stars understand the stakes and what it takes to achieve them.

When Leonard orchestrates, he’s showing more comfort with a running floater:

Almost 40% of Leonard’s attempts this season have come from floater range, easily the most of his career. (His rim volume is way down, but it hasn’t mattered.) He’s shooting 52% on those short 2s.

— young players with no experience in the Warriors’ beautiful game — was bound to bump that turnover rate up.

But what has been striking about some of Golden State’s most baffling cough ups is how many involve its foundational players. It seems like there are two or three of these every game:

The adage is that once you start a cut, you shouldn’t stop — laying this gaffe at the feet of Klay Thompson. But the old Warriors could break those rules; Green would somehow read that Thompson was about to abort his cut and wait for him to relocate.

They still nail it a lot. On 10 or 20 possessions every night, you get that old rush of some classic ping-ping-ping sequence only the Warriors produce. Squint, and they look like their younger selves.

But change is exciting too: the Andrew Wiggins-Green-Jonathan Kuminga trio is finding its way within Golden State’s revamped small-ball starting five.

The Wiggins-Kuminga shared minutes were a well-documented disaster until recently. The Kuminga-Green minutes were uneven. But the Warriors are now plus-45 in 112 minutes with those three on the floor this season.

Green remains a genius playmaker. Kuminga is leaning into his strengths and learning the beats of the Warriors’ offense. Curry and Thompson orbit everything, still five-alarm fires that require constant attention.

. The Point Sochan experiment failed. He’s not doing as many connective things — random screens, handoffs, improvised cuts — as the Spurs construct an offense around Victor Wembanyama.

But something is happening here. Sochan walked into the league as a cagey one-on-one player — and a bully in the post against smaller guys. The reps he got as nominal point guard will help his passing in those situations — and when the Spurs develop more read-and-react flow, where Sochan’s randomness really shines.

He’s shooting 37% on 3s. Teams give him those shots, but he’s making them. Sochan is the next test case of how long a player with a reputation as a non-shooter has to shoot well before teams start guarding him.

He’s living up to expectations on defense. San Antonio fans should dream of watching this for the next decade:

Sochan hounds Jerami Grant over three screens, funnels him into the Wembanyama vortex and then darts toward Deandre Ayton — vaporizing the pass there. (Sochan can switch onto anyone.) Grant is in jail.

A few hours East, check out two of the young Rockets who started this season out of the rotation:

Amen Thompson can’t shoot yet, but he does lots of things well. That is a monster rebound — Thompson outleaping an opposing center and snatching the ball from above his noggin.

The coast-to-coast push is nice, but that diagonal wraparound pass is the prize. The defense expects Thompson to hit Jeff Green in the corner, because that’s the pass most players would make. Thompson skips the middleman and slingshots that baby to Cam Whitmore.

And, hello, Cam freaking Whitmore! Whitmore is averaging 13 points over his past 20 games, and looks — in good moments — like a three-level scorer in the making. He has hit 40% on 3s. He devours smaller players in the post and plows through them on drives.

The Rockets have first-round picks galore and so many good young players that — if enough of them hit — there will be no viable way to pay all of them. They want to chase a playoff spot now. This is why Jalen Green’s name has generated some trade buzz, per league sources.

I’d expect the Rockets to tread carefully. There is risk in bailing on a 21-year-old to chase a medium-term upside that isn’t much higher than “first-round out.”

of giving up on Green so soon.

5. Can Kyle Anderson find the right balance on offense again?

The Minnesota Timberwolves are 19th in points per possession. Their offense has cratered late in close games: stalled movement, bad one-on-one shots, errant and risky passes.

Their No. 1 vulnerability for a postseason upset — maybe even in the first round, depending on their opponent — is sometimes shaky decision-making from Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns in the clutch. Mike Conley is their stabilizer, but he’s 36.

This isn’t really an Anderson problem, because even the best version of Anderson — like the one who played for Minnesota last season — wouldn’t be in a lot of its closing lineups. But that Anderson is a valuable connector who settles the Wolves.

