Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Marcus was back. Tyreke was back. The Boogie Monster was back. And yet we still lose by double figures. How? Real simple actually -- we let the other team score 110. Again.
So. Theme. Even though I don't think we are trying to do it, its still working out the same way for us. So Theme tonight = Tanks. P.S. I have an actual tank driver in my family -- my dufus cousin. But please believe me when I say he is not the source of my interest in tanks -- he is the perpetually embarassing relative, you know the guy. The loudmouth constantly bragging about how he has this piece or that piece of illegal weaponry at home, and showing it off in facebook pictures. Who starts fights at Thanksgiving with his brothers about who could shoot who first with which of their guns. Who will proudly send out tweets about how if the terrorists ever come to Colroado he's goign to blow them away with...just whatever. As a rule I just ignore him and pretened hs does not exist. I can only imagine how insufferable it would be to be stuck in a tank with him for days on end. I'd probably just pop the hatch and surrender to the first person I met just to escape.
Boxscore
Evans ( B ) -- and all of a sudden he was back. Got off to a good start in all ways, slashing to the hoop as well as leading the team in early assists without turning the ball over. Had one selfish three off his dribble in the 2nd, but also knocked down two jumpers. Got some hoops off off the the ball movement, but also got rejected sevral times instead when our passers led him right into big shotblockers, and he doesn't have the hops to finish those with a dunk. A couple of times after half just accelerated across the lane and slammed into Marion to draw fouls and go to the line. Was missing his FTs though and only finished 1-4. Had a real struggle trying to keep the bigger, stronger, hopier Marion, who spent the prime fo his career as a 20-10 PF, off of the glass as we got pummeled there. This was a solid looking game, but you could feel the tension again -- he was playing well and the largest impediment to this being an impact game rather than a "playing well" game was simply competition for opportunities at the perimeter spots. Caused me to make a grading shift here, and bump him half a grade higher than I would have normally -- if a guy plays well, efficiently uses his opportunities, hits 50% of his shots and has a 5-1 ast/TO ratio, but isn't more dominant because the number of opportunities is limited, can only mark it down so far. May become the new norm, who knows. 16 and 5 isn't quite enough production for a main guy with the ball in his hands all the time. For a secondary weapon kept off ball and out of the loop for stretches its pretty god productivity though,even if its not impact play.
M4 Sherman -- having established that my cousin is not the source of my interest in tanks, I think maybe just the standard boy's childhood fascination is, supplemented by the scores of old 50s/60s WWII war movies that were always on TV when I was growing up. And since Hollywood is American, these Sherman tanks were frequently used by the heroes. They were the good guy tanks in WWII. Now fact of the matter is they really weren't particularly powerful tanks. They clocked in at about 30 tons, and carried a 75mm gun through most of the war. That was sufficient for them to defeat the early Panzers they encountered at the beginning of the war, but as the war went along the Germans kept on building bigger and stronger tanks, and the Sherman did not keep up (and its relatively high profile was not exactly idea for tank to tank combat). By the middle war tank battles had begun to take on a King Kong aspect with Allied forces just throwing waves of inferior Sherman tanks at lone superior German tanks, and tyring to overwhelm on sheer numbers alone. Not suprsingly this meant a high casualty rate amongst the Allied tank crews, but given America's industrial might we wee simply able to produce the realtively cheap Shermans at a much faster rater than the Germans were able to replace there own losses.
Greene ( C+ ) -- got the start in place of JT, whether due to Thompson's recent struggles, or for matchup purposes against Dirk I don't know. Despite the modest statistical production, got off to a nice start on defense vs. Dirk, and saved a break with a big block after he had turned it over on the other end of the court. Now in the end was Dirk's noticeably awful game due to Donte. No, I don't really think so. But on the other hand Donte is the perfect style of player to challenge old Dirk, and he nveer let him get anything easy to get him going. So stats or not I think was largely a successful outing on that front. Now where it wasn't was on the boards, where Donte oddly boarded like a SF, and Demarcus was left all along in there on the glass.
Panzer IV -- as long as we are doing the classic WWII tanks, the fearsome blitzkrieg by which Nazi Geramny tried to sweep through all of Europe in the early days of WWII was powered by the Panzers, not only the Panzer IV here which became the calssic German tank, but originally by its smaller gunned cousin the Panzer III who German pre-war tank gurus had thgouht would be the main weapon, until actual warfare taught them that having an itty bitty gun = not good. But even the Panzer IV's weren't a particularly powerful tank at 25tons -- it was the new blitz tactics that made them so fearsome, not their actual fighting capability -- and they struggled to even hold their own against the Shermans when they arrived. And when they turned east to the Soviet Union, they were in for a rude surprise that quickly had the German war machine scrambling to create heavier more powerful tanks in response.
