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00:00 All right, so I mean, I think this guy officially had his welcome to the NBA moment against
00:05 the Dallas Mavericks.
00:06 Brandon Miller in his first career NBA start was not a very effective offense player in
00:11 that game.
00:13 Struggled to shoot from the floor, did not make a three, I believe it was 0 for 5 from
00:16 three in that game.
00:17 I don't think he struggled like with a particular player or anything like that, like the person
00:21 defending him wasn't really the reason why.
00:23 He just kind of faded out of the offense.
00:25 He definitely didn't have that same on-ball presence as he had in the first couple of
00:30 games.
00:31 He had a couple of very timely mid-range buckets, but didn't really show up all that much at
00:37 the end of the game.
00:38 Wasn't really a huge part of the crunch time performance there.
00:42 Obviously, he's been very good on the season still, but it was interesting to see in his
00:46 first start, how he was utilized.
00:49 It was strikingly similar to the first couple of games.
00:53 I would be curious to see the lineup data, but I imagine that who he was on the floor
00:58 with was pretty similar throughout the time, other than Terry Ozier being there.
01:02 It didn't seem like he was given necessarily any more or less offensive responsibility
01:07 with Terry out.
01:08 It was kind of deferred to other players apart from Brandon Miller and maybe the other guys
01:13 on the back end of the rotation that came in to eat some of the minutes as well.
01:17 But overall, I'm still very impressed with him on the season.
01:20 We talked about him a lot in the last episode.
01:22 He's still like the mid-range game looks great.
01:24 He's a great ball handler for his size.
01:27 James, what are your thoughts here on Brandon Miller?
01:30 Yeah, he's cooled off a little bit since our last episode.
01:35 We can't duck that.
01:36 Interesting, I was looking at his usage this year is at 15.9%.
01:42 That's a lower usage than Tao Maladon, the 17.2, which is a little bit of a shock, I
01:47 think.
01:48 I think that's probably by design, by Clifford.
01:52 He doesn't want to just go out there and just put Brandon Miller in pick and roll situations.
01:57 He wants to ease him into it.
01:58 He's still learning so much.
02:00 This is, I think, normal.
02:01 That's going to creep up by the end of the year.
02:03 I expect him to be probably settling in somewhere probably similar to PJ Washington.
02:07 PJ's at 18%.
02:08 I imagine that's where Brandon Miller will get by the end of the year.
02:12 But that's something that I just thought jumped out to me a little bit.
02:16 Look, the defense is just where I've been most impressed.
02:19 I posted a quick video on my Twitter page.
02:24 I think it was after the Indiana game.
02:27 In fact, it was at halftime of that game.
02:29 So far this year, he has defended Trae Young, Luka Doncic, Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Heald.
02:35 These are some really, really difficult guys to guard.
02:38 He has been high effort, high IQ, locked into the game plan.
02:44 Yes, he's still lacking strength, but his technique is just really exceptional.
02:48 There's still been times he's picked up rookie fouls, but overall, I said this in my tweet,
02:54 I think he's the best rookie defender shot I've had since Michael Kigilchrist.
02:58 And if he gets stronger and once he gets more comfortable and has got used to playing against
03:03 guys, we could be talking about a proper two-way player.
03:09 Someone who really can guard the best players on the other teams.
03:12 That's what he's been doing already as a rookie.
03:15 So I think that's just super interesting, intriguing going forward.
03:20 He's played about 50% of his minutes split between shooting guards, more forward so far.
03:25 I think that's probably going to increase to shooting guard going forward with Rozier's
03:28 injury.
03:29 But you mentioned the Dallas game.
03:31 I still think that's, you know, it doesn't surprise me that his worst game has come on
03:35 the first night of a back-to-back.
03:37 That's just not something that guys have to do in college.
03:41 And you always hear about guys when they go into the NBA, that's the biggest adjustment
03:44 they make is the number of games, the travel.
03:47 And no one's going to say this, but the mono will still be affecting him.
03:52 Anyone who's had mono knows that this is not something that you just get over in a month.
03:56 And I know we had it back in April, May, but that mono can stick with you at times for
04:02 up to a year, up to 18 months in some aspects.
04:05 And when you're run down with lack of sleep, when you're tired, that's when mono resurfaces.
04:12 It can kind of like come back as a virus.
04:14 So again, it wouldn't surprise me if that's some fatigue of that back-to-back game.
04:20 And that was something playing in there.
04:22 But overall, I still like what I see.
04:24 I'm excited to see him as part of the starting unit with Rozier out going forward.
04:29 But yeah, I think he's still continuing to play well, looking smooth and controlled out
04:34 there.
04:35 And the fact that Steve Clifford is playing him so many minutes just reinforces how well
04:41 he's doing.
04:42 Yeah, I was going to say, he played 36 minutes in that loss to Dallas in his first start.
04:48 The fact that he was that poor of a scorer in that game and was still trusted to play
04:52 36 minutes shows you that his defense was extremely good for the entire game.
04:59 He plays with effort.
05:00 He plays with an edge, like chip on his shoulder on that end.
05:04 He's extremely quick in rotation and always fighting around screens and stuff like that.
05:09 Definitely somebody that, like you said, could be that two-way wing that really this team
05:14 has not had in, I don't want to say a decade because that just makes it sound sad.
05:21 But basically since Gerald Wallace, somebody that's that high level of a player on both
05:26 ends of the court at the three position, it's tough to dig that far back.
05:32 But his feel for the game is off the charts.
05:36 Yeah, he's really the only player that has that type of potential.
05:41 I can't think of a Hornets player who, not even as a rookie, just having a wing that
05:47 just reads the game as well as he does, it's been a long time.
05:52 Like Gordon Hayward was a good player at the time when they signed him, but he wasn't that
05:55 level of defender.
05:56 He was more of a, like brought in to be a scoring piece.
05:59 Like Brandon Miller being able to do both, like both aspects of the court at that high
06:03 of a level is something this team hasn't had in a while.
06:06 It's definitely nice to have him in the fold so far.