Running up against a bunch of deadlines for work stuff so this will be even shorter than usual. (Apparently the Japanese media machine cares not for states of emergencies and is still operating under the belief that the Olympics are still gonna happen this year.)
Awards time:
Tony Delk Memorial Award - CJ McCollum. It feels weird giving this award to a dude averaging 28 points a game this season but the only reason CJ didn't drop fifty on us is that the Blazers were so far ahead for most of the game that he generally stopped trying by midway through the third quarter.
Luke Walton Vacuum Cleaner Award - Luke Walton. We've officially reached the portion of the season where the only players who are having a good season are the guys who are succeeding in spite of Luke's bad system and awkward rotation management and Cory Joseph, who Luke would apparently trust with the nuclear codes if he had those in his possession.
Quincy Douby Sharpshooter Award - Buddy Hield. The good news, Buddy is finally shooting a better percentage from with the arc than outside it. The bad news: that's only because he somehow managed to shoot even worse from the perimeter than he was earlier in the season.
Jason Hart - Andres Nocioni Award - Nemanja Bjelica. I was tempted to give this to Cory Joseph out of sheer principle but I went with Bjeli because he sucked and I honestly expect better from him. Even though he's never been the world's greatest defender, he at least tried on that end up until this season and with his shot apparently having completely abandoned him, there is pretty much no reason for him to be seeing minutes ahead of Woodard or Metu or even Glenn Robinson III at this point.
Mikki Moore - Justin James. I appreciate the dude's effort but nothing about how he shot in college indicated the absolute brick master than has shown up this season. At a certain point, new JJ missed a showtime garbage time dunk and missed the two free throws that followed it. But at least he plays defense with is a welcome improvement over...
Cory Joseph Honorary Walton Award - Cory Joseph. CoJo was brought on by Vlade to be a solid defensive backup guard behind De'Aaron. What we've somehow ended up with is a thirty minute a game, ball dominant, bad at on-the-ball defense, heroballer who's simply taking possessions away from the guys we actually want to see at this point. But Luke will keep him playing thirty minutes a night because... well, who knows at this point?
WTF Moment of the Game - Pretty much all of it.
***
Tonight we face the Pacers, who are having a nice season despite one of their best players actively (and loudly) trying to get traded.
Richaun is questionable with his ankle injury, along with Buddy who apparently sprained his ankle (which, generously, could explain why he looked like he was playing with his feet caught in a bramble bush for most of the Blazers game). This game also has a chance to get ugly.
With two out of five starters potentially missing the game, I'm not gonna bother looking at matchups. All I want to see is 48 minutes of effort and Luke to not make the stupidest decisions possible. Is that too much to ask?
Probably.
Awards time:
Tony Delk Memorial Award - CJ McCollum. It feels weird giving this award to a dude averaging 28 points a game this season but the only reason CJ didn't drop fifty on us is that the Blazers were so far ahead for most of the game that he generally stopped trying by midway through the third quarter.
Luke Walton Vacuum Cleaner Award - Luke Walton. We've officially reached the portion of the season where the only players who are having a good season are the guys who are succeeding in spite of Luke's bad system and awkward rotation management and Cory Joseph, who Luke would apparently trust with the nuclear codes if he had those in his possession.
Quincy Douby Sharpshooter Award - Buddy Hield. The good news, Buddy is finally shooting a better percentage from with the arc than outside it. The bad news: that's only because he somehow managed to shoot even worse from the perimeter than he was earlier in the season.
Jason Hart - Andres Nocioni Award - Nemanja Bjelica. I was tempted to give this to Cory Joseph out of sheer principle but I went with Bjeli because he sucked and I honestly expect better from him. Even though he's never been the world's greatest defender, he at least tried on that end up until this season and with his shot apparently having completely abandoned him, there is pretty much no reason for him to be seeing minutes ahead of Woodard or Metu or even Glenn Robinson III at this point.
Mikki Moore - Justin James. I appreciate the dude's effort but nothing about how he shot in college indicated the absolute brick master than has shown up this season. At a certain point, new JJ missed a showtime garbage time dunk and missed the two free throws that followed it. But at least he plays defense with is a welcome improvement over...
Cory Joseph Honorary Walton Award - Cory Joseph. CoJo was brought on by Vlade to be a solid defensive backup guard behind De'Aaron. What we've somehow ended up with is a thirty minute a game, ball dominant, bad at on-the-ball defense, heroballer who's simply taking possessions away from the guys we actually want to see at this point. But Luke will keep him playing thirty minutes a night because... well, who knows at this point?
WTF Moment of the Game - Pretty much all of it.
***
Tonight we face the Pacers, who are having a nice season despite one of their best players actively (and loudly) trying to get traded.
Richaun is questionable with his ankle injury, along with Buddy who apparently sprained his ankle (which, generously, could explain why he looked like he was playing with his feet caught in a bramble bush for most of the Blazers game). This game also has a chance to get ugly.
With two out of five starters potentially missing the game, I'm not gonna bother looking at matchups. All I want to see is 48 minutes of effort and Luke to not make the stupidest decisions possible. Is that too much to ask?
Probably.
