[Grades] Grades v. Pistons 11/14/10

So what was it that killed us the most this time?

  • Couldn't hit a three to save our collective fanbase (2-18 3pt land)

    Votes: 28 56.0%
  • No place to hide Beno on defense

    Votes: 5 10.0%
  • Reke settling for jumpers

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Cisco too small to guard Pistons SFs (and the guy big enough is in the doghouse)

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • Substitutions, especially to start the 4th

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • Ball movement, especially with Beno out (9 of our 14 assists)

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • Free throws (66.7% again)

    Votes: 10 20.0%

  • Total voters
    50
The main problem starts from the defance.
we suck!
if you got the defance going then you get every thing going.
game after game the other team kill us with pick n rolls, with penetrations etc.
in the offense there is no ball movment at all, many of our players today got their points from offensive rebounds and not from planned drills.
i can't belive the team rested for 6 months and it looks like the last year disaster...
they should have started there camp a month earlier in order to look like a trained team.
 
You would think Beno would be one of the best to teach Tyreke when to just pull up and shoot a mid-range jumper. Somehow the message obviously isn't getting across. Maybe westphal said something like "What the team needs at the SG position is someone who can drive in and commit the occasional offensive foul, who can rebound and who tries to make hard lay ups instead of simple ones or passing the ball. The team does not need another midrange shooter."

For the record, I have come to the conclusion that are 3 point shooters just don't match up with the other real 3 point shooters the league has to offer.

Tyreke's offensive to do list:
1. Spend time watching tape of Beno's and Sam Cassell's midrange jumper
2. Spend time watching tape of Jordan's and Kobe's post ups
3. STOP COMMITTING OFFENSIVE FOULS
 
Tyreke's offensive to do list:
1. Spend time watching tape of Beno's and Sam Cassell's midrange jumper
2. Spend time watching tape of Jordan's and Kobe's post ups
3. STOP COMMITTING OFFENSIVE FOULS

If it were that easy to master Cassel's pullup everybody would do it. Then again given that Cassel was clutch, but essentially a nobody on the great player scale (let alone Beno), somehow I don't think playing like him gets you anywhere Reke necessarily needs to go. It would be a nice extra weapon, but its neither easy to learn nor necessary to be a dominant player. Now if he DID develop it,...well sometimes i don't think people realize the result of what they ask. Become Cassel with midrange jumeprs, become a good enough jumpshooter to use it as a primary weapon. Postup like Jordan. Oh and continue to be one of if not the the most potent drivers in the league, all by age 21. Then win the next dozen MVPs while averaging 40ppg.

I was actually considerably encouraged by our late sequence of postups/side isos with Reke. There was a little of Kobe/Jordan in how that all went down. Much work needed of course, and we really need to pump that as his ability grows, but there it was -- the torture box, guard style, wiht our guy doing the torturing. Good to see.

Offensive fouls are always going to be part of Reke's game because he's better at gettign to the hoop than jsut about anybody else. Same way Shaq would pick them up as a center. If you are going to be forceful offensively sometiems you are going to make a mistake, somebody will flop, whatever. Cost of doing business as an attacking player.
 
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If it were that easy to master Cassel's pullup everybody would do it. Then again given that Cassel was clutch, but essentially a nobody on the great player scale (let alone Beno), somehow I don't think playing like him gets you anywhere Reke necessarily needs to go. It would be a nice extra weapon, but its neither easy to learn nor necessary to be a dominant player. Now if he DID develop it,...well sometimes i don't think people realize the result of what they ask. Become Cassel with midrange jumeprs, become a good enough jumpshooter to use it as a primary weapon. Postup like Jordan. Oh and continue to be one of if not the the most potent drivers in the league, all by age 21. Then win the next dozen MVPs while averaging 40ppg.

I was actually considerably encouraged by our late sequence of postups/side isos with Reke. There was a little of Kobe/Jordan in how that all went down. Much work needed of course, and we really need to pump that as his ability grows, but there it was -- the torture box, guard style, wiht our guy doing the torturing. Good to see.

Offensive fouls are always going to be part of Reke's game because he's better at gettign to the hoop than jsut about anybody else. Same way Shaq would pick them up as a center. If you are going to be forceful offensively sometiems you are going to make a mistake, somebody will flop, whatever. Cost of doing business as an attacking player.

But the way Tyreke attacked when he posted up was slightly different from what Kobe would have done. He faced up, and then because the defence gave him so much space he took a jump shot. While very hard to master, it would be good if Tyreke could learn to back his defender down and then turn and shoot a fade away nearer the basket. I say this because if Westphal plays the right lineups, Tyreke should have a size advantage on his defender, and so backing down, getting a nearer shot to me seems like a better shot than one taken farther away from the basket.

Of course like you said, I'm merely pointing out what would be good for every basketball player to learn without taking into consideration how hard it is to master these skills. I simply think that for a player like Tyreke, given his role, talent in driving and his size focusing on a post up game and pulling up for a mid range jumper would be the best things to do for him to grow as a player on the offensive end.
 
Really not that bad of a game. The effort was there. We played well enough to win, but missed countless open shots.

JT was solid tonight. He played pf, go figure. Landry played better, but is still allergic to passing. Dally really played well, and was all over the offensive glass and was able to convert inside. Tyreke isn't playing the the Tyreke was were used to seeing last year. Maybe it's the ankles, maybe it's the confidence in the jumper, maybe it's him trying to create for teammates more often, but he's not attacking the paint and finishing like he used to. Still early though, not worried.

