naw was the hot 3pt player tonight..stan should have let him finish the game..
naw was the hot 3pt player tonight..stan should have let him finish the game..
Well, that's the 4th time Lonzo has embarrassed me when I praised him... figures
The last few nights says it all, you double BI and Zion at the end of games and the others are self checked. Why do other team's guards seem so fluent in their jump shot and the Pelican guards shot looks mechanical? We must get decent shooting guards/wings in this upcoming draft.
Lonzo goofed up that last possession... Just bone headed. Dude had a good look at the rim and he dumps it off on Zion where he can't do anything with it. I'd like to hear him acknowledge that he screwed that up..
I live in the same universe where Andrew Wiggins has turn into a DPOY candidate and Lonzo is the new Weedplate Lonzo status and we are Timberwolves of 4 years ago. #PelsLife
This team will continue to struggle late until it fixes the guard problem. I feel sorry for Zion and Ingram. The offense should run through them, but they shouldn’t have to run the offense by themselves.
I just dont understand the defense. Why is this team allergic to doubling and blitzing the other teams best player? Until it's too damn late of course.
Team needs a legit 6th man. I'd have liked someone like Malik Beasley but he's in to some silly trouble so oh well.
next 3 games are brutal..might not be winning any time soon
let this sit with yall....hart was 0-14 tonight....we loss by 3....
What could have made the difference in the game?
- A couple of wide open looks late, that we whiffed on
- Missed free throws down the stretch that kept us at bay.
- Bench Scoring throughout the game (NO: 20 - SA: 34)
- And of course those itty-bitty things that prevent us from playing NBA-worthy defense
Small Victories?
- Won the second half battle (NO: 53 - SA: 50)
- Won the rebounding battle (NO: 53- SA: 38)
- Only had 10 Turnovers
SVG in the post game
''I didn't have a problem with our shot selection, I did think their defense was good.''
Mentions that when a team focuses so heavily on Zion you have to make adjustments, and Zion made the adjustment of being primarily a passer but that guys just weren't hitting the shots they got.
''I don't think anybody, there's 2 teams below us right now, but there are very few teams in history who have struggled this much defensively so clearly I'm not used to this. But we're just not getting the job done. Like I've said many times, it's on all of us; I feel a huge burden right now, it weighs on me that I'm not finding answers either in who we're playing or how we're playing, but it's just not acceptable and it's not going to win games. We either change it or we're going to have a lot of nights like this.''
''Anybody can play [defense] 5 minutes. But I do think we're capable defensively but it takes a sustained level of intensity and concentration to be good defensively and we haven't formed those habits. That's on all of us, that's on me, it's on the staff, it's on the players, it's on all of us.''
On containing high volume ballhandlers:
''Clearly we have problems with that, all year. We've been through Lillard and Chris Paul and clearly we're having trouble with guards in different ways. Clearly, a major problem with that.''
With Kira: ''I'm not happy with his defense, I've been trying to get more defense in there at the guard spots, I think he's been struggling.''
That Kira comment is baffling to me. Kira hasn't been perfect but he's basically un-screenable and he really puts in the effort on D, focusing on playing Redick over him and then saying it's cause of defense is legitimately just nonsense.
''Guys are going to have bad nights shooting the ball and right now we're totally dependent on our offense to win games. We've got to be able to overcome nights like this, but three point shooting is volatile and we've got to find other ways to win. We'll get points, we'll get free throws and we'll get to the rim but we've got to be able to stop people man, and they get frustrated because they know shots have to go in for us to win but that's not the way it should be.''
One bright side though is that Bledsoe looked like he cared for a change.
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His 'Kira isnt good on ball' I also don't understand. Sure he's closed out bad and gotten beat a couple times, but mostly, he's guarded the hell out of the ball. He's made people shoot over him in perfect position.
They sure as hell have more time and access to watch more film than me, but I just haven't seen Kira be bad on ball. If anything Zion has been awful on ball. He's lost way more than he's won. Same for Redick.
Somebody needs to ask him why he allows players like DeRozan to waltz into the lane, at turtle speed, 1 on 1 without the Pelicans do anything about it, until 8 minutes left in the game???
If you don't like his defense... Well, it's not like you're gonna do much worse anyway. Let him play.
We giving up regular 40 pts games to guards as it is with "defensive" guards and you're telling how Kira isn't good enough? Get out of here with that garbage...
Oh deary me. I thought Kira was injured or something. Stan is shooting himself in the foot really. We whine about our bench play yet we never develop any of the talent at our disposal. I’m sure Nickeil will get benched again per usual. Back to our glorious 8 man rotations!
Pels were just really missing their defensive captain tonight.
For Zion to really flourish, the team needs a stretch five. Zion (and to a lessor extent BI) will be facing a "Wall Defense" more and more as the season progresses...just like he/they saw tonight.
