Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
VAST improvment. VAST. Even if we had lost what we tried tonight worked. First time all year where we tried to execute a strategy and actually executed it. And then we made the clutch plays to win it too, so a good night. Minor nit is Omri being Donte'd, but the shortened rotations, making use of our size and concentrating on defense made sense and worked out, so I'm going to worry about that another night.
P.S. apologies for the wall of text appearance here, it has a tendency to get like that whenever we have major changes that need describing for the first time.
Official Boxscore
Greene ( B+ ) -- invisible on the early boxscore, but not invisible on the defensive scoreboard. The gambit worked, if gambit it be to return your opening night starting SF to the starting lineup. Brought the defense, and one nice flipside to the whole Donte is not driven enough thing, is that Donte does not have an ego problem with just blending in and playing a support role. Helped in a variety of ways, and every once in a while would step forward with a nifty energizing play. The shooting was off, which contributed to our own meager offensive output, but he used his size repeatedly around the hoop, tipping his own misses if he did not finish at first, and working down inside to help us dominate the interior during the few minutes we experimented with the mega 6'11"/6'11"/6'11" Daly/Cousins/Green frontcourt. Was the notable missing factor in our lone defensive hiccup quarter, the 2nd, when we again slipped with most of our inferior defensive personnel out there together. Was still giving effort coming out of halftime, but Outlaw began to get the better of him in the early 3rd. Responded with a little offense of his own, keyed by some excellent defensive plays. Broke up an alley oop, took it all the way down and set up Head for a 3ptr. Came up with a big steal and fullcourt dunk with 3 mintues to go to get the crowd going and give us a cushion. Perhaps the biggest downside to this, aside from the O-fer from the three point line, was just that if Donte just comes to camp in shape, or if Westphal is not a reactionary idiot, we could have had this sort of thing all season, and we've needed it. What's done is done though, and it was good to get it tonight. We're talking a 9pt 6reb performance on 4-11 shooting, and yet I was actually tempted to go A- here. Not sure that's ever happened before. I'll hold it to a B+, but if you looked up "glue guy" in a basketball dictionary, this is the sort of defensive roleplaying performance that would qualify.
Landry ( C ) -- this was another giveth and taketh away game for Carl. We rode him early offensively, and late in the game tried to go through him as a post goto guy. He was our second leading scorer. But on the other hand in a rather scary development, he was just phsycially overwhelmed by Kris Humphries. And that is alarming. Its the same thing that happened when he faced Zach Randolph. and I don't think there's a cure for it. In these games he has not been beat defensively, as in beat by good moves, or even beat by his laziness or some such -- he has just been run over, pushed down under the hoop and shot over at will at point blank range. And Carl is 26 now, he's as grown as he's going to get. If he's not strong enough to be able to hold big PFs away from the post, he can't defend the position. It was certianly the case tonight. Was the only real defensive weak point in the starting lineup, and yet teams have just seemed to be laserlike in sniffing out our weak defenders in the early season, and with us guarding everybody else well, the Nets started going right through Kris Humphiries at him in the post. This was 7.7ppg Kris Humphries we were talking about here. After an early timeout off the terrible start, we wised up and started couintering by using him on offense, which just has to be it -- Carl is one of those guys who if you're not using him offensively you'd be better off wiht somebody else out there. He's also a guy who I think gets energized by scoring, and he got bouncy and aggressive as we went to him as our leading scorer in the early going. Had an especially nice offensive rebound and follow off a missed FT. The early third provided more evidence for this theory, as he was just getting his *** handed to him by Humphries again and we weren't using him back the other way. The end result was something akin to watching a 6th grade bully go pick on your 2nd grader. When it became too extreme Westphal made the obvious move to get Jason in there instead, and amazingly all of a sudden the slaughter at PF stopped. After no points at all in the first 18 minutes of the second half, we went to him repeatedly in the final minutes, to mixed efect. Out of the timeout at the 4:30 mark impressively went right at Lopez and scored on him in the post. But out of the timeout at theb 3:00 mark instead came up with a turnover, one of 6 on a sloppy night. Made a quick move to the hoop at the 1:20 mark with us clinging to a 1pt lead, but got it blocked. Fortunately Cousins scooped it up and began a sequence which would net us 3 points on the possession (more on that under Cousins). Deserves some grade for the much needed offense, and for most of it coming with him attacking inside. But this disastrous getting your butt overwhelmed in the post stuff just has to stop. Man up Mandry.
