Lion Face/Lemon Face 12.3: The Wall Works!

Stop praising stars for killing the Wizards

Lion Face/Lemon Face brings you the best and worst from the league from a League Pass sicko’s standpoint.

LION FACE: THE GREAT WALL OF LINE-NAH

The Clippers are 8-4 at home this season, and opponents have gone under their market point total in eight of their twelve home games.

Now, the Clippers are genuinely good-ish, with the fifth-best defense so far this season. They’re a real pain in the ass to play.

(Side note, I genuinely cannot deal with the Ty Lue rollercoaster I’m on. One minute he’s the most overrated coach I’ve ever read fluff pieces about, the next minute I’m legitimately in awe of what he’s capable of. I think the answer might just be that Lue is a one-star guy and not a multi-star guy. But who knows?)

But the great thing is that the Clippers are No.1 in opponent free throw percentage at 72.3% at home this season.

There’s no way to separate it by which basket (yet) but it’s hard to look at this and not think that the Wall is having an impact. Ballmer remains the best owner in the league by a mile.

LEMON FACE

That pun I just made above.

LION FACE: JAYLEN WELLS NOT TAKING GRUFF

Gruff is a euphemism for something else.

Wells is 21 and has that dog in him. That’s such a cliche meme, but it’s such an important part of defense. You have to not only want to hang, but want to recover when you get beat. Wells is phenomenal at navigating and recovering from screens. He’s still learning to avoid the impact—something Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is elite at and Wells should study him— but after the hit, he gets right back to it.

Memphis’ defense is good no matter who’s on the floor except Jay Huff, and Wells has had to fill in for Ja, Bane, and Smart this year and done a terrific job. I’m really excited about his future. Watch him dog Jordan Poole and Tyrese Maxey here:

LEMON FACE: COUNTING STATS AGAINST THE WASHINGTON WIZARDS

Giannis had his first 40-point triple-double of his career this week vs. the mighty ‘Zards. I’m not here to diminish anyone’s accomplishments in the NBA. It’s hard, man. The league is so tough night to night.

Except, here, OK, yes I am.

I want you to look at this list of players that have scored 30+ vs. the Wizards in the last three seasons.

Let me give you some names on this list:

DeAndre Ayton
Landry Shamet
Sam Hauser
Victor Oladipo
Tim Hardaway Jr.
CJ McCollum

Now, this is the NBA and I’ve seen some wild games from role players on any given night. Those are all good NBA players!

But in total 104 players across 2.25 seasons have put up 30 or more on the Wizards. That’s the third-most in the league in that span behind the Pacers (115!) and the Jazz (109).

But even those teams at least stress you with their offense. You need 30 some nights to beat Utah and the Pacers.

You don’t need 30 to beat the Wizards. You can just get it in three quarters and be done with it.

When Embiid dropped 50 on the Wizards last year without breaking a sweat, it was one thing. But Nikola Jokic, who doesn’t even really care about scoring, put up 43 on the Wizards.

I’m to the point where I think we might have to expunge Wizards games from the record. They’re not the worst team I’ve ever seen, but they are the easiest to score on, I think.

LION FACE: ZACH LAVINE, PATIENT AS HELL

LaVine’s resurgence in Chicago has been such a great story and very vindicating for someone like me who thought he was an All-NBA talent before DeMar DeRozan showed up. It’s not DeMar’s fault that other stars struggle next to him… but they do.

Now, LaVine’s in a wide-open, fast-paced offense where he gets the kind of freedom he didn’t have with the mid-range monster changing the spacing.

But what’s most impressive is how patient of a player LaVine has become. He’s going to wait until Boston’s underneath help clears out before attacking, and then goes right by Derrick White.

I love this triple-threat post-up here, where LaVine can pass, drive, or shoot. He uses that position the best way you can, to fake until the defender bites and then punish them for it:

He goes at Trae Young here, which, hey, obvious choice, not hard, and no big deal. But watch how patient he is with waiting for the switch to scram so he gets Young who can he get to where he wants against and how it shapes the help defense from where the possession starts:

LaVine is 12th among all players with at least 20 ISO possessions including assists this season in points per possession, with the Bulls scoring 1.17 points per possession when he attacks in ISO, and generating shots either by himself or others with a 61% eFG%, 53% from 2 and 46% from 3.

I’m so glad Fun Zach is back.

LEMON FACE: RESULTS OVER PROCESS

When the Warriors were crushing teams behind Buddy Hield shooting 57% from 3 and a crazy opponent 3-point percentage, the talk was about “The Warriors are back!” and “Steve Kerr’s 12-man rotation is revolutionizing the NBA!”

Now that De’Anthony Melton is out and the team has lost four of its last five, it’s about how Kerr needs to cut down on the rotation and asking questions about the 11th-ranked-and-sliding offense. (GSW is 28th in offense the last two weeks per Cleaning The Glass.)

Nothing was solved in the first two weeks and nothing’s broken now. Shooting regression caught up with them and the schedule started to toughen up. They now have the 17th-toughest SOS in the league per DunksAndThrees.com, and the 27th-ranked defensive SOS.

When the Rockets and Warriors got off to hot starts, I knew one of them would wind up a “Mirror Team,” the squad who gets to December feeling great and confident, then catches a glimpse of themselves in the mirror and realizes “Oh, wait, we’re just a run of the mill play-in/playoff team.” I fear that’s where we’re headed with the Warriors, given the age of Steph and Draymond, the slide of some role players, and a tough schedule ahead.

They’re still good. But I wasn’t willing to put them in contender tier before, and I’m not now.