Finally freed from the shackles of playing with LeBron James, Mario Chalmers is proving worthy of his oft irrational confidence in the season’s early going. Watch the former Miami Heat whipping boy dish a sweet wraparound pass to a streaking Luol Deng for a layup in his team’s tough loss to the Golden State Warriors.
Tricky.
That’s a much harder play than it looks. Chalmers not only needs to have the presence of mind to go behind his back in the first place, but also put the bounce pass far enough of Deng so that his momentum carries forward. It’s a great job by Chalmers, and an equally impressive on by Deng – few players in the league could make that catch below their knees and keep balanced enough to maintain speed.
The Heat were rolling against the Warriors until Steph Curry went supernova, but Chalmers’ play, surprisingly, wasn’t the reason for their success. After averaging 20.0 points and 7.0 assists per game on 57.6 percent shooting in Miami’s previous six outings, Chalmers came back to earth versus Golden State. He shot only 4-of-17 from the field en route to 14 points, but also swiped four steals.
What do you think?
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