Dalembert ( B ) -- for the second game in a row the same pattern occurred with Daly -- he starts, keyed a defensive focus, and then increasingly gave way to a surging DeMarcus Cousins as the game went along. That by the way is a great sign for us, because DeMarcus is scaring me with his learning curve. But there was a difference tonight for Daly -- against New York his limited minutes were at least partially becuase it was the most ineffective outing of the season for him. Tongiht he did an excellent job defensively, and was just replaced because of Cousins offensive superiority on a night whenwe needed every point. Not that you would have know that from the way we started the game, mysteriously running one of the ugliest offenses in the history of the NBA, instead of going through the expected Reke/Landry inside/outside duo, going through Head on the perimeter and Daly in the post instead. can there be any surprise that halfway through the quarter we looked like we might not score 50? Was doing his work on the other end though, and wrapped up Lopez from the beginning and smushed a shot in his face for good measure. When Lopez left, so did Daly, but he retunred near the end of the quarter to breifly form a monster frontline with Cousins and Greene, and was pounding the offensive glass hard before foul trouble got the better of him. Surprised again with his passing, and on an apparent drawn up play out of the haltime lockerroom, made a beautiful pass to a cutting Head from the top of the three point line to start the half. After continuing to take Lopez entirely out of the game, went to the bench for Cousins with 4 minutes to go in the quarter, and the rookie's strong play kept him there until the 1:00 mark when he was briefly put in an offense/defense substitution out of a timeout at the 1:00 mark, and he immediately grabbed the defensive rebound before Cousins returned to close it. I think the really encouraging thing about tonight, besides Cousins continued growth, was how all of our defensive roleplayers really came through for us at that end of the floor. Again I was tempted here to go even higher on this grade despite it being a 1pt on 0-4 shooting effort. But i'll say the lack of any offense at all holds the grade down.
Head ( B+ ) -- the third of our defensive roleplayers now in the starting lineup, and he too played a nice game and had an important role in this outcome. When we lost the game in New Jersey, it was Devin Harris who beat us down the stretch, and we just had no answer for him. Well tonight we did. And who knew that Luther Head would turn out to be a feisty little defensive specialist for us? Impressive defense -- knows that's his key, and gets in a stance and goes for it. It of course stems from his years playing for Jeff Van Gundy I am sure, but its not as if he was ever a top flight defender for those teams. For us though, in particular in comparison to the options, he's doing a vey nice job and also has a nice spillover effect in seeming to inspire Reke to greater effort on that end too. Of course early on it was too much Head and Daly...on offense of all things. Luther is not a bad offensive player, but he was about the only guy touching the ball for the first 6 minutes, except when he threw it into Daly for an ugly brick from closer in of course. Finally got our first basket on a one on one 3pt heave, and you were beginnign to wonder if the defensive gambit was goign to go donw in flames in the face of completely putrid offense. We were better after a mid quarter timeout however, coming out of it with Reke handling the ball and Landry doing most of the scoring, which was a considerable step up. Played well after the break. Started the third with a nice cut and score, then an even nicer small guard block from behind on defense. Drew a foul for 3 FTs when the Nets over committed to his 3pt attempt, and a huge key is never gunned up a bad shot. No stupid off balance leaners or anythign. Was highly efficient even, and while concentrating on defense was willing to take only 4 shots, and hit 3 of them. We need guys like that, although on the final backbreaking Beno three in the closing seconds, I'm not sure whether Luther was being unselfish or just didn't want to take the big shot when he ball swung to him with 7 seconds to go, and despite having an open look he swung it over to Beno for the game sealing three. You're not going to hear a negative word from me about any of our three defensive specialists today -- they all played good floor games and flat out did their jobs.
