If the Warriors, as the season goes on, stop shooting as many threes and start shooting midrange jumpers instead (gotta change things up a bit sometimes), we can point to this game as the start of that trend. Quinn Cook hit 8 midrange jimbos tonight, and the team as a whole seemed to take way more of them than threes. Is it just because Stephen Curry is out? That’s a tempting line of thinking, but it could also be that they are realizing that the league as a whole is overplaying their three-ball and are adjusting to compensate.
Or it could be because Cook is a midrange assassin and if they want to win without Curry they have to play to his strengths instead. In any case, it’s something to keep an eye on. Not me, because I can’t be arsed to do shot tracking for teams other than the Bucks, but other people. Smart people. All I can do is look at highlights and make wrong conclusions.
My wrong conclusion after this one? Cook is better than Curry. And Thompson. Combined. The Nets defenders weren’t really respecting his jimbos, I don’t know why, didn’t they see him score 30 last year? We know that Cook can do this if given large, consistent minutes. If he doesn’t get that, you don’t get the production.