Anthony Edwards was aggressive
Everyone was wrong; it didn't work
People with comically high testosterone levels tend to excel in sports. And that can lead them, in some cases, to jobs analyzing the game for television networks. Their thinking about problem solving can tend to have a certain predictable bent.
From now on, I want $5 in cash every time I hear an NBA player has to be “more aggressive.”
I want that money for three reasons:
It’s a dead horse. I’m 50, I’ve been watching sports since childhood. I swear it has been part of every single broadcast.
It’s unnecessary. It’s baked into the game. Even how NBA players apply rosin powder before tipoff (think of LeBron’s cloud of dust) is aggressive. They already knock each other to the floor 40-plus times a game.
It is incorrect.
Bad teams constantly feature wildly aggressive chuckers like Monta Ellis, Jordan Poole, or young Jalen Green. Again and again, through history, those teams improve when those players learn to fit a team concept, which almost always means some form of increasing calm decision-making, reading the floor, better defense, and finding open teammates. It means less attacking the double team.
Yes, the key to NBA play is often to be aggressive, but we’re good on that. What’s in short supply is being aggressive while making non-stop masterful reads at both ends, and while seeing the rim clearly, and while being generous helping teammates at both ends. It’s a sport of young men who often improve by being less drunk on testosterone.
Anthony Edwards is touted as the next Michael Jordan because he looks Airish as he leaps over people. Poor guy; everyone knows this can happen, which makes people disappointed when it doesn’t. But it’s not always possible nor is it always a good idea.
In the Western Conference finals, the Wolves faced, arguably, the best NBA team defense of all time. The Thunder aimed their tornado at Edwards. With the way they barely call fouls anymore, Edwards often tried and failed to even catch a pass, let alone dribble through traffic and make highlights.
In Game 4, Edwards played fine. But he didn’t shoot much. In 41 minutes he took 13 shots, and the Wolves lost by two. The testosterone cult of NBA commentary circled up and lit their torches. Google any story, highlight, or studio show. For 48 hours, everyone who had anything to say about the NBA just knew the winning strategy for Anthony Edwards in Game 5: Be. More. Aggressive.
It’s those people I’m talking to now. Hey guys! Are you still there? Uh oh, did you lose your voice?
In case you missed it, here’s what happened in the last game of the Wolves’ season: Anthony Edwards heard you. He scored a couple of early buckets being aggressive. And then , as the Thunder began to build a lead, Edwards airballed a 3. He hit the side of the backboard. He drove into three defenders. He dribbled up the floor and into a miss from a yard behind the 3-point line. From the middle of the first quarter to a couple of minutes into the third, he took eight shots and missed all but one.
With a little under 11 minutes left in the third quarter, Edwards tried to split the double team of Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. Williams is, in advanced statistics, the 11th best defender in the NBA. Holmgren is 7th. Williams has some of the longest arms ever measured on a guard, and before the draft was assessed in the rare athletic “specimen” category at the Peak Performance Project I wrote a book about. He’s one of the NBA’s best movers. Holmgren, meanwhile, is so long and mobile that he has a near-historic impact on his team’s ability to protect the rim.
This was the opposite of identifying a good shot. This was Skywalker flying into the Death Star-level crazy. I hope the commentators loved the audacity of it; the basketball was bad.
By the time that play fizzled to its end (with Holmgren grabbing an uncontested rebound of Edwards’ bad miss), Williams and Edwards were both on the floor, and the Thunder had a 35-point lead while the Wolves had 32 total points.
The aggression program had turned the excellent Wolves into Jordan Poole’s Wizards. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault must have been delighted that Edwards had heeded such simple advice.
It’s like telling a Formula One driver the way to win is “more gas.” The cars have a lot more controls than that one pedal. They have to be used in symphonic combinations. Drivers accelerate into crashes often, because there are twists and turns.
Now and again an NBA coaching staff comes up with something really special, that truly changes a team’s odds of winning. I’m lucky enough to have been involved in editing incredible stories about those episodes: the charcuterie board session that launched the Warriors dynasty, what Gregg Popovich calls “Summertime,” and the Pacers intensity system that has the Knicks on the ropes right now.
The ideas that work at this level are light years more nuanced that one guy being aggressive. There are Ph.D. level ways coaching and strategy can really deliver an edge. Maybe we could talk about that?
Thank you for reading TrueHoop!
What was so weird about the commentary after Game 4 is that no one mentioned that the Wolves' offense was clicking and that the 126 points they scored would have been enough to win every other game in the series.
The discourse about being aggressive is, I think, a trickle-down effect of the tiresome GOAT debate and its emphasis on championships won by individual players.
Did you see Rick Carlisle talking about the irrelevance of individual stats after Haliburton's impressive game 4? If not, check it out. It was like he'd been reading TrueHoop.
Such a great article. Stuff like this is why TrueHoop is so essential! I wish the playoffs were called more equitably though. The "let 'em play" ethos led to some teams (Houston in particular) and players (Lou Dort, for example) playing a physical game that barely resembles basketball. Players were injured because of it.