Cousins ( A ) -- yep, the Boogie Monster was back after his 3 game Clippers inspired vacation, and if anything his hugeHakeemesque numbers may not truly indicate the silly talent he flashed in this one. Got off to fast start all over the court, pts, rebs, a couple of nice passes, got his hands on all kinds of things on defense on his way to 4 first half steals. Was all alone on the boards in the early going as we were geting crushed, and started getting a little frustrated late in the half. Had some real highlight plays throughout. Had some amazing full speed spinnnig drives and finishses around the hoop which I feel safe in saying no center in the game except Boogie could pull off. Nice job lurking on a Beaubois drive, lulling him and then smushing the shot when Beaubois tried to quiclky sneak it up. Beautuifl move on Yi in the post after Yi stopped his move intiialy, but Boogie kept his pivot foot, and after a few seconds looking for someone to pass to, repivoted on a spin to the hoop. Slowed in the 4th as the Mavs started doubing and even tripling him. Came up with one last great steal, his 6th of the game as a center, at the 1 minute mark of the 4th, batting the ball ahead to trigged a break and get us to 8 and I suppose the miracle prayer chance to pull it off.
T-34 -- named the T-34, this tank doesn't have the name recognition of either the Sherman or Panzers, and yet it was generally considered the greatest tank of WWII, and played a significant role in why you aren't speaking german right now -- unless of course you are reading this from Germany. After quickly finishing Western Europe, when Hitler turned his attention to the Soviets in 1941, he faced a largely underequipped and unorganized opponent, and his intention was to route the army and blitz his way all the way to Moscow almost unchallenged. It was a shock to his commanders when they started to encounter the T-34s, which used a number of innovations to be the most effective fighting tank of the early war era, and easily outclassed the Panzers they were matched against. The heavily sloped armor was a huge step forward from the relatively high stiff profiles of tanks like the Sherman, which were just asking for a hit in the chest. The tank ran on diesel fuel, which was much less likely to catch on fire in a firefight, its suspension and wide treads made it far more maneuverible across terrain. Ironically it had all the classic Soviet hallmarks of being incredibly uncomfrotable for its crew, having an inefficeint interior layout, lacking basic necessities like radios etc But its fighting characteristics allowed the Soviets to inflict a fearsome toll on the advancing Panzer divisions that allowed the nation to survive the first onslaught, and sent the Germans scrambling to create a new breed of tanks to contend.
Thornton (B- ) -- was back and just as explosive as a scorer as ever, althought in this one the scoring was notably all he did (ever moreso than normal). Off and racing for fastbreak hoops from the beginning as he was frequently the finsiher juicing our fastbreak game. Racked up 11 first half points, although having defensive issues again as all too often he was the guy trailing behind the latest Mav to go slicing down our lane. Came right out in the thrid and immediately drained a long jumper but got quiet, and its chicken and egg whether his getting quiet was the result of, or the cause of, IT startign to look for his own offense in the third. In any case wasn't getting the same quality of shots, wasn't getting as many, and wasn't in rhythm when he did take a shot. Stepped up to hit an important three in the early 4th to get us back within double figures, but was rarely heard from thereafter, and had a couple of turnovers in the mid qiarter helping the Mavs reopen the lead. Still, Marcus is a scorer, and he scored for us. not a great effort, but all three of the Marcus/Reke/It duo gave us pretty good ones. Its just a problem of them having to steal from each other in order to do so.
Cavalry Tanks -- the picture above is of a BT-2 Soviet tank from the 1930s -- I selected it just because of the hilarious addition of old style headlights. In general though, the "cavalry tank" was originally a British idea from the interwar period betwen WWI and WWII. The idea was that there would be two types of tanks, the light, fast "cavalry" tank that would take the place of the roles horsebound cavalry had used to have, and heavier "infantry" tanks which would be slower armored turrets to support infantry units. The Brits had them, the Soviets had them with their BT series, even the Germans, who were the first to kind of "get" tank warfare started the war with the idea that the more cavalryesque Panzer III would be thier main tank, rather than the heavier Panzer IV. But really what this doctrine was was just ignorance. Tanks were new, they had been very primitive in WWI. Most of the generals thinking up strategies were old farts from the days of cavalry themselves, and so they just kind of made up the "cavalry tank" idea on paper and said, hey, that's a good idea. Except the problem was to get them mobile, the cavalry tanks were lightly armored and lightly armed, and as soon as the real fighting broke out generals rapidly realized what a really dumb combination that was to have, the heavier "infantry' tanks were found to have far more survivability, and tank designs got heavier and heavier as the war went on.
