« Reply #210 on: May 03, 2019, 07:42:44 PM »
Maybe he was sick, but this is not the lowest percentage he has shot in a game this season. He had 2 separate regular season games with a worse shooting percentage and one of those he took 14 shots making just 2 (so it wasn't a small sample size). He had 5 separate regular season games this year where he was 30% or worse from the field and in 2 of those games he had 21 shots (making 6) and 17 shots (making 5).
This also isn't the first time he has been terrible in the playoffs. His last year in Cleveland he was 4 of 17, 6 of 19, and 7 of 21. Even one of the finals games he was just 8 of 23. The year before that when Cleveland won the title he had a lovely 3 of 19 game against the Raptors in the ECF. He also had 3 separate finals games against the Warriors where he was 7 of 22, 5 of 14, and 7 of 18. Even that first season where he ended up missing a lot of games, he was pretty bad in 3 games going 2 of 10, 3 of 13, and 3 of 11. In other words, Kyrie has pretty consistently throughout his playoff runs put up some pretty awful shooting performances.
So yeah there is amazing playoff Kyrie, which we see at times (like game 1), but there is also the playoff Kyrie that is downright terrible (like game 2). And again maybe he really was sick, or maybe it was just Kyrie being Kyrie and the writers are trying to make excuses for his otherwise poor play.
Do you log a diary entry every time he has a bad shooting night?
The fact is, most players - even elite ones - have bad shooting nights. Kyrie is not immune from that, but he is still one of the most efficient shot makers in the game (his playoff averages are .461 FG/.412 3PTFG /.876 FT with a true shooting percentage of 57%). We can cherry pick stats from an assortment of players.
This is the same argument I made time and time again on here about Rondo. This board has pretty consistently only examined the great things our players do and pretty widely disregarded the poor things and the inconsistency. The reason though that that sort of inconsistency matters more for Kyrie, then many other great players, is quite simply because Kyrie doesn't do much else. He isn't making up for a poor shooting night by playing lights out defense. He isn't cleaning up the glass and by and large isn't getting others involved with his passing. If Kyrie doesn't shoot well it is a bad sign for the W/L department, especially against the better teams the C's face in the playoffs.
The bolded part is a partially valid point because Kyrie can make up for a bad shooting night by being a facilitator if he wants,
And he's been a facilitator in these playoffs, he's also giving more effort defensively and has carried over his uptick in rebounding from the regular season - some posters just refuse to admit that. But the thing with being a facilitator is that you can make all the passes you want, guys still need to make shots for it to count, right? Last night was a rough shooting night for everyone (except Morris & Al).
I'm sorry but since when did Kyrie being inconsistent become a thing? People seem to be disregarding the fact that the poster's entire premise is wrong.
except he is. These are his FG% in his last 15 games. Notice, they are all over the map.
43.5
41.4
52.2
29.4
50.0
36.8
42.1
50.0
47.4
35.3
57.7
36.8
30.8
57.1
22.2
This isn't super uncommon of course as players don't shoot the same amount every game, but Kyrie is a bit more extreme than most players (and he also doesn't have the extreme elite games i.e. above 60% nearly as much as someone like Curry).
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