Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy broke down the different challenges that Kyle Filipowski has faced during his first two seasons following Monday’s 119-116 home win vs. the Golden State Warriors (19 points/15 rebounds/5 assists/2 steals/1 block/6-12 FG/1-3 3-PT/6-6 FT/+1 +/- in 25 minutes at starting center).
(via Utah Jazz):
“I mean, I’ve been challenging Kyle since his first day. He’s such a gifted player. I’ve said this a bunch and I mean it, and it’s why I keep saying it: Kyle gets put in a lot of hard positions. He hasn’t had a ton of consistency since he got here in terms of number one, the position on the floor that he is playing and some of his teammates who are going through the development process with him are getting consistency in terms of their position on the floor, and therefore the types of coverages they see, the reads they need to make. And Flip has had a really wide variance. Sometimes he’s the four. Sometimes he’s the five. And so, number one, you’re in different spots offensively, you’re in different spots defensively. The coverages you’re executing defensively are different. The coverages you’re reading offensively are different. And so, that makes it hard for him.
“I think the physicality piece is something that we talk about a lot, but that’s not just Flip. We need all of our young players to be more physical. We need everybody to play a little bit bigger than they are, especially in this moment in the season when we’re down a lot of bigs. And so, a lot of our lineups are smaller. Flip has been somebody who has stood out lately in that regard, but I think that his teammates also, we’re seeing more physical play from everyone. And as we enter this next stretch of games that’s gonna continue to be one of our bigger talking points with our group is how physical can we be, especially around the basket. That’s physical plays, protecting the rim, rebounding.”