Head actually seemed to settle in after forcing some poor shots in the early going, and I thought helped keep the game close. Beno's defense, or lack of, really stuck out tonight. The whole team needs to improve defensively, but it will be hard to correct a lot of mistakes when our pg is getting broken down every other trip down the court. Guys are constantly having to help on Beno's man, and that just sets a chain of events that usually ends with a basket or us committing a foul. That is a glaring area of concern for me going forward, and one of the first problems I would try to fix if we move someone at the trade deadline.

I do NOT like seeing Anthony freaking Wright in the game instead of Donte. This guys hasn't contributed anything, bricked wide open 3's we needed, and taking away the little available playing time for Donte. This needs to change. Donte might not be impressing in practice, and might not be deserving of major minutes, but on this team, with our wings, there is no excuse for not giving him at least 5-10 minutes a game. We're a struggling, rebuilding team, who has no wings that can defend worth a damn, and is exactly the situation for a guy like Donte to get a few minutes, if not more.

One other thing that bothers me, and is bothering me more and more, is Omri's shot selection and apparent need to get shots up. He got in a little spat with Beno for not moving the ball, after Beno took and made an open ft line jumper. Good shot, he hit it. Next possession he's open on the wing, and Beno looks him off. I would to, because Omri likes to jack up 3's in that situation(early in the shot clock), and was clearly wanting a shot. Omri's response? Backcourt foul, then says something to Beno while going back on defense. Next trip down, early in the shot clock, jacks up a 25 ft airball as soon as he touched it. I went back and watched this sequence twice.

That's only a 2 min stretch in a 48 min game. Not a big deal. But there's a pattern here. Omri is not only setting for a lot of 3's, but he's taking them too early in the shot clock as well. Sometimes, he clearly has his mind made up that this ball is going up before he even catches it, and a lot of the time it's not the right play. But seriously, it seems that 80% of the time all Omri is looking to do is jack up a 3. I don't know what exactly Westphal said his role is, or how Omri has interpreted it, but he's basically playing a Steve Kerr role, but with a quicker trigger. Omri is a very aggressive player,which I love, but he's got to learn how to use tht aggression to draw fouls and attack the basket more. He's becoming way too much of a one dimensional player.

I saw that Omri sequence as well; had the same interpretation of it. I think the same dynamic is going on with Cousins and the guards as with Omri and the guards - trust. If the guard doesn't think the guy he is passing the ball to is going to do the right thing with the ball, then he's probably not going to be passing the ball to the guy in a similar situation. For example, if Cousins is on the baseline about 15 feet out with his back to the basket and he gets the ball from the guard in that position and throws up a fadeaway jumper (which misses), chance are the guard isn't going to be giving him the ball again in that particular situation anytime soon.. Typically, you want the guard to give the recipient of the pass the benefit of the doubt and throw it to him, but after a while if the recipient doesn't deliver, that ain't going to happen. This is the kind of thing that has to be worked out with this young team.
 
Minny is a bad team. Detroit is not a bad team. They'll more than likely make the playoffs in the east. They won't go far, but right now they're a better team than we are.

Detroit is a pretty bad team. I think they won 27 games last year, and I doubt they'll win many more this year.

This is turning into a depressing season. It isn't just the win/loss record, it's the utter discombobulation (sp??) that our team looks like. Offensively, we're a mess, can't make free throws (which have probably lost us at least one game so far), defensively, not a whole lot better.

We needed to start the first 30 games like 15-15 in order to have any chance of getting 35 wins (which I thought we really would achieve). Our schedule in January/February is absolutely killer.

This team may only win 20 games this year.
 
We need to hire Gary Payton to mentor Evans. Teach him both sides of the ball. Payton was the best PG I ever saw when it came to posting up other PGs.. He was truly dominate in his day .
 
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I'm a little confused with all this criticism of Head. He played very well tonight. He was 5 of 8 from the floor and played very good defense. He's one of the few guards that trys to make entry passes into the post. When he has a bad game I can understand, but when he plays well, I don't get it.

Actually, you're right Head did play well. It's just that I've been wanting to watch Donte, and I'm frustrated he can't get off the bench. Sorta reminds me a little of the Gerald Wallace situation, except we're not contending for anything now.
 
Detroit is awful. Better than us, but still awful. They still have the same squad from thei horrific last season, with the addition of TMac, who is a scrub these days, and Greg Monroe, and the subtraction of Jerebko, who is out injured for pretty much the entire season. They weren't close to making the playoffs last year. I don't see how they can make the playoffs this year.

If they can keep everyone healthy, I think they can make the playoffs. No sense arguing over it. Lets just wait and see come playoff time..
 
If they can keep everyone healthy, I think they can make the playoffs. No sense arguing over it. Lets just wait and see come playoff time..

I hope so. I like them, especially since I live pretty close to Detroit, and Will Bynum is one of my favorite players. I just have a hard time seeing that happening.
 
It seems that I missed a good game..And it looks like that the offense hasn't improved.

Somebody said it best, the players have to trust each other on the court and it seems that we move away from that - not sure if it happened in this game or not. They get along nicely off the court, but we need them to come together on it.

Omri was doing well in passing to open teammates and also realizing what's the best time to shoot his shot. I'm saddened that he's moving away from that and looking for himself. At the same time, I do like the coach to take him aside and tell him that he needs to realize that every shot isn't his to take.

Glad to see JT finally playing well - it helps that he's finally playing the position he was drafted for. I just don't get what's going on with Coach. I know he's the coach of the team, but where is he? It seems like he's on a different playing field since last year and I don't like it...Get the guys to move without the ball, slash, drive and pass.

I want to see this game - hopefully LeaguePass will play it again.
 
Great analysis of Tyreke's game, Brick -
and a good example of how looking only at the stats (which many KF's do) doesn't remotely get the whole picture of a player's performance.
 
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