[Lowlight] Two similar clips from game 1 and game 2 where Jrue Holiday pulls the chair and Wemby falls violently
Ye he’s going to have start making adjustments. Teams are going lean into this strategy hard.
this a lot easier said than done defensively lol. Jrue is just an all time great defender
Done incorrectly and you’ll just look like Jokic playing defense
Jokic and Luka been pulling the chair from people not looking to sit down for years
Jokic isn’t pulling chairs, he’s just rearranging them in an empty room.
NiNterior designer
His defense looked like shit
He also has the strength and footwork to pull this off. Jrue is what Dort wants to be but Jrue does it without absolutely mauling people because he is still very strong but also maneuvers so well both in the paint against bigs as well as up top against guards.
Jrue is so strong for a guard. Still have nightmares about him absolutely bullying CP3 in the finals.
I have nightmares about Jrue defending Lillard still even though he plays for us.
Let’s not revisit such horrible times. The trapping they had Jrue and Davis do on Lillard is the stuff of legendary horror stories.
Combined with Mirotic looking like Steph Fucking Curry, yeah we were cooked for sure
That one Pelicans series was brutal
Just taking the ball (and trophy) from Booker is still burned into my memory
He did that at the end of game 5 to Marcus Smart in the ‘22 playoffs and it really felt like he just stole the series in one swoop.
Yeah, the strength is the key thing there for sure. Part of it is that he just does a great job of keeping himself in position and on-balance, but even with that, he’s strong as shit. Not too many people that are as strong as him with the lateral agility, and the few that do don’t have the defensive instincts.
Even with him not being as good as he was in his prime, he’s still my first pick for a point of attack defender in the league. Dude is an absolute menace that’s made some really fuckin good players look like they don’t know how to dribble, let alone actually play.
Weirdly, he has a really hard time against Curry despite being great against almost every other guard.
Dort does do shit like this tho.
He does a lot of other stuff, but he also pulls the chair on bigs. Dort and Caruso did it a lot to Jokic last year
What they meant to say was “but I don’t like Dort because he has dirty plays.” Lol
Wtf u talking about, Dort is an elite screen navigator.
Thunder bad, duh
Lou Dirty bad duh.
Lu Dort spams this chair pull move it’s like one of his best tools as a defender lol
Do you think anyone here watches Dort defend?
Every day it’s more and more obvious that these dopes just box score / highlight / twitter watch.
rent free 😙
lol the nephews can’t not make it about the thunder.
Lmao. Yall are ridiculous.
Is this task of guarding a giant effectively something prime Iguodala could have done?
You need an elite high iq defender. Every team doesn’t have that. Especially to the caliber of Jrue
Think you need high IQ defenders to work it out. Won’t take much for any old player to mimic it eventually
You do, because otherwise they start moving at the wrong moment. If you try to pull the chair when their weight is still set, or before they even properly move, you will just move out of the way.
Plus you need to be a strong enough defender that they will even use this move. If Wemby can just bully his way then he wouldn’t bother to spin.
It kind of makes sense. He’s so slight, he needs to really throw all of his weight into contact to avoid getting bumped off his spot himself against stronger or stockier defenders.
No it doesn’t make sense lol pulling the chair has been an effective move through out history and works on anyone when they aren’t expecting it.
It’s not something you can just spam, otherwise you’re just moving out of the way and allowing an 8 ft alien a free uncontested standing dunk lol
This worked because it was unintuitive and because Jrue is a super high IQ defender who made a split second decision to be unpredictable.
ofc you can’t just spam it because he adapts, nothing can truly “be spammed”
But as a bulky oversized guard that switches on bigs, I can tell you that it’s much easier to do this to someone who’s light. The big guys will hold their ground more, whereas the lighter guys will sometimes over compensate by gambling their weight, and thus their balance, earlier.
It’s really hard to adapt in the moment, especially at NBA level, because things move fast. But if you’re Jrue, and you can see the movements he’s making at a “slower speed” so to say. It’s not surprising that it’d be this effective.
They’re doing the opposite of leaning hard
they leaning back
elbows up, side to the side
but do they dance? or pull up their pants?
