Clingan has been very good defensively. His block on Jared McCain in the last minute was impressive because he played off him in drop coverage and baited him into the shot. As it happened, I thought he was too far off and was screwing up giving a good shooter that much space, but he covered a lot of ground quickly.
He is going to be a work in progress offensively. He’s just not very fluid. That was true at UConn too. He can look pretty awkward at times if he can’t just keep it simple. He also finishes too low when he absorbs contact and becomes easily blockable (happened twice). What he was really good at was finishing plays on the roll downhill when our guards found him … and these summer league guards are awful at it. Every lob try is deflected because they don’t know how to disguise it. I laughed at the first possession of the fourth quarter they designed a play for Clingan to get the ball on the low block and it worked perfectly. He came off a screen wide open. The Portland guard stared at him flashing with no defender on him, missed the window where it could have been a dunk, and then literally tried to throw a bounce pass through his own defender’s legs. Kick ball. Side out. Opportunity lost. And this was clearly a designed play that the guard should have been ready for - not a spontaneous read.
Watching summer league and some full game highlights from the tourney really made me appreciate how good Newton was for us. He was spot on throwing lobs or finding cutters nine times out of ten.
