Ayo with 14 points and the Bulls pick up a great win on the road! Podz blows the tying layup in the final seconds. A Santa Clara effort on that play for sure.
At the start of the season, Podz's defense was a joke. Everyone was running screens to generate 1:1s against him. Podz learned quickly; impressively quickly. Now he seems to do reasonably well guarding his man, and staying in position. He is much better at fighting through screens. He is even developing a fairly decent sense of when to throw in that hand on help defense. He still gets beaten on the first step by the quicker guards. Where Podz shines is his effort on help defense, rebounding (both ends), and his nice 3-pt shooting within the flow. His early looking to impress and taking rushed shots is gone. Overall, he's now quite solid. I'm very impressed on how far he came, and how quickly. Oh, and yes, he does a good job of going and standing in the right spot to draw charges. He often picks a spot that is partially hidden from view by an intervening player during fast breaks. The result is a number of "where did he come from" charges. It also results in some pretty hard hits.
Trayce Jackson-Davis on the other hand is still painful to watch. He is just starting to get real minutes due to injuries and Kerr finally acknowledging that Saric is a huge liability (should have been traded IMO). Trayce is going through his rookie abuse. He hasn't figured out how to position himself defensively. His athletic abilities are no longer enough to let him be sloppy and recover. On most 1:1s, he either fouls or the opponent blows by. On offense, he is still trying to pull college moves and finding himself either blocked or putting up terrible shots to avoid the block. He often loses the ball trying to take a few dribbles near the hoop (think Dainja). He is learning. In the last few weeks, there is less dribbling, more spin and dunk moves, and more passing back out of the post. The alley-oop play they are running for him is very successful.
I wonder if this is enough to get him another look from the NBA. VTB was one of the top leagues prior to the Ukraine invasion. I don't know how much that changed things.
career high for Ayo tonight, 30 points right now. got it with a blow by layup on former badger Johnny Davis. Ayo continuing to torment the badgers in the NBA