People on this sub make me laugh…you see two clips from an expert level defender making savvy plays and think “well the league solved Wemby”….
Bc they only watch clips
Wemby just needs to mature more in the league and dial in his balance and feel for the defender. He’s a 3rd year player. He turned 22 in January.
If we get down the road and he’s 25⁄26 and still falling for it then sure we got a problem
Bucks couldn’t get over the hump. Trade for Jrue and win the title. Celtics couldn’t get over the hump. Trade for Jrue and win the title. Blazers stuck in purgatory. Trade for Jrue and make the playoffs.
One of the most underrated guards of our generation
Wonder how much different people would view his career if he didn’t have that middle point where he was injured and then dealing with his wife’s cancer. He was an all star in Philly and then got traded and had a meh few years with the injuries and off the court stuffwhere he plateaued and then started playing like an all star again in 17-18.
Since turning 30 he has 4 all defense teams and 1 all star game. Before 30 he had 2 and 1.
That’s a crazy stat about the post 30 vs pre 30. There can’t be more than a handful of other guys to pull anything like that off, if any.
Also it’s one of those things where if you have a reputation early in your career people will still view you really favorably after you’ve decline. So if you flip his career and he started out with 6 all defensive teams in his first 9 years how would people view him. If he got those early in his career would he have accumulated more based on reputation alone?
Seth curry sorta became a starter for a few years around 30.
Tbh that had more to do with his skill set becoming more valuable than him improving late.
He’s actually the one player I really wish the Sixers had held on to as he would have filled some of our biggest choke jobs with great guard play
What’s kinda funny about how Jrue is viewed as the perfect “winning player” is if you go back to the Nets series he was AWFUL but KD’s foot was on the line and the rest is history. Now his legacy is cemented after the Boston run
There are quite a few legacies that would be substantially different if they didn’t have lucky/unlucky moments that shifted the narrative.
Like Klay has a surprising number of playoff duds that were covered up by Steph (or KD) going ballistic.
I dont think he’s underrated, he’s pretty universally regarded an elite defender and savvy “intangibles” guy. It’s just that the elite scorers naturally get all the attention.
Ironically, one of those players considered to be a elite scorer felt insulted when asked to try to play more like Jrue Holiday (Bradley Beal)
The irony being that there is no way Bradley Beal could ever play like Jrue.
Was really wishing the Knicks could have picked him up at some point
He really is, his longevity is pretty underrated too. Hes 35 which isn’t anything inhuman like Lebron but his production for that age is still phenomenal
he’s so good
It’s crazy how often he’s traded for how good he is
Celtics trading him did make sense, he was offensively worse and they needed to unload salary.
yeah he might have stayed if the second apron penalties didn’t exist sadly
elite role player/borderline star that gets paid $30M. guy like him has value but also will unfortunately be a victim of the apron
When the Bucks traded Jrue Holiday for Damian Lillard I knew it was over for them.
I miss that man.
He is a winning player
I’ve been following Jrue’s career as a lifelong Blazers fan and I as ecstatic that we decided to keep him. One of the highest basketball IQ’s and raw +- players in history.
Yeah I’m not celebrating Wemby getting hurt or anything, but this is an incredibly smart and well executed technique for a guy who is otherwise impossible for a 6’4” player to defend.
Jrue is incredible.
I think Blazers were rebuilding
If you can pull the chair on someone, that’s on them to self reflect on why that’s even an option against them. Not dirty whatsoever, just unfortunate cuz you hate to see all time potential get derailed with stuff like this
Yeah, it sucks to see him go down but an offensive player should never rely on a defensive players weight to prevent them from falling. When small guys are guarding bigger players they have to find crafty ways to make the big guys uncomfortable 🤷♂️
Add Jrue has like no reputation of being dirty, and it’s a nothing burger. If this ends up taking him out enough for Portland to somehow someway take the series, it’s basically OKC vs whoever wins DEN/MIN….. which is less exciting as a neutral fan.
