I'd like to see Vanderbilt play differently on defense.
Sort of the inverse of the Hachimura & AD partnership where Hachimura is the man defender on Jokic and they use AD as the free safety cleaning up on team D and giving a big man double team onto Jokic. So the inverse being AD as the man defender on Jokic and Vanderbilt as the free safety & big man double team.
Vanderbilt is playing too stagnant on defense off the ball. He is guarding a very limited offensive threat in A Gordon. A guy who does not look to score most of the time. Vanderbilt needs to be much more aggressive / active as a help defender playing off of Gordon. He needs to be concentrated on reducing driving lanes, reducing passing lanes, clogging lanes for cutters and being the main helper (big man help) on Jokic.
Vanderbilt is very good defensively in normal circumstances and very good at forcing turnovers. The question is does Vanderbilt have the defensive IQ to be a defensive playmaker off the ball like this? I haven't seen him do it before. He has struggled with it tonight. He is playing too passively on defense and more towards being a solid system defender rather than a free safety type who does his own thing.
Anyway, I'd love to see him try. If he cannot do this, he does not have much value in this series. He is a liability if he continues to play this way in the 2nd half.