Anderson’s usage was never high, but he was a threat to score last season. His touch around the rim has abandoned him. He is 5-of-29 on 3s. His floater is still solid, but not the weapon it was last season.

Opponents see his reluctance and play him for the pass.

could work pick-and-roll magic with almost any good guard, but there is something special about the convergence of skill between Jokic and Jamal Murray.

Everything stems from Jokic’s ability to punish any style of pick-and-roll defense. They have counters for everything. Murray knows the two or three ways the defense might react to every dribble, every head nod and eyebrow raise, and what divs to push from there.

They operate at the same pace — methodical and yet on their toes, ready to accelerate at any moment. They can each score from any range. Every dribble, every inch of the floor, is alive with possibility as they move side by side — Murray dribbling, Jokic hovering for a pocket pass.

Murray’s greatness as an orchestrator is more subtle. It lives between dribbles — shoulder fakes and sideways glances and sudden crouches, all as the ball bounces back up to Murray’s hand. Every move within a move is calculated — designed to shift the defense an extra foot in one direction and expand Jokic’s window of space.

That pick-and-roll opens slowly before Murray snaps into a higher gear. Jokic stops at the elbow. Murray accelerates until the moment he has engaged — so committed to stopping Murray he has no chance to get back to Jokic.

And right then, comes the pocket pass. Did you see it? That thing is a magic trick. Turner spins all the way around in confusion. The Nuggets force a switch, and it’s academic from there.

Murray leverages the threat of Jokic to spring other teammates:

That lob to Aaron Gordon doesn’t look open. In spatial terms, it’s not. But it’s available because Murray and Gordon see it even if the Warriors — focused on Jokic — don’t.

The Nuggets have scored 1.31 points per possession on trips featuring a Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll — their best tandem mark ever, and No. 7 among 82 combos to run at least 200 such plays, per Second Spectrum.

‘s injuries have forced their hand, but it has been nice seeing Alex Caruso and Ayo Dosunmu — both starting now — channel their inner scorers more.

Caruso was unselfish to a fault last season, at risk of becoming the guard version of P.J. Tucker. He had good intentions. Caruso was playing alongside three high-volume scorers in LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic and seemed to understand that feeding them was good for chemistry. He saved energy for his hellacious defense.

But every offense runs better when capable players seize the openings that present themselves, and Caruso is capable. That’s what made his timidity so frustrating.

Caruso isn’t peak Antoine Walker or anything, but he’s shooting 3s when he should (41%!) and exploring the studio space on pick-and-rolls:

Joel Embiid assumes Caruso will pass to Vucevic there — with good reason! Caruso fakes his way to a smooth middie.

Those hesitation dribbles and half-spins don’t fool Bruce Brown, but Caruso plops in that banker anyway.

You don’t want Caruso taking too many long 2s, but it’s a nice tool to have when there is nothing better. Caruso has hit 51% on midrangers, by far a career high, per Cleaning The Glass. He’s attacking in transition and racing into the paint when defenders duck screens against him.

The Bulls have six days to decide if they really want to hang onto Caruso and continue to be Team Play-In. Several playoff teams have expressed strong interest in him, sources said. It wouldn’t shock me if the Bulls ended up with two protected first-round picks if they ginned up a trade war for Caruso.

Dosunmu too has awoken of late. He has scored in double digits in nine straight games, averaging 15.6 points on 60% shooting in that stretch. When DeRozan draws the defense and kicks to Dosunmu on the wing, Dosunmu is knifing into those corridors with no hesitation.

He’s driving with more physicality:

‘ transition defense

Only three teams allow more transition chances than the rebuilding Blazers, per Cleaning The Glass. There is no single glaring problem. It is just a mess of disorganization — guys crashing the glass when they shouldn’t, slow first steps back, ill-fated gambles for steals, some loitering to see if someone else might snag an offensive board. Portland ranking 27th in turnover rate isn’t helping.

finally happening?

I have no idea what Isaac is on offense or if he will ever sustain even a 20-minute rotation role. No one does. Can he hit enough 3s to stay on the floor in the playoffs for an Orlando Magic team already light on shooting? Why does it feel like an adventure every time he dribbles?