By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Minnesota Timberwolves guard and defensive specialist Patrick Beverley believes that he has two distinct similarities to Luka Doncic: A) Physicality and B) A tension to… flop.
Beverley was asked by former NBAer JJ Redick about what makes the job of guarding Doncic so difficult and went on to give his viewpoint on how the Dallas Mavericks superstar draws the contact by using his body type and smarts.
Here’s what Beverley said on Doncic while being interviewed on the “The Old Man and the Three” podcast.
“One is his intelligence. He’s physical as f-ck and flops at the same time. Which is the exact same thing I do. He initiates the contact… hits you. As basketball players, you can feel the muscle. It’s not muscle with him. It’s not a discredit to his body or anything, but that’s how he’s made up. That flabby, solid type…”
“You can’t really guard him physically in the type I want to guard him. He does a really good job of exploiting that.”
One thing that Beverley and Doncic have in common for sure is that they spent their pre-NBA days in Europe. While Doncic grew up and reached adulthood at Real Madrid, Beverley began his career in Ukrainian side Dnipro and then got to the big EuroLeague stage with Olympiacos Piraeus in 2009. He made the 2010 Final Four while becoming a fan favorite with the Reds and signed with Spartak St. Petersburg to finish the 2021-22 season as the EuroCup MVP before moving to the NBA.
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