In the first game of the 2022 Western Conference Semifinals, Jordan Poole returned to the bench, but he still played the team's most 37 minutes and 30 seconds, 12 of 20 shots, 5 of 10 outside the three-point line, 31 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 blocks, 1 game, 1st shot, 1st hit, 1st assist, 1st rebound, 1st blocking team.
Without a doubt, this game is the strongest. In fact, among the winners of the two semi-finals played last night, Poole was the best overall performer, better than Alphabet Brother and better than Curry.
Dream chasing has never been afraid to praise his little brother, in the first round he said that the team took Poole as the first shot choice, we now need to reconsider this matter, when we fully praise Curry as "point guard Duncan" absolutely selfless, we should also consider another possibility, the first round against a relatively weak opponent, Poole is enough, and Curry still needs time to let his newly injured ankle gradually adapt to the intensity of the playoffs.
In the small radio station that chased the dream of retiring and preparing to explain the nature of the personal training camp, he said that the Warriors' offense is very terrible, "Defending one Curry is a nightmare, defending two Curry? That's a completely different nightmare. ”
The similarities between Poole and Curry are first shown in the distribution of their shots, with Poole holding the ball to block the attack with 24%, Curry is 27%, and then Curry is still the most important link in the Warriors' passing system, his shooting percentage after no-ball cover has reached 16.7%, while Poole's proportion of conversion and fixed-point shots is relatively high, but his no-ball cover ratio is also 12.2%.
Not just the way they shoot, they're also close in terms of scoring efficiency with and without the ball in positional warfare. Among the players who have played more than 60 games in the regular season and have a ball-holding and demolition offensive ratio of more than 20%, Curry can rank 5th in scoring efficiency, Poole is 7th, and in terms of scoring efficiency after no-ball cover, Curry ranks 4th and Poole ranks 1st.
What's even more valuable is that in the playoffs, the same thing is still happening, and it's even better. As the team became less and the stage became more focused, Poole received more attention and his performance rose. It's not easy, especially for a third-year player. We've seen a lot of players who deserve a big deal in the regular season, and the players who have come out of this or that difficulty to get people to write touching words and apologize, after 82 regular season games, are back to what we originally thought they were. The playoffs and the regular season are different games, some people can play the playoffs, some people can't, and it has nothing to do with age.
It's hard to disagree with the view that dream chaser, the Warriors have both Curry and Poole's offense like a Russian matryoshka doll. Russian matryoshka dolls are like this, you open a sluggish doll above, find that inside is another sluggish doll, at night take this set of things to the baby to see, the baby will cry. What is the most terrifying thing in the world? Cthulhu is not made up out of thin air, Cthulhu is terrible, but not the most terrifying, the most terrifying are the species that look like people, but when you look closely, they are not human. Unlike alphabets and Embiid's behemoths, which look intimidating with their teeth and claws, Curry and Poole stand side by side on the field, posing as harmless, but when they shoot, you go and ask Teacher Joe, scary or not scary.
But in the early days, not everyone was keenly aware that Poole would be the next Curry. In the summer of 2019, the Warriors dynasty collapsed, and in the midst of a mess, Miles took down Poole with the 28th pick in the first round, supposedly from the excavation of Dun levy Jr., who told Miles that Poole, a "child", can shoot, break through, and pass the ball.
To this day, Miles can certainly say that he and Deng Gongzi are as wise as a torch, "There are not many people in the alliance who can do all three things at the same time." "But there is a saying that Cat Three can also shoot, break through, and pass the ball, and even the middle-aged and elderly basketball team in the Hongqiao community will not choose me, and I know why."
The key is not what you can do, but what grade you can do at what level of competition.
So this choice was still questioned a lot at the time, the most questionable point is Poole's shooting choice and defense, he looks more like he will become that kind of Clarkson-style player, another 1 meter 93 paper man, give him the right to shoot, he takes all the orders, and then on the field, the wave is good for the best sixth person, the wave is not good Nanjing Tongxi, you can only hope that he can score, can not expect more. At that time, there was even a basketball expert who specifically posted a video saying that Poole may be "the worst draft of the year", and his reasons were also very good, at that time, the Warriors had Curry, and Russell, do you choose another Poole?
If you don't put the backdoor, you look at the performance of Poole's rookie season, he is just a stunned young man who shoots 30% from the field and 28% from three-point range, and does not even shoot, and his evaluation may not be as good as pascal, a rookie who entered the Warriors in the same year, a short and strong forward who can average 14 points per game.
But three years later, Pascal played a general output that was more in line with the final two-round draft of the first round, working as an ordinary rotation player on the Jazz, getting 10 minutes of playing time per game, and probably saying goodbye to the league in two years. And Poole has become a team that averages 18.5 points per game, shooting 40%5 from the field, averaging 7.6 three-pointers per game, shooting 36% of the championship team, and has also played a masterpiece such as 13 shots to take 33 points, the Warriors' last such output, but also traced back to Durant, another noteworthy point, on the free throw line he shot the highest shooting rate in the league this season 92.5%.
In the final 20 games before Curry's injury absence before the playoffs, Poole went from klay stand-in to Curry's stand-in, and then he increased the number of three-point shots to an average of 9.9 per game, improving his shooting percentage to 42.6%, and finally becoming the highest average of 25.4 points per game at this stage.
Poole then moved it all to the playoffs and continued to improve, so far he stands by Curry and Klay's side, still able to average 22.7 points on the field, shooting 56%, shooting 6.8 three-pointers per game, shooting 48.8%.
