I’ve been on the fence of how a Jonas Valanciunas and Luis Scola frontcourt might look. They really hadn’t been tested in this pre-season up until the Washington game, and during the first half both struggled keeping pace in transition. That’s to be expected as Washington has quick guards who think fast and move fast, so they get a pass there. In the third quarter, though, we had a chance to see Scola and Valanciunas operate in the halfcourt, which is when my made was made up whether this is a feasible paring.
Luis Scola switches off
Scola here is supposed to be guarding Humphries who he allows to drift to the perimeter, preferring to stay in the paint. Fair thought, maybe he’s willing to concede Humphries a shot as long as he mans the paint, except that he ends up in no-mans land as he’s literally guarding no-one. Full points for Washington for running a beautiful play where they run a guard off a double-screen which pulls DeRozan and Valanciunas away, leaving a wide open path for Gortat. What is Scola adding here defensively? Nothing, is the answer.
Both under pressure
Here’s a situation where both of them are under pressure. DeRozan leads his man towards Valanciunas (which I assume is a mistake), who does well to deter the driving guard, even though his body-angle is wrong and he could’ve been called for a foul if the guy just kept on driving. The pass back out to Humphries completely sells Scola the shot-fake and his close-out is way too strong and essentially begging Humphries to drive. Both our bigs recover but neither is nimble enough to contest a shot, certainly not Scola.
Threes are free
Scola has a tendency to go where the ball goes. He’s not tremendously disciplined on defense and here he leaves Humphries to go help on no-one in particular, and is late to recover. Humphries’ miss serves as a warning that it’s very easy to move Scola around the court which creates ample space for his man. Against a more stretchy four, this sort of defense is suicide. Credit to Valanciunas for contesting the original drive, though the real culprit here is the dribble penetration let in by DeRozan.
Dangers of wing help
Providing help from the strong side on the perimeter is seldom a good idea, especially when going against quick-thinking players like Beal. Humphries comes out to set a screen on Carroll who is providing help against the driving guard. Carroll gets screened leaving Scola against Beal, and you just know this won’t end well. When Scola is faced with checking Beal, his #1 priority should be to buy a second or two for the defense to either reset or let Carroll come over and trap hard (after all, Beal is on the baseline/corner). Instead, his close-out doesn’t stop the drive or the shot.
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At least one of our two bigs has to be able to close-out effectively, and you can’t expect Valanciunas to do that meaning your PF has to. And Scola is too lumbering of a big man to be asked to do that. He has other great qualities, but filling the gaps in a stretched defense isn’t one of them. There’s also a lot of talk about bluing pick ‘n rolls, and in order to be able to do that, your bigs have to be mobile enough to force the quicker guard to the sideline. I don’t see Scola or JV being able to provide that kind of shield consistently, meaning that even though Patrick Patterson is struggling, you have to pick him ahead of Scola for defensive reasons. Or James Johnson, that would work too.
