[Grades] Grades v. Sixers 1/30/2017

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

OT, but personally I found Cody Rhodes to be one of the most overrated wrestlers ever, especially on internet circles. Face of a company? Lol, hell no. Without his last name he stands out less than Zack Ryder.

You should watch more of his post-WWE work. Cody is killing it on the indies. Face of a company? No, but he's a great worker and, like a lot of guys, he's managed to get himself over once free of the handcuffs that WWE put on him.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Gotta credit the Sixers too ... if they're supposedly a terrible team without Embiid (Simmons unproven, one Embiid injury away from being a bad lottery team - see game thread), what does that say about our future? Cousins has been playing extremely well, absolutely unstoppable. Shame he ain't gonna get any help anytime soon.

What do you mean "supposedly"? They are a terrible team. But they are a terrible team that plays hard for forty-eight minutes every night, which is often good enough to beat a team that is at the same level, or barely above, but doesn't play hard for forty-eight minutes.

 

[New Era]

No it wasn't, despite whatever the 2 minute report says. Neither was the charge that was called on him before that.

As for the 22 FT's, doesn't matter when they foul you on on bogus calls in the most important part of the game. Same thing happened in Miami.

So it wasn't a foul because you say so? Do you realize he was actually trying to foul him??? The last 2 minute report classifies it as a "take foul" which means he's intentionally fouling to stop the clock. Here is a replay of the play. He reaches out and grabs the guy which affected his pass. Did you notice how the pass went sideways?
If you want to be mad about something then be mad at DMC for making a crappy pass there. I'm not mad at anybody. He had a great game, just made a mistake there, but to blame it on the ref is boring and unoriginal.

http://official.nba.com/last-two-minute-report/?gameNo=0021600266&eventNum=479

 

[KingsFanGER]

Alot that I disagree with here,

How exactly would a scoring guard help us? is this a serious question? We have the worst backcourt by far in the entire league any type of player who can hit a jumper off the dribble or penetrate and kick/draw fouls because you cant touch guards whereas you can maul DMC would improve this team immensely, especially in late game situations.

Scoring guards arent just fun to watch, they win you games, see IT last night and Dion for the past 8 games since getting back from injury.

We need a forward or guard who can dribble, shoot off the dribble, create for themselves, and most importantly SHOOT without a slow hitch like the rest of our "shooters".

Keep Payton/Smart types away from this team that would clog up things for DMC even worse, when you have someone who can guard opposing PGs like Temple an ideal running mate is an offensively talented guard!

Sure in a perfect world Ill take a 2 way guard but if I had to settle I would put offense next to Temple.

Last nights scoring was a FLUKE we don't get that much scoring ever, we can cultivate and teach defense and apply a team defensive concept to help fix things as joerger is doing, we CANNOT teach offensive talent pure and simple.

Many times our only offense is DMC and when he checks out in the second half the other team makes a run. Boogie needs help on offense, defense should be a priority but having at least two creators/scorers on the floor is a must!

If Boogie didn't have such a giant offensive burden theres no doubt he could do most of what Whiteside can do.

Even though you can watch defense all night long its whoever scores the most points that wins and we usually cant generate any offense, Boogie is doing all he can but a one man offense isnt going to win you anything.

Well than we have to agree to disagree here. No problem.
Scoring guards win games and they are favoured by the current playstyle the league wants to establish. I agree on that.
But IT is not the main reason the Celtics are a good team. The main reason is, that they play good enough defense to cover his shortcomings on that end. The whole point of Stevens system is to turn defense into offense and to use IT as much as possible in space. The weakness of that approach was visible, when they faced the Hawks in the 2016 Playoffs and couldn't stop the offensive flow of the Hawks. This year they have a promising half court weapon with the IT+Horford pick&roll, but due to Bradleys injury and IT putting their bigs in tough spots on D with great regularity they also have trouble to defend like they did last year. Wether this years Celtics with IT as the main guy are good enough to advance into the second round remains to be seen and I would say it's more a question of Horford, Johnson and Mr. X (Noel probably?) protecting the paint and Bradley returning, than it is a question of IT scoring the ball.
We have to keep in mind, that we already had IT paired with Cousins. I know coaching and the rest of the roster played a huge part, but it still wasn't a very good pairing.
I also disagree, that Cousins could do what Whiteside or guys like Gobert, AD or DeAndre Jordan do. The whole purpose of those guys is to play off their guards and wings, to rebound and put back and to defend and they are execptionally good at that.
Cousins is closer to Zach Randolph than to those guys. He will never be a great lob target, because he is way too heavy and is not a leaper. He can catch and finish, but playing off his guards means also not using his entire skill set. He has trouble to keep up with the pace a system built around an offensive scoring guard would need in order to be successful and he is not a good choice, when you want your big guy to cover for the defensive weakness of your perimeter guys.
He is without a doubt the best big man right now. But that doesn't mean he can do everything on the court.

 

[ppine]

This is the kind of game that is hard to watch at the end. Giving up 42 points to the Sixers in a one quarter is hard to explain away.
The Kings have played poor defense for 10 years. Sometimes their defense rebounding is not there either.
You can't blame it on the refs. You can't blame it on the offense.
Basketball is a simple game really, play defense, rebound and put the ball in the hole.

I had dinner with a friend who is 6'9" and played college ball. We were lamenting the effect of the 3 point shot on the NBA.
Sometimes I just want to start watching ice hockey.