Timberwolves at Pelicans in the Blender 11-1-17

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Originally Posted by sterlr

The Owners have lost fans of the Saints by not not making changes quick enough. They won't get any more fans of the Pelicans by not making changes now. Why would a person spend hard earned money to watch this team?

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I understand the injuries have sucked the life out of this team, but you simply can't lose ugly at home and expect fans to support you.

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Originally Posted by DaFranchise80

Rondo can’t get back quick enough.

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He won't make any difference as long as the stupid coach have them running a small man's offense.

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Originally Posted by sterlr

Let's trade one of the bigs they're not being used right. Let's get some shooters if we're going to play like Golden State.

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Um...the two bigs combined for 59pts 19reb 12ast 9stl and 4blks.

Despite moments of shakiness with Cousins first half turnovers, and Davis's missed threes and some boards he had to get, somehow I don't think they are the problem.

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Originally Posted by Topdawg26

Who makes over 20 mil a year and averages only 14 points a game and disappears in clutch situations? Jrue!!

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Who's a franchise caliber player who's supposed to be the the best player in the league at his position and who is only earning less due to the circumstances of the CBA when the contracts were signed? Boogie.

As soon as he pulled Nelson, I had a bad feeling.

Another Loss. Up next on Friday Dallas on the road.

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Originally Posted by Bricklayer

Um...the two bigs combined for 59pts 19reb 12ast 9stl and 4blks.

Despite moments of shakiness with Cousins first half turnovers, and Davis's missed threes and some boards he had to get, somehow I don't think they are the problem.

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I didn't say they were. But if Gentry is going to use them like a 1,2 or 3 instead of putting their big bodies on the block then we need more wing players.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Who's a franchise caliber player who's supposed to be the the best player in the league at his position and who is only earning less due to the circumstances of the CBA when the contracts were signed? Boogie.

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I don't understand how you can rationalize Boogie is to blame when you have a player who is said to be a core player like Boogie but hides in big moments and doesn't score.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Who's a franchise caliber player who's supposed to be the the best player in the league at his position and who is only earning less due to the circumstances of the CBA when the contracts were signed? Boogie.

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You do realize the two things are connected right?

Jrue Holiday is not truly a PG, hence you now have to ask your center to, in addition to centering, be your PG (and oh, also be your best (only?) 3pt spacer). End result? Lots of turnovers that are maybe not there if you have a real PG to initiate things.

And turning the ball over in the final minute and handing the opposing team a victory is what ended the Pels chances last year. It's just not acceptable from your primary ballhandler. it's the very thing the primary ballhandler is supposed to prevent.

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Originally Posted by Topdawg26

I don't understand how you can rationalize Boogie is to blame when you have a player who is said to be a core player like Boogie but hides in big moments and doesn't score.

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I'm not saying Boogie is to blame. I'm saying that if turnovers are your main problem, then you should be paying more attention the the guy with 8 than to the guy with 2. The Wolves had 28 points off turnovers tonight, and Jrue had 1 the whole game until the final minute. When we were down 4. We might have been up if there had been less turnovers throughout, and Jrue can't be blamed for the turnovers through the middle of the game because he didn't have any.

Of course saying we 'might' have been up is useless and entirely an assumption, but like I said, I'm not blaming Boogie I'm just saying if turnovers are your problem, Jrue isn't your man.

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Originally Posted by Bricklayer

You do realize the two things are connected right?

Jrue Holiday is not truly a PG, hence you now have to ask your center to, in addition to centering, be your PG (and oh, also be your best (only?) 3pt spacer). End result? Lots of turnovers that are maybe not there if you have a real PG to initiate things.

And turning the ball over in the final minute and handing the opposing team a victory is what ended the Pels chances last year. It's just not acceptable from your primary ballhandler. it's the very thing the primary ballhandler is supposed to prevent.

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Yes, I'm fully aware. So is the team, that's why we signed Rondo and Nelson so that Jrue wouldn't be the person forced to handle the ball in those situations. Unfortunately due to injuries and a wonky substitution, he was given that role. Like I explained in my above post, I'm not condemning Boogie, nor am I saying Jrue's turnover was fine. What I am saying is that if you are going to go on a crusade against turnovers, Jrue is NOT the right person to be starting with.

We better beat the everloving CRAP out of Dallas on Friday!

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Originally Posted by Rel11

We better beat the everloving CRAP out of Dallas on Friday!

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I agree. They're losing to everyone, we have to beat them and beat them decisively.

We should have 7 wins in November.

There is a reason why the offensive schemes that Finch deployed in Denver worked and don't here.

I'll give you a guess.



We have way too many low IQ players.

That was a really bad loss everything considered. Really, really bad

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Originally Posted by AUSSIE_PELICAN

There is a reason why the offensive schemes that Finch deployed in Denver worked and don't here.

I'll give you a guess.



We have way too many low IQ players.

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yup

And Jrue is a bad shooting guard

Actually, so far Jrue is being Jrue. His numbers are very much in line with his career averages. Of course when you signed him to a $120 million+ contract, you are pricing in a significant improvement. Too soon to say that can't happen, particularly with Rondo's injury, but the early returns suggest that Jrue remains what he has been his entire Pels career--a solid two-way guard who has tendency to fold up in the clutch.

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Originally Posted by Topdawg26

Who makes over 20 mil a year and averages only 14 points a game and disappears in clutch situations? Jrue!!

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Who draws up a play where Jrue drives the middle of the lane and all other 4 players stand completely still in a square around him watching from the 3 point line. No Chance for any of the 5 to succeed!