Really? I definitely would prefer to see a Denver OKC rematch. That series was incredible last year
Definitely. I mean in the sense that it will be a foregone conclusion of the possible options for the WCF. Portland is not beating a healthy DEN/MIN. Just no. So OKC and 3⁄6 seed matchup winner both just waltz in, taking away a juicier semifinals drama.
Yeah, gotcha. As a Blazer fan I would obviously get more excited about blazers vs den/min, but obviously a sas vs Denver series would be incredible
As a blazers fan living in Denver, it’d be nice to see the boys visit
I had to play center for my team in HS and I was 6’1. It was drilled into me early on to pull the chair when big dudes get the ball on me in the post. If high school coaches knew to tell their players that a decade ago, I hope it’d be a guarantee in the league by now, too.
I’d imagine that higher level players have the footwork and balance as well as experience and awareness to be better prepared for it. I’ve seen the move fail pretty often in the nba because, while it’s a good move, nba players play with more control than the guys who just throw their bodies around in HS. Because of that, pulling the chair is probably a skill most nba players are aware of, but they’re also aware it doesn’t work nearly as often.
It’s a gimmick at the end of the day, which means it works best as a surprise.
Players know about it but the skill difference means that it’s way more difficult to successfully pull the chair in the NBA.
if anyone thinks that this is a dirty play is genuinely an idiot
Why the fuck would a smaller guy risk his own ass to save a falling giant from hitting the floor… that’s literally insane.
People who have never been man enough to back up and bang on hard underneath. If you pull the chair on someone, most of the time they will just immediately get an open shot. Takes a bit of experiencing banging down hard on big guys to get a feel for the game. On both sides: giving and taking underneath.
This was said in Charles Barkley’s voice by my consciousness.
I’d put this as a primary goal of his trainers to figure out–if they’re working on his flexibility and strength, balance is going to be super important as well. Being able to throw weight but also catch yourself is going to be a huge part of how he continues to improve body control. Of all the people in the NBA to be training with Shaolin monks, Wemby is the freak with the most to gain from martial arts. Makes me think back to how Shaq did ballet to learn to control his huge body, more players could respect how cross-training would benefit them.
I mean…the whole idea of using your body to bump a defender off his spot is kinda an important aspect of basketball, no? Pulling the chair is, theoretically, anticipating that bump and just moving to the side.
Are people saying this is dirty? lol
I think people only think it’s dirty because of the severity of the injury and the player who was injured.
This kind of play happens dozens of times a day in pickup games around the world, though.
Anyone who thinks it’s dirty is not a smart person. This is a brilliant basketball ball play on one end, and a learning lesson on the other.
My fiancé had never heard of the term “pulling the chair” and asked me last night if it was dirty because she said people were saying that on IG. Had to give her the talk lol
You should show her the compilations on youtube. Cinema
Spurs fans all over. That’s why I posted the actual clip
You maybe saw one or two people say that. It’s not the general consensus among fans. Spurs fans regularly complain about Wemby being out of control on drives.
It was a valid move. Wemby needs to learn to post up the smaller players. That spin move almost never works for him. It’s unfortunate that that happened, but it is what it is.
There’s a reason it’s tagged as a lowlight imo, and it wasn’t meant as “Lowlight Wemby allows Jrue to pull the chair on him twice”
I agree that it isn’t.
Lowlight cause he got injured. I don’t think this is dirty at all.
I posted it because Spurs fans have been going crazy calling it dirty
Of course it’s not dirty, had anyone so much as suggested that?
I saw a few (majority Spurs fans) saying it was dirty and definitely a foul.
Like c’mon… if you touch him, it’s a foul… but if you don’t touch him, it’s also a foul? Get outta here. If the offensive player is trying to initiate contact, the defensive player has every right to get out of the way. Maybe offensive players shouldn’t be trying to push/attack people with the full weight of their bodies.
This is kinda hilarious to think about
I’ve seen a handful of comments, but not many. If this had happened with a less popular defender we’d probably see more of it.
Like if Draymond/Dort/Bane had done this same thing, you’d have folks calling The Hague for war crimes lol
You not wrong
Not really, pulling the chair is well known move I’ve never seen get called dirty. And people are still capable of reason even with those guys, last year when Ja got hurt in the playoffs on that hard landing/wipeout with Dort…I was shocked how many people said, “Fuck Dort but this one isn’t on him”.
