Man oh man. Everytime things start looking better something else pops up. This time it was the same good half/ugly half split we had against Chicago -- and again somebody better check the lockers to make sure Muss isn't hiding inside of one with his kool aid -- and us getting kicked right where it hurts -- our two best defenders were matched on their two best offensive players, and their guys won that battle.
Theme tonight will be: Funny Stuff I Ran Into Around the Internet This Summer
Official Boxscore
Greene ( C- ) -- part of the story of what went wrong with this one, started off the game again giving us the consistent Donte Greene defensive glue buy he has been giving since moving into the starting lineup. Was hustling -- made a great hustle play diving in the open court to knock a ball oiff of Hansbrough's leg, scoring inside, moving the ball. This constant stream of losses has obscured some long stretches of good basketball we've been playing, but we started off this one again playing the right way, and Donte was a solid part of that. Trouble came however in the shape of the second quarter, as Donte was subbed in mirroring Granger, and our most effective forward defender simply got beat by a star player. Just lost control of Granger, and it became a determining turn in this game. Wasn't the sort of lazy defense that led to those big nights against us by Beasley, Gay etc. Donte was right on him..adn yet unable to stop him. And combined with Granger asserting himself on the other end of the quart, Donte just largely disappeared from the game and was replaced for most of the second half by Casspi, Cisco, and anybody else we could throw out there, none of whom were ablet o make any more of a dent. Just have to mark Donte down here -- when you get wazed at a position 37-6 that has a tendency to determine a game -- but I didn't feel Donte really played that poorly so much as Granger just played great and Donte simply could not stop him.
Some Helpful Advice From A Forest Ranger After My Own Heart
Thompson ( B- ) -- and again, another member of our defensive unit who started the game off well, played his role in the first half, then fell down coming out of halftime, and was largely relegated to the bench therafter. Makes grading hard. Was being aggressive isnide and drawing fouls on the Pacers' scrubby PFs in the early going, and had several really aggressive finishes off of Reke pentration in the mid second. Things were going long swimmingly, and then halftime came along again, and that I have to say has to be one of the most frustrating things about this young season -- we have played a LOT of good halves of basketball, but never together. Its easier to say you suck when you just don't do anything ever, but here we're going along, Jason is banging in the middle, its a well played tied game at half, and boom, what the hell happened? Very little after half for JT, and was repalced and pinned ot the bench by Landry as we went to the all offense crew to try to make up the ground and close the gap that blew up in the first 6 minutes of the third.
No Evidence, No Conviction! Specializing in expungements... Classy eh? I have been assured by the friend who sent this to me that this is a legitimate legal ad by a dude who advertises himself as "the gangsta's lawyer." In 1977 the Supreme Court made a terrible error handing down a decision called Bates v. State Bar that established the principle that lawyers could advertise their services -- to someone today that seems a given, but before that time lawyers considered such activity gauche and demeaning, and the state bars beleived good lawyers' reps spread through word of mouth, not cheesy TV spots. The Supremes took action in the name of free speech, but I have long felt that it was a dubious victory as clowns like this have dragged the profession's rep through the mud ever since.
Dalembert ( C+ ) -- here was part two of the problem that began to spin things out of control for us. Daly once again did his work on the glass -- he dominates the boards so easily sometimes it makes you wonder why its so much work for the other guys. But just as our best perimeter defender got flat out beat by their best perimeter offender, our best interior defnder, our defensive anchor, found a man he could not intimidate on defense. All thoise shots Daly can normally erases he could not get to, and the huge (literally) advantage of being 7'2" made all the difference for Hibbert as he was able to pin Daly depp, and then turn and go over him without Dalembert's length seeming to bother him in the least. Might be the first time we've seen somebody overwhelm Daly with pure size -- previously his linitations seems mostly quickness related. While unquestionably the bigger problems for us were on the other side of the court again, I felt that Indiana's ability to directly attack our two best defenders in Donte and Daly, and score over them, sort of cracked us and forced us to scramble and play the game differently than we wanted to play it. The difference with Hibbert is that Cousins came in and actually played him better than Daly, and of course attacked him and got him into foul trouble on the other end, which Daly could not do. Left in the late third with wht was reported as a knee something or the other? Since I have not heard anything since I hope its nothing serious. So, not going to ignore 12 rebounds in 22 min, but our defensive anchor became unmoored in this one.
This is a picture of the bathroom in a real 5 star hotel in Queenstown, New Zealand, who decided they wanted to spice up the act of going to the little boys room. I kid you not.
Head ( C- ) -- I have basically no notes about Luther's early minutes because there was basically nothing noteworthy about them. I think here is a good time to again point out that when Tyreke is up on his toes and dominating action, Luther just fades into nothingness, and that was the story in the first half. Defense was fine, but none of the fun moments of his first few starts, and again left you wondering a bit if his 15minutes of fame might be up. After the break he suddenly loomed large, but whether that was a good thing or not is open to question. Basically while everybody else opened the second half invisible, Luther went the other way, became overactive, started taking a distressing number of our shots, and when he did not make them, fueled the Pacers fastbreak. Still provided us with almost our only scoring during that stretch, but makes you wodner if he was not at least as much the cause of the lack of ball movement and lack of other scoring as the solution. In any case Beno came in and continued his hot play from the first half, and that was it for Luther's night.
