FanPost

Another week in Grand Rapids basketball: while some of its core players are showcasing on the big stage, the Drive still makes a great show on the smaller one

The Drive started last (extended) week with a tough loss to Raptors 905. Then they won games with Long Island Nets and on the road with Delaware Blue Coats. And they finished the week with another tough loss, this time at Maine Red Claws where they played SEGABABA.

As you probably noticed, Sekou’s now making a career in Pistons’ uniform, so he isn’t starring for the Drive anymore. Jordan and Louis also had their stints in the big club, so they played a little inconsistently as they missed extraordinary amount of shots (Jordan was 16/51 from the field in 3 games, though 7/15 from behind the arc; Louis was 13/43 from the field and 2/13 from behind the arc). In these circumstances winning two of four games should be counted as a good result. This is how the team managed to achieve it.

First of all, despite their lower efficiency, both Jordan and Louis still showed some good stuff. The former provided further evidence that in few months he had become an expert in P&Rs, which he practically didn’t run at Tennessee. Now he can finish this type of play in all kinds of way. He also provided further evidence that he’s prolific passer and that he can make threes in variety of ways. As always, he also showed us some nice drives to cheer about and some hustle on o-glass. I know it’s a lot, but it’s only a tip of an iceberg. The most encouraging thing from his last week play was his defense. Now it looks seriously legit. He presents himself more like a pit bull kind of on ball defender, who can expertly fight through screens, and is eagerly determined to denial his man with authority. He will also haunt you off ball.

Louis also showed up on that end of the floor, providing good on ball defense, help defense and exhibiting how to make rightly closeouts. On the offensive end of the floor, he showed that he can be trusted to score in crunch time with this sophisticated play. He also provided another instances showing that he can share ball-handling and creating for others duties (as far as the second one is considered we need to emphasize the P&R lob to Donta from the first clip because he so far struggled to make these type of passes on target). He also added some nice jumpers, scores off of moving without the ball and off of the ability to be at the right time at the right place as well as drives (in which he now tries more to finish above the rim though it’s not always working like it did for Sekou, yet).

Second of all, since the Drive was deprived of all or some contributions from their core players, it needed others to replace it. And they did. Last week Donta was averaging 16,8 PPG on 67,6 FG% with 12,3 RPG, 1,5 BPG and 1,25 SPG. The man is clearly demanding a place in Pistons’ rotation and, with the way he plays right now, he deserves it. He’s very good as a target for lobs, alley-oops and dump offs. He’s very good on O-glass and in transition. He can make adequate post plays, make triples and he can pass the ball. He’s very good, and entertaining!, rim protector. He can defend in the post and can rebound the ball against 7’3 or even 7’5 players and out of position. Yes, he still makes some mistakes, but overall, he more and more looks like Harrell-type hustle player who can be very productive from the bench in the NBA.

Another player who stepped up last week for the Drive was Todd Withers. In four games, he made 18 treys in 32 tries. He also showed nice cut and played some good D.

And there was also Adam Woodbury, and experienced G-League backup C, who played some solid minutes, making almost two times more points than his prior season average.

Third of all, it was also a whole-team-effort that allowed Grand Rapids to go through this turbulent period of roster instability. It could be seen in these instances of superb ball movement and in these instances of highlight plays of various individual players. Finally, it could be seen in this instance of coach Donnie Tyndall allowing his assistants to rise to challenge, even if that made himself two times smaller.

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