And that was a much more questionable play than this.
I’ve seen nobody suggest it was dirty. Anyone who said it is can easily be disregarded.
My head hurts just after seeing that.
Seeing the floor move when he makes contact, oof
To be fair the floor is made of pieces like a puzzle, each piece is like 4ftx4ft square.
I did a little investigating and slammed my head on a puzzle and it still hurt
It’s the chin for me
The chin KILLS
The chin kills?
Is it pulling the chair as much as Wemby is just violently spinning / throwing himself into Jrue and he’s backing up?
It’s because Wemby passed the ball while he was falling instead of bracing for the fall. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. It’s just a really unfortunate event.
wemby didn’t protect himself, it was 100% his own fault.
It was 100% someone’s fault and that is wemby. He was not in control of his body, at all
Oh yeah agreed, I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault at all. I just think it was a freak accident, and with Wemby’s size, he probably should be a bit more calculated with his spin / drives in the future to lower the chance of something like this happening again.
I noted this in Game 1 but I feel like Wemby’s brain decides to do things his body isn’t completely ready for and I think it’s going to contribute to these sort of “freak” injuries.
“Wemby’s brain decides to do things his body isn’t completely ready for”
those electrical signals have a long distance to travel
And those damn substations are interfering with the signals too
Bro is bambi on ice sometimes he needs to chill.
Yeah I think he needs to slow down his game a bit and be a bit less aggressive to ensure he stays healthy in the long term.
First clip he just straight up expects to spin around jrue. Which is silly, because obviously a guard like Jrue is going to be able to move himself into position much faster than you. He doesnt intentionally collide with jrue tho
Definitely not intentional at all, just think he should be a bit more calculated and slow with his movements to protect himself from injury in the future. He’s already an extreme freak with his frame, he doesn’t need to be lightning fast and aggressive to dominate. He can still be the best player on the court with a less aggressive style of play. Hope he recovers quickly.
In the first one he got tripped up. The second one was just him being reckless though. I mean the first was reckless too, but if he didn’t get tripped maybe he would have been fine. It’s just not worth it even if he gets the foul call to be risking himself like that.
I’d say yes because Wemby is explicitly doing that to create the contact and get to his spot. When the contact backed off Wemby wasn’t ready and lost his balance. Basically the definition of pulling the chair out
Yeah the first guy straight up defined pulling the chair
That’s exactly what pulling the chair is lol
When defended by guards he really just needs to try and back them down a bit then face up and shoot over them. Against other bigs the spin moves should still be fine since he doesn’t have to lean as far to put weight into them before the shake.
TBF he has the same issue Chet has, they simply does not have enough weight to bully smaller players in the paint.
Center of gravity too high lol
I simply cannot tolerate any slandering of Chet’s big ass head.
His head has a shape reminiscent of a Jimmy Neutron characters, he looks like 7 foot Sheen Estevez actually
And again, doesn’t have the mass. If he was as dense relative to JRue, it wouldn’t be a contest.
But he’s not, partly because it would impact his longevity. That kind of height isn’t a total blessing. He has to figure out how to make it work. He’s either leaner and can last longer, but can’t bully guards when they switch, or he can bulk up and risk injury and impacting his longevity.
Exactly what porzingis learned the hard way and became excellent at after a while
Not just a wemby problem. My two major pet peeves of this generations big men
not just turning and face up when you have someone 6+ inches shorter than you
every post up turns into a fadeaway jumper, regardless of who is guarding them
Wemby be out of control on a lot of his drives. Honestly surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
I expect a ton of teams to start doing this to him next season but knowing him he’ll adapt to it before they start.
I wrote in a different thread, but while the Spurs fans and the players may not appreciate this experience right now, they will in the future. It’s a great first opportunity for Wemby against a physical and defensive team that will throw what they can at him. He’ll grow from it without question. And if he’s able to come back, I fully anticipate them to win (and maybe even without him).