Anybody know what a Rube Goldberg machine is? They are clever and fun amazingly complex systems set up in falling dominoes fashion, often made out of common everyday type items. This one was used in this band's music video, and might be the best I have ever seen. Watch it. Really damn clever.
Theme tonight will be: Funny Stuff I Ran Into Around the Internet This Summer
Official Boxscore
Greene ( C- ) -- part of the story of what went wrong with this one, started off the game again giving us the consistent Donte Greene defensive glue buy he has been giving since moving into the starting lineup. Was hustling -- made a great hustle play diving in the open court to knock a ball oiff of Hansbrough's leg, scoring inside, moving the ball. This constant stream of losses has obscured some long stretches of good basketball we've been playing, but we started off this one again playing the right way, and Donte was a solid part of that. Trouble came however in the shape of the second quarter, as Donte was subbed in mirroring Granger, and our most effective forward defender simply got beat by a star player. Just lost control of Granger, and it became a determining turn in this game. Wasn't the sort of lazy defense that led to those big nights against us by Beasley, Gay etc. Donte was right on him..adn yet unable to stop him. And combined with Granger asserting himself on the other end of the quart, Donte just largely disappeared from the game and was replaced for most of the second half by Casspi, Cisco, and anybody else we could throw out there, none of whom were ablet o make any more of a dent. Just have to mark Donte down here -- when you get wazed at a position 37-6 that has a tendency to determine a game -- but I didn't feel Donte really played that poorly so much as Granger just played great and Donte simply could not stop him.
Some Helpful Advice From A Forest Ranger After My Own Heart
Thompson ( B- ) -- and again, another member of our defensive unit who started the game off well, played his role in the first half, then fell down coming out of halftime, and was largely relegated to the bench therafter. Makes grading hard. Was being aggressive isnide and drawing fouls on the Pacers' scrubby PFs in the early going, and had several really aggressive finishes off of Reke pentration in the mid second. Things were going long swimmingly, and then halftime came along again, and that I have to say has to be one of the most frustrating things about this young season -- we have played a LOT of good halves of basketball, but never together. Its easier to say you suck when you just don't do anything ever, but here we're going along, Jason is banging in the middle, its a well played tied game at half, and boom, what the hell happened? Very little after half for JT, and was repalced and pinned ot the bench by Landry as we went to the all offense crew to try to make up the ground and close the gap that blew up in the first 6 minutes of the third.
No Evidence, No Conviction! Specializing in expungements... Classy eh? I have been assured by the friend who sent this to me that this is a legitimate legal ad by a dude who advertises himself as "the gangsta's lawyer." In 1977 the Supreme Court made a terrible error handing down a decision called Bates v. State Bar that established the principle that lawyers could advertise their services -- to someone today that seems a given, but before that time lawyers considered such activity gauche and demeaning, and the state bars beleived good lawyers' reps spread through word of mouth, not cheesy TV spots. The Supremes took action in the name of free speech, but I have long felt that it was a dubious victory as clowns like this have dragged the profession's rep through the mud ever since.
Dalembert ( C+ ) -- here was part two of the problem that began to spin things out of control for us. Daly once again did his work on the glass -- he dominates the boards so easily sometimes it makes you wonder why its so much work for the other guys. But just as our best perimeter defender got flat out beat by their best perimeter offender, our best interior defnder, our defensive anchor, found a man he could not intimidate on defense. All thoise shots Daly can normally erases he could not get to, and the huge (literally) advantage of being 7'2" made all the difference for Hibbert as he was able to pin Daly depp, and then turn and go over him without Dalembert's length seeming to bother him in the least. Might be the first time we've seen somebody overwhelm Daly with pure size -- previously his linitations seems mostly quickness related. While unquestionably the bigger problems for us were on the other side of the court again, I felt that Indiana's ability to directly attack our two best defenders in Donte and Daly, and score over them, sort of cracked us and forced us to scramble and play the game differently than we wanted to play it. The difference with Hibbert is that Cousins came in and actually played him better than Daly, and of course attacked him and got him into foul trouble on the other end, which Daly could not do. Left in the late third with wht was reported as a knee something or the other? Since I have not heard anything since I hope its nothing serious. So, not going to ignore 12 rebounds in 22 min, but our defensive anchor became unmoored in this one.
This is a picture of the bathroom in a real 5 star hotel in Queenstown, New Zealand, who decided they wanted to spice up the act of going to the little boys room. I kid you not.
Head ( C- ) -- I have basically no notes about Luther's early minutes because there was basically nothing noteworthy about them. I think here is a good time to again point out that when Tyreke is up on his toes and dominating action, Luther just fades into nothingness, and that was the story in the first half. Defense was fine, but none of the fun moments of his first few starts, and again left you wondering a bit if his 15minutes of fame might be up. After the break he suddenly loomed large, but whether that was a good thing or not is open to question. Basically while everybody else opened the second half invisible, Luther went the other way, became overactive, started taking a distressing number of our shots, and when he did not make them, fueled the Pacers fastbreak. Still provided us with almost our only scoring during that stretch, but makes you wodner if he was not at least as much the cause of the lack of ball movement and lack of other scoring as the solution. In any case Beno came in and continued his hot play from the first half, and that was it for Luther's night.
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