Grades v. Cavaliers 01/09
- Thread starter Bricklayer
- Start date
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GoGoGadget
All-Star
Sigh.
Hysterical.
Old proverb meaning that even a worm will strike back if you attack it enough.
Gooden's was worse. A mohawk I get, but... shaving your entire head save one 2" square in the back?
Tenacious D
Prospect
It seems as though the guys are running out of gas. I think it is lack of substitutions. What happened to Corlis, Cisco, Ronnie, and Douby? The last game we won is when they all went off. Why the sudden change and why is he running the starters to death. It does feel like Mike, Ron, and Brad are being showcased. It may help their trade value but it is not helping us win.
jcassio
Starter
Nice first half, Brad & Mike. Nice game, Kevin.
Brad - we're hoping you can make some improvement on your suckie rebounding. There's just no excuse for a guy your size to be averaging less than 6 boards per game. Have you lost some of your athleticism?
Ron - tonight you got some good assists in the first half. But overall, you shot a piz-poor 29%, missed all 4 of your 3-point attempts, couldn't buy a steal, and couldn't keep up with LeBron in the second half. Did we ask too much of you in the first half? Your 6 boards tonight might be adequate on another night when other things are working for you, but tonight nothing else was working, so your 6 boards are suckie, too.
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So, is it time to play the kids and get expirings & draft picks for some of the old guys? I'm thinking it's time.
Brad - we're hoping you can make some improvement on your suckie rebounding. There's just no excuse for a guy your size to be averaging less than 6 boards per game. Have you lost some of your athleticism?
Ron - tonight you got some good assists in the first half. But overall, you shot a piz-poor 29%, missed all 4 of your 3-point attempts, couldn't buy a steal, and couldn't keep up with LeBron in the second half. Did we ask too much of you in the first half? Your 6 boards tonight might be adequate on another night when other things are working for you, but tonight nothing else was working, so your 6 boards are suckie, too.
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So, is it time to play the kids and get expirings & draft picks for some of the old guys? I'm thinking it's time.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Back spasms.
Young/undependable.
Young/undependable.
Young/undependable.
If anything, I think Muss may be beginning to feel the heat and feeling like he has to tighten things up and finally find a rhythm/rotation
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nbrans
All-Star
I actually think a lot of what is good and bad right now can be attributed to the offense. They need to abandon (or at least scale back) the Princeton/corner series.
The corner series/triangle/Princeton or whatever variation, is great when you have five guys on the floor who can run it and when it plays to their strengths. It's great for jump shooters and passers and cutters. Unfortunately, with the current Kings there's really only two and a half guys that this series really works for -- Bibby, Miller and sort of Martin. Bibby loves it because he plays the three man game and has two screeners to free him up, Miller gets a lot of open looks when teams concentrate on Bibby, and Martin... well, Martin gets a layup or two, right?
But this offense really leaves the rest of the team in the lurch. Ron is reduced to a jump shooter and is never in the post. SAR is reduced to a jump shooter and is never in the post (the quality of SAR's game is directly proportional to his touches in the post). Salmons is reduced to a jump shooter. Martin gets a few layups but otherwise has to do everything himself. You basically live and die by what Bibby and Miller can give you. For two and a half quarters that was enough and the chemistry looked really good. Ron was moving the ball and buying in. But funny thing about jump shots -- they very rarely fall for an entire game. So what are you going to fall back on? How are you going to get a good look?
Another problem with the corner series is that it takes our bigs away from the basket. Early in the season we were a good rebounding team. Why? Not defensive rebounding -- we were average at best. But we were getting offensive rebounds. Part of that, of course, is effort, which has evaporated. But part of that stems from the fact that our bigs were under the basket. Now, I was no big fan of Musselman's "open" series, especially with Kenny Thomas in the starting lineup -- the ball always seemed to go to Kenny in the post and he'd either turn it over or blow a layup. It encouraged too much bad one on one play. But at least the bigs were playing where bigs should play.