P.S. apologies for the wall of text appearance here, it has a tendency to get like that whenever we have major changes that need describing for the first time.
Official Boxscore
Greene ( B+ ) -- invisible on the early boxscore, but not invisible on the defensive scoreboard. The gambit worked, if gambit it be to return your opening night starting SF to the starting lineup. Brought the defense, and one nice flipside to the whole Donte is not driven enough thing, is that Donte does not have an ego problem with just blending in and playing a support role. Helped in a variety of ways, and every once in a while would step forward with a nifty energizing play. The shooting was off, which contributed to our own meager offensive output, but he used his size repeatedly around the hoop, tipping his own misses if he did not finish at first, and working down inside to help us dominate the interior during the few minutes we experimented with the mega 6'11"/6'11"/6'11" Daly/Cousins/Green frontcourt. Was the notable missing factor in our lone defensive hiccup quarter, the 2nd, when we again slipped with most of our inferior defensive personnel out there together. Was still giving effort coming out of halftime, but Outlaw began to get the better of him in the early 3rd. Responded with a little offense of his own, keyed by some excellent defensive plays. Broke up an alley oop, took it all the way down and set up Head for a 3ptr. Came up with a big steal and fullcourt dunk with 3 mintues to go to get the crowd going and give us a cushion. Perhaps the biggest downside to this, aside from the O-fer from the three point line, was just that if Donte just comes to camp in shape, or if Westphal is not a reactionary idiot, we could have had this sort of thing all season, and we've needed it. What's done is done though, and it was good to get it tonight. We're talking a 9pt 6reb performance on 4-11 shooting, and yet I was actually tempted to go A- here. Not sure that's ever happened before. I'll hold it to a B+, but if you looked up "glue guy" in a basketball dictionary, this is the sort of defensive roleplaying performance that would qualify.
Landry ( C ) -- this was another giveth and taketh away game for Carl. We rode him early offensively, and late in the game tried to go through him as a post goto guy. He was our second leading scorer. But on the other hand in a rather scary development, he was just phsycially overwhelmed by Kris Humphries. And that is alarming. Its the same thing that happened when he faced Zach Randolph. and I don't think there's a cure for it. In these games he has not been beat defensively, as in beat by good moves, or even beat by his laziness or some such -- he has just been run over, pushed down under the hoop and shot over at will at point blank range. And Carl is 26 now, he's as grown as he's going to get. If he's not strong enough to be able to hold big PFs away from the post, he can't defend the position. It was certianly the case tonight. Was the only real defensive weak point in the starting lineup, and yet teams have just seemed to be laserlike in sniffing out our weak defenders in the early season, and with us guarding everybody else well, the Nets started going right through Kris Humphiries at him in the post. This was 7.7ppg Kris Humphries we were talking about here. After an early timeout off the terrible start, we wised up and started couintering by using him on offense, which just has to be it -- Carl is one of those guys who if you're not using him offensively you'd be better off wiht somebody else out there. He's also a guy who I think gets energized by scoring, and he got bouncy and aggressive as we went to him as our leading scorer in the early going. Had an especially nice offensive rebound and follow off a missed FT. The early third provided more evidence for this theory, as he was just getting his *** handed to him by Humphries again and we weren't using him back the other way. The end result was something akin to watching a 6th grade bully go pick on your 2nd grader. When it became too extreme Westphal made the obvious move to get Jason in there instead, and amazingly all of a sudden the slaughter at PF stopped. After no points at all in the first 18 minutes of the second half, we went to him repeatedly in the final minutes, to mixed efect. Out of the timeout at the 4:30 mark impressively went right at Lopez and scored on him in the post. But out of the timeout at theb 3:00 mark instead came up with a turnover, one of 6 on a sloppy night. Made a quick move to the hoop at the 1:20 mark with us clinging to a 1pt lead, but got it blocked. Fortunately Cousins scooped it up and began a sequence which would net us 3 points on the possession (more on that under Cousins). Deserves some grade for the much needed offense, and for most of it coming with him attacking inside. But this disastrous getting your butt overwhelmed in the post stuff just has to stop. Man up Mandry.