Pop was daring Adams to shoot; wouldn't you?
DISCLAIMER: This is not to knock on Adams at all; it's a simply a matter of fit.
At this point, I can deal with our starting 5.... However our bench just needs MUCH MUCH help. That's out biggest weakness. Our defense overall.... Yeah lol
I disagree with the take that the team needs a stretch 5, but I do support trying for Mobley.
I usually don't support drafting for need if you're in the lottery: I endorse just collecting as much talent as you can, and working out the rest later. You can never have enough great players.
BUT. Mobley is a really great prospect (clear #2 this year imo) and fits needs, so it makes almost too much sense. Elite defensive prospect with legitimate switchability who can guard 3-5, including on the perimeter, who is also a very very good passer and projects pretty well as a shooting prospect. It just slots right in.
If Mobley slipped and instead of going 2nd went, say, 4th or 5th, and some team was willing to take our pick (presuming we were worse than that) plus a future Lakers/Bucks pick, I'd do it in a heartbeat. No second thoughts.
With how the league kind of covet guards and really don't want to draft big high. You probably have a better chance to trade up for Mobley than a Suggs or Green more likely than not. Especially, the top 5 lotto team are looking to be dreadfully in need of guards.
I agree about the stretch 5 or stretch 4s. I'm not in the business of chasing overrated unicorns. We are pretty close to topping out on scoring potential and people think the solution is to add more shooters. Nah... Defense and synergy workers is definitely the direction that we need to go with in the future.
Oh yeah... we need to build a bench.
The only thing that sucks is that we are in the middle of nowhere... not good enough to be in the playoffs and not bad enough to get a good pick.... im encouraged with Zion's development though...hopefully we surround him with a good team...
Have to give Pop and the spurs credit, before the season everyone wrote them off already... look where they are now, sitting at the 5th spot in the West... having a great system from top to bottom and hitting on their picks even if its outside the top 10 makes wonders.
Another hard game to watch... :idoh:
Yeah I absolutely agree. Don't get me wrong, if you could design a 5 in the lab to fit this team they'd have the ability to shoot, but in reality those players don't come along that often: most bigs who can shoot are garbage at most other things, and I'd rather have a centre who can rebound, defend, pass, screen, box-out, etc, but just not shoot than a 5 who can shoot but who does basically nothing else. As you say, offense is not the problem right now. Far from it. Our offense is great: we put points on the board despite all of our issues, and if our bench wasn't so garbage and inconsistent from 3 we'd be a top 3 offense right now.
Our problem is the everything else. Draft Cade if the heavens align and you can: if you can't, shoot for Mobley. As you say, he's a big and they often slip, and also teams usually make mistakes. Every year there's someone that people think should go in the top 5 or 6 that ends up slipping down to 12th or something. Who says Mobley goes #2 despite being the #2 player in the draft? For all we know he's available at #5.
When you have your all defensive NBA point guard is taking every night off defensively, of course everything will fall apart. We don’t stop other teams guards. We don’t apply any pressure to them whatsoever. Opposing teams could run pick and roll 100 times a game and still come up with 120. I do blame Stan a great deal for the fact that we take too long to adjust because it’s always too late. But as AD says you have to stop them at the point of contact. We don’t
The secret is that Bledsoe was never a legitimately all D point guard. He's capable of being a good defensive point guard, but his efficacy was greatly inflated by playing next to Giannis, a deserving DPOY, and Middleton, another deserving all-D guy, backed up by people like Lopez who are extremely good back-line defense guys.
On this team, Bledsoe has no such security: he's being asked to actually stop guys, rather than just kind of funnel them into a meatgrinder. The result is that he's flailing, hard, because he's not actually that tier of defender, and he robbed Jrue of all-D, because Jrue was one of those guys for us.
Combine that with the fact that Ingram has been pretty lacklustre on D this year, Lonzo's D is not as advertised, Zion's still playing catchup (improved from game 1, sure, but still not a consistent good defender), and we have no actual reliable bench to speak of (for a number of reasons only partially related to the players themselves), it turns out we just have nobody, nobody at all who is a legitimate point of attack defender and very few guys who are good team defenders.
I always question why people think this about B2Bs. I mean, if these same 20-24 yo kids were playing ball on an outdoor court in heat and humidity they could play 10 hours a day, and be back there playing again the next morning. How is it these "elite" athletes play a game every 2nd or 3rd day, and if they're asked to play 30-35 minutes, two days in a row, its so difficult? I just don't believe that.
There is no comparison between playing leisure basketball, and playing in front of millions of people, on a practical stage, where EVERYTHING you do counts.
The amount of adrenaline/heart rate/stress playing in an NBA game (or even high school and college) is not on the same planet. Versus where nobody really cares much besides your garbage teammates playing pickup.
Then add on the stress to your body having to immediately get on a plane to fly to the next game.
B2B puts a toll on your body.