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NBA 2025 finals: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and lost art of the mid-range rider

Dragging Point at the end of match 4 of the NBA final, Oklahoma City Thunder’s season, apparently suspended, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander raised the ball to the left side of the Gainbridge Fieldhouse floor.

The MVP had the match he wanted and went to work head-to-head against the wing of the Pacers of the Indiana Aaron Nesmith.

Gilgeous-Aalexander darted to the left, moving away two hard dribbles from the rest of the defense of Indiana. Nesmith remained on his right hip for some progress using a hand control before Gilgeous-Alexander jumps the defender with a sudden and strong forearm through “Indiana” on his chest, a blow enough to put the 6-foot 5 inch goalkeeper, 215 pounds on the seat of his pants in the paint.

While Pacers’ fans protested what they believed should have been an offensive fault, Gilgeous-Alexander gathered his balance while returning for a 15-foot base line while Andw Nembhard rushed for an overly tariff attempt to contest the blow.

The ball has splashed the net, giving Oklahoma City to advance it for good with 2:23 to play in its secure return victory. The most important moment of the career of Gilgeous-Alexander was a mid-range rider, a non-grata shot for the most part in the modern NBA which was mastered by the top scorer in the league.

This surely made Sam Cassell smile, the longtime assistant coach of the NBA whose player career is mainly raised for a celebration dance from Sortie, winning three championship rings and a master’s degree in the mid-range.

“I gave Shai everything I had, everything in my bag,” Cassell told Espn. “It’s just a bigger version of me – bigger and faster.”

Gilgeous-Alexander had only one season under the wing of Cassell, but the seeds of the offensive success of the NBA marking champion were planted during their daily training sessions in his recruit year with the Clippers. In a league that continues to be trendy beyond the 3-point arc, Gilgeous-Alexander has an old-fashioned game in which the mid-range is the meat of its stroke.

“I know it is the cliché that in today’s game that they abandon. They give you the 15 -foot traction shooting,” Cassell told Espn. “So I just told him from the first day, if it’s the blow they give, let’s be exceptional to this time. Let’s be the only player in the league who can be exceptional for this shot because they give it to you.

“Analytical guys say it’s a bad blow, but it’s not a bad blow for him. We have worked on the same things for days. If something is wrong, it’s your bread and your butter.”

The defenses are not willing to give Gilgeous-Alexander the mid-range shooting, but it always takes and makes them to clips that make it a rarity at any time, especially the modern NBA.

In fact, mid-range attempts and the efficiency of Gilgeous-Alexander have only increased during the last three seasons when it has turned into MVP and one of the greatest scorers in the history of the League.

Gilgeous-Alexander led the league with 32.7 points per game on 51.9% shooting this season. It was the third consecutive season that it has at least 30 points on an average of 50%, putting it in an exclusive club which includes the double MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Adrian Dantley and Michael Jordan.

According to Geniusiq Shot Data, Gilgeous-Alexander ranked second behind Demar Derozan de Sacramento in 2-point jump shots (261) and tried (495) this season. The shooting of 52.7% of Gilgeous-Alexander on these shots classified second behind Kevinix during Phoenix among the players who attempted at least 150 horsemen at 2 points.

Gilgeous-Alexander joined during and Chris Paul, a pair of future fablots of the first renowned round, because the only players with at least 250 have made horsemen at 2 points out of 50% shooting or better in several seasons since the start of the follow-up of the players in 2013-2014.

“As my game was molded and I became myself, I tried to stick to what works and what is comfortable for me,” Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN. “It is one of those things that has become very comfortable. Then I understood how to find certain places in certain situations, and now I play with it. But it all started with the construction of comfort, and [Cassell] Had a large part in there. “”

Early in the First quarter of match 2, the Guard Thunder Cason Wallace came to the half-terrain logo to set a screen, forcing Tyrese Haliburton to go to Gilgeous-Alexander. The MVP quickly went to work, taking a hard right dribbling to make sure that Andrew Nembhard had no chance of recovering and then crossing to slide in the middle of the ground.