Dalembert ( B ) -- for the second game in a row the same pattern occurred with Daly -- he starts, keyed a defensive focus, and then increasingly gave way to a surging DeMarcus Cousins as the game went along. That by the way is a great sign for us, because DeMarcus is scaring me with his learning curve. But there was a difference tonight for Daly -- against New York his limited minutes were at least partially becuase it was the most ineffective outing of the season for him. Tongiht he did an excellent job defensively, and was just replaced because of Cousins offensive superiority on a night whenwe needed every point. Not that you would have know that from the way we started the game, mysteriously running one of the ugliest offenses in the history of the NBA, instead of going through the expected Reke/Landry inside/outside duo, going through Head on the perimeter and Daly in the post instead. can there be any surprise that halfway through the quarter we looked like we might not score 50? Was doing his work on the other end though, and wrapped up Lopez from the beginning and smushed a shot in his face for good measure. When Lopez left, so did Daly, but he retunred near the end of the quarter to breifly form a monster frontline with Cousins and Greene, and was pounding the offensive glass hard before foul trouble got the better of him. Surprised again with his passing, and on an apparent drawn up play out of the haltime lockerroom, made a beautiful pass to a cutting Head from the top of the three point line to start the half. After continuing to take Lopez entirely out of the game, went to the bench for Cousins with 4 minutes to go in the quarter, and the rookie's strong play kept him there until the 1:00 mark when he was briefly put in an offense/defense substitution out of a timeout at the 1:00 mark, and he immediately grabbed the defensive rebound before Cousins returned to close it. I think the really encouraging thing about tonight, besides Cousins continued growth, was how all of our defensive roleplayers really came through for us at that end of the floor. Again I was tempted here to go even higher on this grade despite it being a 1pt on 0-4 shooting effort. But i'll say the lack of any offense at all holds the grade down.
Head ( B+ ) -- the third of our defensive roleplayers now in the starting lineup, and he too played a nice game and had an important role in this outcome. When we lost the game in New Jersey, it was Devin Harris who beat us down the stretch, and we just had no answer for him. Well tonight we did. And who knew that Luther Head would turn out to be a feisty little defensive specialist for us? Impressive defense -- knows that's his key, and gets in a stance and goes for it. It of course stems from his years playing for Jeff Van Gundy I am sure, but its not as if he was ever a top flight defender for those teams. For us though, in particular in comparison to the options, he's doing a vey nice job and also has a nice spillover effect in seeming to inspire Reke to greater effort on that end too. Of course early on it was too much Head and Daly...on offense of all things. Luther is not a bad offensive player, but he was about the only guy touching the ball for the first 6 minutes, except when he threw it into Daly for an ugly brick from closer in of course. Finally got our first basket on a one on one 3pt heave, and you were beginnign to wonder if the defensive gambit was goign to go donw in flames in the face of completely putrid offense. We were better after a mid quarter timeout however, coming out of it with Reke handling the ball and Landry doing most of the scoring, which was a considerable step up. Played well after the break. Started the third with a nice cut and score, then an even nicer small guard block from behind on defense. Drew a foul for 3 FTs when the Nets over committed to his 3pt attempt, and a huge key is never gunned up a bad shot. No stupid off balance leaners or anythign. Was highly efficient even, and while concentrating on defense was willing to take only 4 shots, and hit 3 of them. We need guys like that, although on the final backbreaking Beno three in the closing seconds, I'm not sure whether Luther was being unselfish or just didn't want to take the big shot when he ball swung to him with 7 seconds to go, and despite having an open look he swung it over to Beno for the game sealing three. You're not going to hear a negative word from me about any of our three defensive specialists today -- they all played good floor games and flat out did their jobs.
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Casspi was given his chance. He played terribly. Now he has to work to earn another.
