It’s finally coming together. A bench scorer who wants major minutes has to learn to play with both backups and starters, and that means taking on something of a dual personality. The other reserves in bench-heavy units need a guy like McCollum to grab the ball and create offense, but Aldridge and Lillard don’t. With those guys, McCollum would have to wait for the ball, and when he got it, he would not have the luxury of stopping the offense to go one-on-one.
McCollum is shooting 40 percent from deep, and he has become really good at hunting for cracks in the defense. He is never standing still on the perimeter; he’s bouncing on his toes, making small cuts into spaces that open up as Lillard and Aldridge bend the defense. If Lillard drives toward the basket, McCollum will slink from the wing down into the corner, giving Lillard a clean outlet for an easy straight-line pass. If McCollum’s defender sinks into the paint to deter a Lillard-Aldridge pick-and-pop, McCollum might slide just five or 10 feet along the sideline. If his defender returns to the spot where he left McCollum, he’ll find empty air; McCollum will be elsewhere, jacking an open 3.
