They're Doubling Kendric
Teams have worked out the champion's point guard. Sydney's coach says the fix is the men standing next to him. Melbourne on Sunday, with no Delly, is where that gets tested away from home.
Teams have worked out the champion's point guard. Sydney's coach says the fix is the men standing next to him. Melbourne on Sunday, with no Delly, is where that gets tested away from home.
Every time Kendric Davis crosses half-court now, two defenders are waiting for him. His own coach said it out loud. The answer isn't Davis scoring more. It's whether Makuach Maluach, Will Johnston and Torrey Craig make teams pay for leaving them, on a road trip without Matthew Dellavedova, ending Sunday at John Cain Arena.
Tuesday afternoon in the shop on Crown Street, a woman waiting on a skin fade had the Breakers replay on her phone, paused on the third quarter. "Look at this," she said, turning the screen around. "He brings it up and there's two of them. Every time. Two."
The barber, the Lebanese-Australian bloke from Bankstown who's been cutting in Surry Hills since the late 2000s, leaned in, squinted, and kept the clippers running. "Good," he said. "Now tell me who's open."
That's the whole season in one paused frame.
After the 102-101 loss to New Zealand in Canberra on 14 October, Brian Goorjian didn't hide behind the officials or the travel. He went straight at the mechanism.
"There's definitely, you know, you go into the second year, and he's being played a lot differently," Goorjian said. "Just with the double-teams and stuff, I've got to get better at the spacing and the players around him, and penalise that."
He went further. "He'd have to take four guys on to get something going because it's hard every time he crosses half-court, or every time there's a ball screen, or every time there's two guys coming to him." And the line that matters most for this week: "We've got to penalise teams for the way they're guarding Kendric."
Read that again, because it is a coach putting the problem on everyone except his best player.
The tape backs him. Sydney were ten up at the half in Canberra and shooting 64 per cent. Then the Breakers changed the coverage and started loading bodies on Davis, and the Kings scored 12 points in the third quarter on 4 from 20, 1 from 9 from three. Davis finished with 17 and 11 assists on 7 from 20, with six turnovers. Ten up became two down. New Zealand's bench outscored Sydney's 21 to 4.
Here is the deal a double-team makes. You take the ball out of the best player's hands, and in exchange you leave somebody else alone. It is a bet that the somebody else won't make you sorry.
Across Round 5, Davis went 16 from 42 from the field. He also handed out 19 assists in two games. Both numbers are the double. The low percentage is what happens when he forces it. The assists are what happens when he gives it up and trusts the man on the wing. The eight turnovers in between are the tax on learning which is which in real time.
So the question for Sunday isn't "can Davis get his." It's whether the men around him are worth guarding.
Start with Maluach. After the Perth win he was 15 from 24 from three for the season, 62.5 per cent, and 37 from 50 from the field. Goorjian's view of that: "I've never had somebody who shoots the ball so much... Green light to go." With Dellavedova out, Maluach went into the starting five against Perth and gave 16 on 7 from 9. A man shooting like that is not someone you can leave alone to double the point guard. That is exactly the penalty Goorjian is asking for.
Then Johnston. Zero points in 13 minutes in Canberra. Three nights later at Afterpay, a career-best 17 in 15 minutes, 6 from 9, 3 from 4 from deep. Craig's verdict: "He's a hooper. This is his city." It's one game. But it's one game against a defence that was busy watching Davis.
Then Craig himself, who had the week of a man who'd had enough. Twenty-eight in Canberra, including four threes in the last 1:55 that dragged Sydney from 13 down to within a point. Twenty-six and 12 against Perth, finished with a half-court make on the final buzzer. Fifty-four points across the two games. "We lost two games we thought we should have won, so a lot of frustration built up," he said after Perth. "We never stop playing."
That is what punishing the double looks like. The Perth win came against a side missing two imports, Jo Lual-Acuil Jr and Kristian Doolittle, and that's a fair knock. But Sydney closed it on an 18-4 run with Davis taking 22 shots and the scoring spread across Craig, Johnston, Maluach and Carr.
Now the hard part. Until Thursday, six games into the title defence, the Kings had not played a true road game. Five at Afterpay, one neutral in Canberra. They went to Wollongong 4-2, a home record wearing a road jersey.
And Dellavedova, the one bloke who calms a possession down when the double comes, is listed out with his calf until Round 7. Melbourne is without him too. Less ball-handling help means more of the double lands on Davis, and more of the answer has to come from the wings.
Thursday night was the first road game of the season, at Illawarra. The Hawks had just gone to John Cain Arena and won 91-89, with Makur Maker hitting the go-ahead three with 1:11 left. Sydney had beaten them 121-100 at home in Round 2, but Wollongong is a different room.
It didn't stay a different room for long. Kings 108, Hawks 82. It was 20-19 after a scrappy first quarter, 48-36 at the half after an 11-2 run, then 34-16 in the third.
Davis shot 10 from 22, and 1 from 7 from three, and still finished with 23 points and 14 assists. The rest came from the men he's being told to trust: Craig 22 with three threes by half-time, Maluach 13 on 2 from 3 from deep, and Andrew Carr 16 and 20 rebounds off the bench. That's the double getting cashed. The fair knock is that Illawarra are now 2-7, bottom of the ladder, and shot 37.8 per cent. Sydney are 5-2, second. Melbourne won't be that generous.
Melbourne United are 3-4 under Jacob Chance and still without Chris Goulding (calf, listed Round 7). They've also got the worse week. United play in Perth on Friday night at 9:30pm AEDT, then fly home to host Sydney on Sunday at 5pm.
Last Sunday against Illawarra, United turned it over 18 times and lost a game they led late. Chance's own read: "the game was lost in that second quarter." Cole Anthony had 24 that night, 20 in the second half, and Davis against Anthony will be the matchup on the poster.
It's the wrong matchup to watch. Watch the weak side. When Melbourne send a second body at Davis, watch who catches it, how quickly, and whether the shot goes up before the rotation gets there.
Kings, if the shooters cash the double.
If Maluach keeps shooting like the green light is permanent, if Johnston proves Perth wasn't a one-off, and if Craig keeps playing like he's still angry about Canberra, Melbourne have to choose. Stay home on the shooters and Davis gets his space back. Keep doubling and the corners get fed.
If the shooters go cold, it looks like Canberra again: Davis forcing shots into two bodies and a third quarter that disappears. Coming off a Friday night in Perth, Melbourne may not want to run with Sydney for 40 minutes, so expect them to lean on the double. That makes it simple. The men Melbourne leave open decide who pays.
Back at the shop, the woman got her fade and put the phone away. The barber swept the floor and said what he always says when someone brings him a problem that's really a question. "They're doubling him because they're scared of him. Fine. Make them scared of the other four."
Sunday, 5pm, John Cain Arena. Watch the open man.
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Editor note: the barbershop, the barber and the woman in for a fade are composites. Every named person is a public figure quoted or boxed on the record.
Rico Holt · ricoholt.com
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