It’s interesting. He should definitely be strong enough to simply back down guys without having to use momentum to do so, but maybe not? IDK. Jrue is built pretty thicc so he might not be able to back him down and this is his option to go into him with momentum, but if it’s leading to injuries he has to change the way he plays, obviously.
Sucks he got injured, but only respect to Jrue as a defender. As a Wemby fan… he walked right into this. Feels like this season he’s got so far into the mindset that guys are going to be bodying him every possession that he just forgot this was a possibility. Mitch gotta get him under control or it’s gonna be a short playoff run.
That and it looked to me like he tried to save possession of the ball over breaking his fall. Love the competitiveness, but sometimes it’s better to just let the ball roll out of bounds so you can fight another day. Impossible decision for ultra competitive dudes to make in a split second though for sure.
Yeah, we can review it in slowmo, but at the pace these events happen irl people will be acting on instinct and muscle memory. I doubt any NBA level athlete would have chosen differently given how competitive you need to be to make it to that level.
if your post moves require your opponents holding you up then you’re not doing them right
I mean pulling the Chair has always worked. The issue is wemby is so long that that type of move seems to really get him badly.
Depends on who. I don’t think this would work as well on Jokic for example
I agree. Joker has Wemby by 50 pounds and he’s six inches shorter. He doesn’t need to lean his full weight into a defender.
Not trying to provide a basketball tutorial here, but doing post moves ‘right’ involves you leaning hard into your opponent which is why ‘pulling the chair’ has been a counter-move to post-ups since the beginning. It sounds like you think the problem is Wemby is doing it wrong.
There’s nothing new here, just that if you do a post move, you are vulnerable to pulling the chair which can cause you to lose balance… And Wemby is particularly vulnerable to suddenly losing balance as you see.
You guys on this thread have not hooped a day in your lives because there’s no way im reading this correctly.
go on
Wemby knows his moves im pretty sure. You will always get contact in the paint so you better initiate it at your own terms and create an advantage. Jrue is just a very good defender, if he misreads wemby gets an easy dunk
Wemby looking as graceful as Embiid here.
Baby giraffe vs drunk cave bear
hope wemby is okay. jrue is one of the smartest defenders ever man.
I mean that’s 100% on Wemby
A wise man once said “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”
I hate to see anyone hurt but if you can’t stay upright because the defender isn’t there …then you’re out of control.
High level basketball. Meticulous scouting. It shows up in the playoffs.
its wembys fault for playing a brand of basketball that aggressively overutlizes his physical tools. other players will inevitably come up with strategies to counter that, not a dirty play whatsoever
I’ve been seeing Spurs fans all over call this dirty but even trying to be as objective as possible I don’t see it. He’s playing a little too reckless and almost took out Shae and Deni in game one
In what universe is this anything close to being dirty? Does Jrue have to let Wemby use his body to cushion his fall?
Probably Wemby only fans. The tactic is as old as time and involves scouting. The fault lies in offensive player for allowing it.
Ngl the way you worded the title I thought you were the one claiming it was dirty lol
Honestly it makes sense that an OG like Jrue would see this as a weak point for Wemby and capitalize. Genuinely a super smart play, though I hope Wemby is okay.
wemby’s gonna learn one way or another that he has to play under control or get punished accordingly
Is the second one in particular really pulling the chair”? It looks like Wemby is gonna shoulder charge/elbow the fuck out of Holiday’s face and Holiday makes the split second decision to not get his jaw destroyed by someone spinning into him.
Go look at the clip again, and I dare you to try to say Holiday was thinking about anything but not getting his jaw fucked up. Look how close his face comes to Wemby’s shoulder even with him stepping back AND whipping his head back as well.
Well thats just not smart by Wemby and very well done by Jrue tho
what happens when you play for contact. balance young padawan
Smart defense. Wemby needs to play more balanced going forward.
I’m hate seeing any players get injured, especially head injuries. But if you can get chair pulled twice like this, you’re playing out of control.
He’s been super aggressive all series and his massive frame can’t handle it. In game one he wildly landed on top of Deni and Shae in different plays that could have injured one of them
I’m sure he’ll adapt to it, but really unfortunate results of a pretty normal basketball play.
