What happens when an extremely stoppable force meets very little resistance whatsoever? Chris Paul and Andre Roberson demonstrate.
There are a few things that need to be established before we really dive into some Andre Roberson and Chris Paul film study.
The first thing is that Andre Roberson is not a good shooter. Other adjectives can be applied to his shooting such as “bad,” “poor,” “unfortunate,” and “diseased,” but never “good.” When Andre Roberson shoots the ball, typically the ball doesn’t go in.
The second thing is that Chris Paul is not a friendly person when he is playing basketball. Other adjectives can be applied such as “harsh,” “prickly,” “acerbic,” and “caterwauling,” but never “friendly.” When Chris Paul is playing basketball with you, typically you kind of wish you were dead.
These two pieces of these players’ persons came together last night. By together, they got about 10 feet from each other, waved a bit, and decided that that’s as near as they’re comfortable getting. Then a ball got all airballed real bad. In retrospect, it kind of seems inevitable.
At 0:02 in the clip, Chris Paul is not in good position. The entire back side of the court is unoccupied except for Roberson. Paul George rockets a cross court pass. Chris Paul considers filling the gap.
At 0:03, he is in no hurry. Maybe he thought he had a help defender or maybe it’s preseason, but it’s a pretty lackadaisical move to the weak side.
At 0:04, noticing the wide open space, Paul takes one hurried step toward Roberson. One.
At 0:05, Paul recognizes that Roberson is the one about to shoot the instead of closing out, he dismissively waves toward him, like one would wave at a parrot who learned how to swear.
At 0:06, Paul stretches out his arms as to say “No. This ball will not be going in. I didn’t need to do anything. Man, I’m ready for bed.”
That’s a whole lot of play and personality in just four seconds, but somehow I feel like we haven’t learned anything. That’s okay. It’s pretty much what I do.