Why did Musselman allow the players to dictate what offense they were going to run?? So what if they weren't comfortable with the new offense -- GET USED TO IT. Now that we've spent a month or two with the old system and it's more than obvious that the old system isn't working, the team is just that much farther away from developing any real offensive chemistry. The corner series/triangle/whatever only works when you have five guys who can play it. Two and a half doesn't work. Heck, even Adelman and Coachie abandoned the Princeton!!! He ran the offense through Bonzi, Artest and SAR in the post -- and it worked. Now, granted, we don't have Bonzi anymore, but why are we all of a sudden pretending that the corner is the way to go??
The ball needs to go to the post. It needs to go into the post to Artest, it needs to go in to SAR, and it's ugly and there will be times when SAR will travel and turn it over and look terrible, but it's our best shot. SAR commands double-teams in the post, which frees up our other guys. A post offense is great for outside shooters and slashers, who we have in abundance, and who benefit when the defense has to focus on the post. It's great for Salmons and Martin. The only person who loses out is Bibby, who will no longer be able to dribble down and shoot 25 footers with 16 seconds left on the shot clock (of course, Bibby only gets to half court with 18 seconds left, so that's two seconds of offense for those of you who are counting).
Post. Post. Post. It's our only hope. That is, if we actually want to win, which I technically don't.
The corner series/triangle/Princeton or whatever variation, is great when you have five guys on the floor who can run it and when it plays to their strengths. It's great for jump shooters and passers and cutters. Unfortunately, with the current Kings there's really only two and a half guys that this series really works for -- Bibby, Miller and sort of Martin. Bibby loves it because he plays the three man game and has two screeners to free him up, Miller gets a lot of open looks when teams concentrate on Bibby, and Martin... well, Martin gets a layup or two, right?
But this offense really leaves the rest of the team in the lurch. Ron is reduced to a jump shooter and is never in the post. SAR is reduced to a jump shooter and is never in the post (the quality of SAR's game is directly proportional to his touches in the post). Salmons is reduced to a jump shooter. Martin gets a few layups but otherwise has to do everything himself. You basically live and die by what Bibby and Miller can give you. For two and a half quarters that was enough and the chemistry looked really good. Ron was moving the ball and buying in. But funny thing about jump shots -- they very rarely fall for an entire game. So what are you going to fall back on? How are you going to get a good look?
Another problem with the corner series is that it takes our bigs away from the basket. Early in the season we were a good rebounding team. Why? Not defensive rebounding -- we were average at best. But we were getting offensive rebounds. Part of that, of course, is effort, which has evaporated. But part of that stems from the fact that our bigs were under the basket. Now, I was no big fan of Musselman's "open" series, especially with Kenny Thomas in the starting lineup -- the ball always seemed to go to Kenny in the post and he'd either turn it over or blow a layup. It encouraged too much bad one on one play. But at least the bigs were playing where bigs should play.
Why did Musselman allow the players to dictate what offense they were going to run?? So what if they weren't comfortable with the new offense -- GET USED TO IT. Now that we've spent a month or two with the old system and it's more than obvious that the old system isn't working, the team is just that much farther away from developing any real offensive chemistry. The corner series/triangle/whatever only works when you have five guys who can play it. Two and a half doesn't work. Heck, even Adelman and Coachie abandoned the Princeton!!! He ran the offense through Bonzi, Artest and SAR in the post -- and it worked. Now, granted, we don't have Bonzi anymore, but why are we all of a sudden pretending that the corner is the way to go??
The ball needs to go to the post. It needs to go into the post to Artest, it needs to go in to SAR, and it's ugly and there will be times when SAR will travel and turn it over and look terrible, but it's our best shot. SAR commands double-teams in the post, which frees up our other guys. A post offense is great for outside shooters and slashers, who we have in abundance, and who benefit when the defense has to focus on the post. It's great for Salmons and Martin. The only person who loses out is Bibby, who will no longer be able to dribble down and shoot 25 footers with 16 seconds left on the shot clock (of course, Bibby only gets to half court with 18 seconds left, so that's two seconds of offense for those of you who are counting).
Post. Post. Post. It's our only hope. That is, if we actually want to win, which I technically don't.
kupman
Starter
Wow.....I have not seen this kind of generosity since Warren Buffet announced that he was giving the family fortune to charity.
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