This season’s Paul George seems to have regained his skills in Los Angeles, but this is not because he has made too many changes. Before the 2019-20 season, he had undergone shoulder surgery, but he entered this season without any surgery.
The key to George’s hot performance in the opening season is that the Clippers have become a more friendly team to him. On January 4th, Taiwan time, the Clippers beat the Suns by a score of 112 to 107, and George’s single game statistics are as follows: 39 points (15 of 24 shots), 4 assists, and 2 steals. The Clippers can knock down the sun in good shape in the opening season, and George’s performance is definitely the key.
So far this season, George, who signed a big contract with the team (US$190 million in 4 years) before the season, has brilliant data (25.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 1.7 steals). In addition, after the first seven games, his two-point shooting percentage and three-point shooting percentage were excellent 50.8% and 49.2% respectively. Although Kawhi Leonard with a facial injury did not perform well at the beginning of the season, George’s outstanding performance balanced this situation and allowed the Clippers to have a good result of 5 wins and 2 losses after finishing the first seven games.
As the season continues, George’s high-end shooting percentage should decline, but his good performance in the opening season is definitely not a sudden luck. In fact, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue’s tactical arrangement allows George to perform better than last season.
Compared with the previous season, the Clippers’ offensive tactics have changed significantly. So far this season, Lue has made George the team’s main ball holder, and this phenomenon has made the main ball holding opportunities of Leonard and George before joining the team have declined a lot. In terms of the number of ball touches in a single game, the following are the top five players with the highest number of Clippers last season and this season (the first seven games):
| 2020-2021 season | 2019-2020 season |
| Paul George(65.0) | Kawhi Leonard (64.2) |
| Kawhi Leonard (60.8) | Lou Williams (61.9) |
| Serge Ibaka(43.0) | Paul George (52.3) |
| Patrick Beverley(41.1) | Patrick Beverley(52.1) |
| Nicolas Batum (40.6) | Montrezl Harrell(49.8) |
In this way, focusing on Leonard and George will make the Clippers perform better, even if the two had a lot of running-in problems last season. Because of the injury, the two were not present at the same time for a while in the last season, and when the two began to cooperate, they rarely saw them sacrifice their ball for each other.
In addition, former coach Doc Rivers did not ask Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell and other long-time players on the team to change too much play. But in this season, Lue changed his approach. In the first seven games, Beverley’s average shots per game (5.7) was the lowest since his rookie season, while Lou Williams’ touches (35.7) dropped to sixth on the team.
After starting more Ibaka and Batum (the other three: George, Leonard, Beverley) this season, the Clippers do have a strong starting combination. Before deadline,In a combination where five people are present for at least 50 minutes at the same time, the net efficiency value (+33.7) of this list is far ahead of the second place。
New classmate Ibaka allows the team to use more space because he is not a center who can only stay in the penalty area. In addition, compared with Harrell and Zubac, switching defenses is not a big issue for Ibaka, which allows George to show his ability to defend all five positions. As for Batum, although he did not perform well in the Hornets, he seems to have recovered his skills after coming to the Clippers and played the style of Boris Diaw when he was young. So far, Batum has controlled the ratio of assists to turnovers well (one turnover occurs for every 3 assists sent) and has become a 3D wing player (in the first seven games, he averaged 3.4 shots from outside the three-point line and hit The rate is 45.8%).
In the following video, you can see how the Clippers open up space to help George create three-point shooting opportunities. With the exception of Leonard standing in the low post, the other four were all pulled to the three-point line. As soon as the three-point threat Batum received a super long pass, he passed the ball to George who had no matchup.
In fact, Batum not only helps the team on the offensive end. When defending, he can also defend against opponents alone, which frees other teammates from spending more energy to help defend.So far this season, he has been sentThe best player defending the opponent’s offense, Including Devin Booker of the Sun, CJ McCollum of the Pioneers, D’Angelo Russell of the Gray Wolf, and Jamal Murray of the Gold Nugget.
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