He’s got so much in his bag that he can just drop this move and he’ll be fine.
Obviously I don’t like seeing anyone get injured, but that is a legit defensive strategy and it’s high IQ basketball.
Maybe he should stop doing that to Jrue Holiday lmao
If he doesn’t have the strength to back these guys down…then he should just shoot over them imo.
Yeah KD style, it works.
turns out you can’t just hurl your ultra thin 7’4(?) gangly ass body into little guards and expect them to just take it over and over - very unhappy with his injury but pulling the chair is one of the oldest tricks in the book
Wemby doing too much. He’s not where he is yet in his own head. He’ll have to adjust
He might want to consider not flailing around as much
inb4 “pulling the chair” becomes a “flagrant foul” next season.
Despite how simple it is, this is elite, clean defense from Jrue. Wemby got injured because he prioritized keeping the play alive over breaking his fall.
Gotta respect the competitive nature, but also, watch your face, the floor doesn’t tend to move.
Wasnt that something Scottie Pippen did a lot which made him do well on Defense? As people push up against you he would move out of the way?
Yeah it looks like Wemby is expecting contact and shifts his body weight to lean on the other player. If the other player doesn’t provide that contact, then he’s going to be out of balance and fall every time.
He’s young and learning.. He also seemed very uncharacteristically excited yesterday to the point he was a bit out of control. He learned an important lesson the hard way, and if this ends up being the deciding factor for the Spurs this year, I’m sure he’ll work relentlessly to fix it.
What is this agenda against Jrue. This is a normal Basketball play.
When I was younger and out of control, I used to always fall on my face or cheek, because I got the chair pulled. I also would pull the chair on others. It’s up to the person on offense to anticipate this, or brace to the fall.
I mean this is good defense, just shitty on how Wemby tries to utilize it and defenders have read up on it
Lowlight? More like High IQ light. OP has never had to defend a bigger dude
Lol how the fuck did he hit his head THAT hard. Like bro protect yourself
if you get fucked over from somebody pulling the chair that’s on (checks notes) you
Pulling the chair as a guard is like really the only tactic they can use when they are getting backed down by bigger dudes. I see no foul play with it or anything. I don’t even think people think it was a dirty play or anything. Just unfortunate and also unfortunate Wemby just fell from so far up.
the title of this is feels like its blaming jrue for wemby being off-balance as he spins into him. like it was Jrue’s job to become a pillowed but sturdy pillar for wemby to spin/slam into and stay up right. jrue is moving back, wemby falls because he’s off balance. if jrue doesnt move, wemby is sitll off blanace and still falls, he’s just now shoving jrue to the ground accidentally as he’d do so.
I hope wemby is ok and recovers quickly, but he didnt fall in either of these because somene was evil and doing shit. he fell in both clips because he’s offbalance. he needs to work on his footwork more if he wants to move this fast/ and not fall.
It’s unfortunate that Wemby is hurt, but this is a basic tactic when defending a big.
this is basic defense, if he can’t handle it then just git gud.
i cant blame jrue for that, these are great defensive plays. unfortunate wemby got hurt
Bigger they are the harder they fall
There were young spurs fans who kept asking what’s different in the playoffs, how are we not primed to win it all? And us old folk ( I’m in my 20’s 😭🤣) had to keep telling them it’s a completely different beast.
I hope they understand now 😭.
That’s next level scouting! Don’t allow him to steady himself on your body. Simply move and he’s out of control!
Hate to see anyone get hurt but man, pulling the chair is such an elite basketball move.
Great defense from a great player who clearly studied the film
Most young players have to adjust to the NBA. With Wemby’s extremely rare combination of his unique skillset for a guy as tall and long as he is, the NBA was going to have to adjust to him. Teams were eventually going to figure some things out.
Pulling out the chair is a defensive strategy but it sucks Wemby got injured on the second one
Tremendous moves by Jrue. Guy has tremendous basketball instincts and is insanely skilled
Its a savvy veteran champion defender using his brain against a young player who hasnt seen it all yet. This is on Wemby not Jrue, Wemby will learn to adjust, especially as other teams learn to defend him better.