Stats: 35min 22pts (8-116, 0-5, 6-6) 8reb 6ast 2stl 0blk 5TO
Gay ( A- ) -- actually struggled to establish his own offense in this one, but I thought his early response was a key to getting us off to a good start. Made a number of excellent early passes setting up JT, Ben, adding an alley oop to Cousins. And it just set a tone despite him sitting down for the first time with only 2pts. retunred int eh second looking more for his own offense. Fortunately he was hot tonight, because I actually rather preferred his early work. When he came back he forced some tough shots, sort of willing his way into a groove but often ignoring teammates while he did, and capped things with a turnover dribbling into traffic to close the half. In the third you got a little of both world's as he began to pour it on with across the board contributions. Began the third with another assist to Isaiah...that somehow the scorers did not count as an assist. But he wasn't back into first quarter mode, was still offensively aggressive, and a few minutes later dribbled right into a double team while ignoring Cuz and basically forced a turnover just by stubbornness. Most of his turnovers this game were that way. So very next possession he makes amends on the break with a nice pass to Cuz for a dunk. He and JT were all over the glass at this point as well, and he closed the 3rd with a flourish, first running the 1-4 flat at the end of the third and hitting it, and then racing downcourt fullcourt to beat the buzzer with another swooping shot. there were fluxuations in this, the forcing and resulting turnovers were not perfect. But he hit a lot of those forces, got us off to a great start with the early passing, and filled up all corners of the statsheet while dominating his matchup. Not a perfect game, but a very good one. --Brick