As we all know, the Warriors' death five small after several periods, in 2015 Iguodala entered the starting lineup, the formation of the first generation of death five small, after Durant joined in 2016, is the second generation, the first round of the 2022 playoffs, we see Dream, Wiggins, Klay, Curry, Poole standing on the court at the same time, We say it's version 3.0 of the Death Five, and in the last 2 minutes of the latest game against the Grizzlies, Dream is preparing for the postgame copy in the locker room, the Warriors are 10 points ahead of the previous lead and now two points behind, Kerr sent Wiggins, Klay, Curry, Payton and Poole's Super Death Five, version 4.0.
You have to say that Cole has a strong gambling component. In those two minutes, Morant and Clark each used two inside runs to build a two-point advantage for the Grizzlies in the final minute, followed by Wiggins' two consecutive gold-like rebounds in the frontcourt, and finally Clay's 3-pointer and Curry's block.
But the legend has happened, and Poole is a part of it. He delivered 2 assists in the last 2 minutes, including 1 direct dunk to Wiggins, and the next 1 round Curry dunked to Payton under the basket, almost the same passing method and result, which is also the horror of having two Curry on the court, the Grizzlies all defended on the outside, and there was a chance under the basket, depending on whether you can send the ball in time.
As for Poole's performance in the last 20 games of the regular season, Chao Meng's evaluation is different from others, he said: "What I see is the display of his passing ability. And this ability is what sets him apart from other point-and-shooters. ”
Another thing that may be easy to overlook, poole, who averaged only 3.4 rebounds per game in the regular season, grabbed 8 rebounds in front of the Grizzlies, including 3 frontcourt rebounds, and finally the Warriors did not lose to the Grizzlies in terms of the number of rebounds in the frontcourt, you can imagine what kind of task Poole came into this game with, this task may be Kerr's instructions before the game: "Pay attention to protect the rebounds." ”
Then Poole did it.
Shooting, passing, assisting, cutting, execution, these are the elements you mentioned before you can say it's Curry, now you might have to say one more name.
We certainly ask why, and why Poole has grown to where he is in three years. All of the Warriors' answers were unanimous: Poole studied very seriously and trained very hard. Curry said: "For a newcomer, we can give directions, provide methods, how to train how to run tactics and so on. But at the end of the day, you have to do these things. Doing or not doing cannot be taught. Poole did a great job. ”
Yes, Poole's story of the past three years is what we like to say about diligent and clumsy, good composition material for the middle school entrance examination.
But if you ask Poole himself, Poole's answer may be slightly different, he said why he worked hard: "I don't have a choice, I have to go to work, people just have to work hard." 」 Especially I'm surrounded by Hall of Famers, and I don't play better, I can't even hold my job. ”
Then he also provided another valid message instead of chicken soup: "I trained with Curry, Dream Chaser, and Clay, observed their training methods, and then just did it, they can succeed, these methods must be useful, there is no need to deliberately come up with something new." 」 ”
If you consider that Poole is a comprehensive replica of the training method of old comrades, then maybe the Warriors themselves have a full-roll training atmosphere, Poole himself admitted: "I watched these old players last season actually have everything, could have been lying flat casually, but they are still trying, what reason do I have not to work hard?" ”
Obviously, of these old poles, Curry had the most profound influence on Poole. After taking down the Grizzlies yesterday, Curry humbly said, "I don't have anything left to teach Poole. But in the regular season, Curry didn't say that, once Poole forced a shot to shoot a three-point shot, and Curry immediately turned back to his teammates and told his teammates: "I taught him badly." ”
Lillard was very emotional after watching the Warriors' playoffs, naming that Poole should get a starting salary of 30 million. Lillard came out at this time to raise his hand, and there was a feeling of chatting with the beautiful woman about "what to do with the tea in the tea garden when Grandpa is sick".
But this kind of trouble still falls into the range of happiness. We don't know how Poole will fare at the negotiating table, or whether Poole will be the next Arenas or the next Curry, but one thing is certain, it's always hypocritical to trick young people into taking less money and working more "for a bigger future."
Of course, at the same time as the dream blew Poole into the sky, the reserve narrator left another sentence in the sky: "Don't say it is unpredictable." Dream chased: "Poole was our first choice in the playoffs. But Curry was the one who attracted more attention, poole was great, but Curry had the gravity to prove who was the most dangerous person in the playoffs. ”
Dream chased a long confession that he was willing to die for Curry, but this gaygay's infatuation did not hinder the professionalism of his scene analysis. Dream chasing is not the first time to say something similar, nor is it the first time to say that other players have stained Curry's light, and dream chasing is not the only person who has said so; in the past, there have been people who have not believed this and turned away, and they do not know how he is living now, whether he will suddenly understand in tears.
Some people miss it and don't do it anymore.
But it's too early for Poole to talk about these things, he's still young, he's only 22 years old, he's walking on a rising cotai strip, and after this summer, he'll have a lot of women with cars, houses, tickets, and secondary sexual characteristics. As for what he will become in the more distant future, whether he will remain silent in the media as he is now, whether he will sit among his teammates and speak aloud without being listened to, we do not know.
What we can know is what is about to happen in the near future, and he should continue to maintain his composure and play better games calmly and steadily, after all, this is only the first game of the Western Conference semifinals, and there is still a bigger stage waiting for him. And I heard that some young people have reached the critical moment of the real big stage and their legs are weak and they can't get into two penalties, I hope that Poole can be better than this kind of person who is not a tool, this is the most sincere blessing I can give Poole.