So. Theme. Even though I don't think we are trying to do it, its still working out the same way for us. So Theme tonight = Tanks. P.S. I have an actual tank driver in my family -- my dufus cousin. But please believe me when I say he is not the source of my interest in tanks -- he is the perpetually embarassing relative, you know the guy. The loudmouth constantly bragging about how he has this piece or that piece of illegal weaponry at home, and showing it off in facebook pictures. Who starts fights at Thanksgiving with his brothers about who could shoot who first with which of their guns. Who will proudly send out tweets about how if the terrorists ever come to Colroado he's goign to blow them away with...just whatever. As a rule I just ignore him and pretened hs does not exist. I can only imagine how insufferable it would be to be stuck in a tank with him for days on end. I'd probably just pop the hatch and surrender to the first person I met just to escape.
Boxscore
Evans ( B ) -- and all of a sudden he was back. Got off to a good start in all ways, slashing to the hoop as well as leading the team in early assists without turning the ball over. Had one selfish three off his dribble in the 2nd, but also knocked down two jumpers. Got some hoops off off the the ball movement, but also got rejected sevral times instead when our passers led him right into big shotblockers, and he doesn't have the hops to finish those with a dunk. A couple of times after half just accelerated across the lane and slammed into Marion to draw fouls and go to the line. Was missing his FTs though and only finished 1-4. Had a real struggle trying to keep the bigger, stronger, hopier Marion, who spent the prime fo his career as a 20-10 PF, off of the glass as we got pummeled there. This was a solid looking game, but you could feel the tension again -- he was playing well and the largest impediment to this being an impact game rather than a "playing well" game was simply competition for opportunities at the perimeter spots. Caused me to make a grading shift here, and bump him half a grade higher than I would have normally -- if a guy plays well, efficiently uses his opportunities, hits 50% of his shots and has a 5-1 ast/TO ratio, but isn't more dominant because the number of opportunities is limited, can only mark it down so far. May become the new norm, who knows. 16 and 5 isn't quite enough production for a main guy with the ball in his hands all the time. For a secondary weapon kept off ball and out of the loop for stretches its pretty god productivity though,even if its not impact play.
M4 Sherman -- having established that my cousin is not the source of my interest in tanks, I think maybe just the standard boy's childhood fascination is, supplemented by the scores of old 50s/60s WWII war movies that were always on TV when I was growing up. And since Hollywood is American, these Sherman tanks were frequently used by the heroes. They were the good guy tanks in WWII. Now fact of the matter is they really weren't particularly powerful tanks. They clocked in at about 30 tons, and carried a 75mm gun through most of the war. That was sufficient for them to defeat the early Panzers they encountered at the beginning of the war, but as the war went along the Germans kept on building bigger and stronger tanks, and the Sherman did not keep up (and its relatively high profile was not exactly idea for tank to tank combat). By the middle war tank battles had begun to take on a King Kong aspect with Allied forces just throwing waves of inferior Sherman tanks at lone superior German tanks, and tyring to overwhelm on sheer numbers alone. Not suprsingly this meant a high casualty rate amongst the Allied tank crews, but given America's industrial might we wee simply able to produce the realtively cheap Shermans at a much faster rater than the Germans were able to replace there own losses.
Greene ( C+ ) -- got the start in place of JT, whether due to Thompson's recent struggles, or for matchup purposes against Dirk I don't know. Despite the modest statistical production, got off to a nice start on defense vs. Dirk, and saved a break with a big block after he had turned it over on the other end of the court. Now in the end was Dirk's noticeably awful game due to Donte. No, I don't really think so. But on the other hand Donte is the perfect style of player to challenge old Dirk, and he nveer let him get anything easy to get him going. So stats or not I think was largely a successful outing on that front. Now where it wasn't was on the boards, where Donte oddly boarded like a SF, and Demarcus was left all along in there on the glass.
Panzer IV -- as long as we are doing the classic WWII tanks, the fearsome blitzkrieg by which Nazi Geramny tried to sweep through all of Europe in the early days of WWII was powered by the Panzers, not only the Panzer IV here which became the calssic German tank, but originally by its smaller gunned cousin the Panzer III who German pre-war tank gurus had thgouht would be the main weapon, until actual warfare taught them that having an itty bitty gun = not good. But even the Panzer IV's weren't a particularly powerful tank at 25tons -- it was the new blitz tactics that made them so fearsome, not their actual fighting capability -- and they struggled to even hold their own against the Shermans when they arrived. And when they turned east to the Soviet Union, they were in for a rude surprise that quickly had the German war machine scrambling to create heavier more powerful tanks in response.