Haliburton managed to stay in front of Gilgeous -Alexander and apparently had a decent position – for a brief moment, at least. Then Gilgeous-Alexander gave him a subtle and strong bump with his right shoulder while he picked up the dribbling. Just like that, he had an easy traction and open to the dotted line.

“People do not realize how strong it is,” the Thunder Alex Caruso wing told ESPN. “When he arrives at 10 feet and he strikes you with a big shoulder and turns from you, that makes you an impact. It is more difficult than people think it. Without being illegal, which is the key. It is never going 100 miles on time. He is always like a very intelligent player. You are not in order, he is without being an intellectual player.

“You mix this with physical stuff, and these are MVP stuff.”

Match 2 was a MVP performance – 34 points on 11 shots out of 21 and eight assists – and a mid -range masterpiece of Gilgeous -Alexander. He pulled 6 out of 9 on horsemen of 2 points in the game, 4 out of 8 on floats and layups and 1 in 4 out of 3s.

He swung mid -range plans from all over the ground on several different defenders. Each of them was out of the dribbling, as was the case on 248 of its 261 riders made at 2 points during the regular season.

He did the dance of Mathurin Benédict while he was worth from the right wing to the left elbow, dribbling the ball with his left hand all the time. When Mathurin bit a false crossover, Gilgeous-Alexander returned to an 18 feet on one of his spots. He has several.

“You must have several places,” said Gilgeous-Alexander. “If you have two -way spots, they have to choose a way and you go in the other direction and vice versa. The more there are spots, the more photos you have, the more variety you have, the more difficult it is to keep.”

Gilgeous-Alexander pulled Nesmith a half-past from the same place, creating a space by dribbling behind his back before backing down. He broke a just inside the top of Myles Turner’s key, who resumed the fear of Gilgeous-Alexander who slipped into the track. He struck a recovery jumper closely disputed on Mathurin on the left block – a classic case of good defense, a better offense. And he gave Ben Sheppard a shoulder bump to give himself a lot of room for a blandway near the right elbow.

“There is just a variety in his match,” said Thunder’s coach Mark Daignault. “There can be many different ways there. He will publish. He will play the game of Pick-And-Roll. He can ISO. He finds it in the current. I think that the diversity of this helps.

“Then, the diversity of his shooting profile. He will go, will arrive at the rim, he will also shoot 3.

There are distincts The legend of the Shades of Lakers Kobe Bryant in the game of Gilgeous-Alexander. It is intentional. Like many in his generation, Gilgeous-Alexander considered Bryant his favorite player and studied the subtleties of his game.

“A ton, a ton – more than anyone ever, for sure,” said Gilgeous -Alexander. “The way he attacked the game is very impressive for me, and I just think he is one of the most qualified players of all time. To have the combination of being one of the most qualified players of all time and to be able to attack the game as he did, that is why he had such a prolific score career.”

It is the mixture of size, strength, know-how and competence that makes Gilgeous-Alexander so difficult to stop.

He has 6-6½ with a scale of 6-11½, giving Gilgeous-Aalexander the length to have beautiful looks on the defenders. He is skinny, listed in 195 pounds, but has a steep force, like attest to any defender who felt his shoulder in their chest. Gilgeous-Aalexander is a “master of the angles”, as Caruso said, who uses a range of false pumps, pivots and other tips to create space or bait defenders to include it. And Gilgeous-Alexander has a tight handle that Cassell told him years ago would allow him to control the game by getting wherever he wanted to go with the ball.

“He’s just misleading,” said Cassell. “His speed is misleading. His ability to jump is misleading. All of his game is misleading – until he gets up on you. So you say, guy, he’s tall. He’s stronger than you think.”

Nembhard, the main defender of Gilgeous-Aalexander in the final, is also ready to defend the MVP as anyone. They clashed against each other since they grew up in Toronto. Nembhard knows there are opportunities that Gilgeous-Alexander will mark whatever the quality of the defense.

“It is physical and it is clever, so it is difficult to stay tight,” said Nembhard. “Then when you do it, it makes you lower.

Matt Williams by ESPN Research contributed to this story.

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