Zach Lowe

So they were making it hard for him, and he just missed shots.

It wasn't like he was shying away from the moment or he choked, but in that moment...

With Wemby out and Castle and Harper as their first go-round, that's when you want a 28-point Fox game.

What's not to love about Dylan Harper?

Yeah.

I mean, look, pre injury, Ron, pre knee injury, Ron Harper was a monster.

And Dylan Harper has a chance to be better than that.

Defensively, that's been my favorite thing about him since I started watching his clips at Rutgers.

Like that guy.

And you've seen them.

They've given everybody a try on Denny.

Like the primary guy is Castle, but they'll switch a bunch of guys on him.

I do wonder if in this game they'll play, they'll try.

And Portland has some agency in this to try to play Denny and scoot a little bit more conservatively, like make them shoot jumpers, go under screens against them instead of giving them lanes to attack.

But again, Portland can disguise things to make it harder to do that.

And I'm glad you mentioned the cell.

Like,

He has really amped up in the last month, the non-shooting parts of his game defense.

Like he's getting, he's flying in for these like really well, like contested defensive rebounds.

He's got a couple of shot blocks and deflections in game one.