Cousins ( A ) -- yep, the Boogie Monster was back after his 3 game Clippers inspired vacation, and if anything his hugeHakeemesque numbers may not truly indicate the silly talent he flashed in this one. Got off to fast start all over the court, pts, rebs, a couple of nice passes, got his hands on all kinds of things on defense on his way to 4 first half steals. Was all alone on the boards in the early going as we were geting crushed, and started getting a little frustrated late in the half. Had some real highlight plays throughout. Had some amazing full speed spinnnig drives and finishses around the hoop which I feel safe in saying no center in the game except Boogie could pull off. Nice job lurking on a Beaubois drive, lulling him and then smushing the shot when Beaubois tried to quiclky sneak it up. Beautuifl move on Yi in the post after Yi stopped his move intiialy, but Boogie kept his pivot foot, and after a few seconds looking for someone to pass to, repivoted on a spin to the hoop. Slowed in the 4th as the Mavs started doubing and even tripling him. Came up with one last great steal, his 6th of the game as a center, at the 1 minute mark of the 4th, batting the ball ahead to trigged a break and get us to 8 and I suppose the miracle prayer chance to pull it off.
T-34 -- named the T-34, this tank doesn't have the name recognition of either the Sherman or Panzers, and yet it was generally considered the greatest tank of WWII, and played a significant role in why you aren't speaking german right now -- unless of course you are reading this from Germany. After quickly finishing Western Europe, when Hitler turned his attention to the Soviets in 1941, he faced a largely underequipped and unorganized opponent, and his intention was to route the army and blitz his way all the way to Moscow almost unchallenged. It was a shock to his commanders when they started to encounter the T-34s, which used a number of innovations to be the most effective fighting tank of the early war era, and easily outclassed the Panzers they were matched against. The heavily sloped armor was a huge step forward from the relatively high stiff profiles of tanks like the Sherman, which were just asking for a hit in the chest. The tank ran on diesel fuel, which was much less likely to catch on fire in a firefight, its suspension and wide treads made it far more maneuverible across terrain. Ironically it had all the classic Soviet hallmarks of being incredibly uncomfrotable for its crew, having an inefficeint interior layout, lacking basic necessities like radios etc But its fighting characteristics allowed the Soviets to inflict a fearsome toll on the advancing Panzer divisions that allowed the nation to survive the first onslaught, and sent the Germans scrambling to create a new breed of tanks to contend.
Thornton (B- ) -- was back and just as explosive as a scorer as ever, althought in this one the scoring was notably all he did (ever moreso than normal). Off and racing for fastbreak hoops from the beginning as he was frequently the finsiher juicing our fastbreak game. Racked up 11 first half points, although having defensive issues again as all too often he was the guy trailing behind the latest Mav to go slicing down our lane. Came right out in the thrid and immediately drained a long jumper but got quiet, and its chicken and egg whether his getting quiet was the result of, or the cause of, IT startign to look for his own offense in the third. In any case wasn't getting the same quality of shots, wasn't getting as many, and wasn't in rhythm when he did take a shot. Stepped up to hit an important three in the early 4th to get us back within double figures, but was rarely heard from thereafter, and had a couple of turnovers in the mid qiarter helping the Mavs reopen the lead. Still, Marcus is a scorer, and he scored for us. not a great effort, but all three of the Marcus/Reke/It duo gave us pretty good ones. Its just a problem of them having to steal from each other in order to do so.
Cavalry Tanks -- the picture above is of a BT-2 Soviet tank from the 1930s -- I selected it just because of the hilarious addition of old style headlights. In general though, the "cavalry tank" was originally a British idea from the interwar period betwen WWI and WWII. The idea was that there would be two types of tanks, the light, fast "cavalry" tank that would take the place of the roles horsebound cavalry had used to have, and heavier "infantry" tanks which would be slower armored turrets to support infantry units. The Brits had them, the Soviets had them with their BT series, even the Germans, who were the first to kind of "get" tank warfare started the war with the idea that the more cavalryesque Panzer III would be thier main tank, rather than the heavier Panzer IV. But really what this doctrine was was just ignorance. Tanks were new, they had been very primitive in WWI. Most of the generals thinking up strategies were old farts from the days of cavalry themselves, and so they just kind of made up the "cavalry tank" idea on paper and said, hey, that's a good idea. Except the problem was to get them mobile, the cavalry tanks were lightly armored and lightly armed, and as soon as the real fighting broke out generals rapidly realized what a really dumb combination that was to have, the heavier "infantry' tanks were found to have far more survivability, and tank designs got heavier and heavier as the war went on.
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