Not included in this highlight video: all the times P.J. Tucker was playing really tough defense against Giannis Antetokounmpo. Defense is where a lot of his value lies, that combined with his relentless energy, but if I’m going to make highlight vids featuring defense as a centerpiece, it’s going to be on a channel called “NoOneGivesADamnAboutDefenseToBuck” where all the videos get single-digit views. It’s not going to be on my main channel, that’s for damn sure.
Unlike a lot of defensive specialists, Tucker actually has a major role in the Rockets’ offense, which is to run to the corner and stand there until Harden (or Westbrook, what a world we live in where those two ballhogs are on the same team) passes him them ball. Then he shoots it. Marv Albert claims that Tucker led the league in corner threes last year, and I have no reason to doubt him, because he probably has a big printout of all sorts of factoids like that that he just goes through as the game progresses. It’s not like he came up with it himself, doing his own research. I definitely wouldn’t trust his own research.
Also not included in this highlight video: all the times P.J. Tucker was playing really tough defense against Brook Lopez at the end of the game but it didn’t matter because Lopez is half a foot taller than him. That was some weird coaching by D’Antoni, just letting Tucker get abused like that, and it might have cost the Rockets the game. That and Eric Gordon shooting 4 for a billion and Harden trying to disappear into his beard like a hermit crab.