Teams are familiar with him and have adjusted. They put a bigger player on him and make him drive. He has gotten very good at finishing with the mid-range jumper. The 3's will improve and I am still comfortable when I see him with an open look. They are just fewer in number since conference play started. Here we go AJ, he will win a number of games with late, clutch 3's.
He's a shooter. And he just needs to keep shooting good shots. They will fall for him. He has to keep in check though. He can't start to force shots. That will only lengthen his slump. I like his mid range game. It's come along way. If he can use that tight defense against the opponent and drive more, he'll find some shots and (more importantly) open team-mates when the defensive help comes. If he can help the offense that way, we'll be OK, and his open threes will return.
all they have to do is put a 6'1" guy on him and he's towered over; I thought he was at least 6' but I don't think any of our guards are except maybe mason who is 6'2", tops.
Teams are putting bigger guys on him and doing a lot of ball denial. He's had some open looks that have just not fallen. He's gotta keep shooting but at the same time I think at times he gets frustrated and will put up a couple of bad shots. He's gotta keep shooting when open, but continue to either make the extra pass if necessary or drive in for his mid-range jumper if he doesn't have the open 3. Eventually he's gonna catch fire in a game and completely rip some team to shreds.
Sometimes I'll just watch AJ when he's away from the ball, running around, trying to get free. He gets grabbed and held and elbowed and jabbed and otherwise fouled away from the ball more than any player I have seen in recent history.
He might only be 21.9% from BTA, but inside the arc, hes around 58% which is a VAST improvement and an important improvement at that. He also had a couple of nice interior feeds tonight when he was able to drive the lane, another important improvement in his game. Hes becoming a much better all around player and being 21.9% from BTA hasn't stopped him from having good offensive games.
Actually he's 62.5 percent for twos in conference play, 10 for 16. But that's not exactly the quantity we need spread out through 3 conference games if he's going to be a threat to score. He's not turning the ball over, so that's a plus.