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Originally Posted by AUSSIE_PELICAN

There is a reason why the offensive schemes that Finch deployed in Denver worked and don't here.

I'll give you a guess.



We have way too many low IQ players.

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Too early.

People on this board of have a quick panic button, but you have to remember Finch's system wasn't exactly singing for the Nuggets early last year either. Any system requiring a lot of reads and cuts takes time to sink in and become second nature. Until it does, you get a lot of miscommunications and turnovers.

However, hitting wide open standstill threes off of kick passes should be universally possible. Starting a game with intensity and hustle should too.

As long as AD and Boogie are playing 40 minutes a game, we're nevet going to see their full potential. Having them on the court for those long stretches is counter productive. Teams are recognizing and attacking them, making them play defense. And on Offense like Rel pointed out, they're settling for bad shots. That comes from exhaustion and trying to conserve energy to play 40+ minutes.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I'm not saying Boogie is to blame. I'm saying that if turnovers are your main problem, then you should be paying more attention the the guy with 8 than to the guy with 2. The Wolves had 28 points off turnovers tonight, and Jrue had 1 the whole game until the final minute. When we were down 4. We might have been up if there had been less turnovers throughout, and Jrue can't be blamed for the turnovers through the middle of the game because he didn't have any.

Of course saying we 'might' have been up is useless and entirely an assumption, but like I said, I'm not blaming Boogie I'm just saying if turnovers are your problem, Jrue isn't your man.

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It sounds like you're making excuses for Holiday's inability to produce and live up to his salary. He's supposed to be another scoring option besides AD and Cousins. If you're only looking at the state sheet than yes Boogie had more turnovers but Boogie handled the ball more and was more aggressive (you will have more turnover opportunities when you do that). Holiday has been terrible outside of the Cavaliers game. He has been ineffective and disinterested on the offensive side of the ball. He was no where to be found in the fourth quarter and he turned the ball over and shot an air ball during clutch time. You should hold Jrue to the same standards as AD and Boogie based on his contract and how Demps sold him to this fan base.

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Originally Posted by new city champ

Actually, so far Jrue is being Jrue. His numbers are very much in line with his career averages. Of course when you signed him to a $120 million+ contract, you are pricing in a significant improvement. Too soon to say that can't happen, particularly with Rondo's injury, but the early returns suggest that Jrue remains what he has been his entire Pels career--a solid two-way guard who has tendency to fold up in the clutch.

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Yeah he's a bigger less clutch (if that's even possible) Teague.

My real concerns for this game are pretty simple. Obviously turnovers are one, but that's been talked to death already. Slightly more unusual is rebounds: how do we get outrebounded in this? Obviously that causes problems from the get-go.

As well, where did the ball movement go? We had some great movement just a few games ago and it seems like no one wants to pass anymore.

Jrue needs to get out of his own head, send him to a hypnotist or something cause when he's just running, cutting, and shooting in the flow of things he's deadly. As soon as he gets two seconds to think, weird stuff happens.

Other stuff happened too, like the weird reffing on the three punches/slaps/elbows to Boogie's face, them swallowing the whistle when KAT tried to turn Tony into paste, etc, but that's out of our hands.

Plenty of blame to go around, and you could alter anybody's numbers to get a desired result. But the game was tied in the final minute when Tony Allen went in for a layup, and I think KAT may have goaltended it. So any of these things and the Pels may easily win:

-- Allen hits the go ahead layup, or the refs call KAT for goaltending
-- Jrue doesn't take the other team's payoff and throw them the ball in the final seconds
-- Cousins doesn't fall asleep on the last defensive play of the half, or throw that dumb turnover at the end of the first quarter letting Crawford hit the half courter
-- Crawford misses the half courter like a normal human
-- A.D. doesn't choke that pair of FTs in the 4th, or actually blocks out against KAT on his follow dunk in the 4th (the only hoop he had all night)
-- Dante Cuninngham gives you slightly more than, oh 27min 3pts 0reb 0ast on 1-6 shooting. Seriously? I mean...SERIOUSLY??

People can call this a bad loss, and it was in that it was the Pels own damn fault. But it was right there to be won in the final minute, there was no blowout, the Wolves are another expected playoff team. There was nothing hopeless about this loss. You can change 1 play or 1 call and the Pels win. Just frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Topdawg26

It sounds like you're making excuses for Holiday's inability to produce and live up to his salary. He's supposed to be another scoring option besides AD and Cousins. If you're only looking at the state sheet than yes Boogie had more turnovers but Boogie handled the ball more and was more aggressive (you will have more turnover opportunities when you do that). Holiday has been terrible outside of the Cavaliers game. He has been ineffective and disinterested on the offensive side of the ball. He was no where to be found in the fourth quarter and he turned the ball over and shot an air ball during clutch time. You should hold Jrue to the same standards as AD and Boogie based on his contract and how Demps sold him to this fan base.

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Only if you expected more money and Dell's sales pitch to magically improve his play. The fact is, we know he's not on AD or.Cousins' level. We know it. Dell telling us he is doesn't make it so unless you're stupid enough to think Dell has a high IQ for the game, which we all know he doesn't. So I'm not judging him on his contract (which sucks yes we know but that dead horse hasn't just been beaten, it's been turned into powder), or on what Dell told us. I'm judging him on who he is and what he's done for us in the past. Which is be a somewhat streaky, late game risk who will give us something between 15-20 points on most nights. Sometimes he looks awesome and you wish he'd do it more, more often he looks mediocre. Oh well.

It's not making excuses at all. All I said was, if your problem is the turnovers, the guy with literally 4x the guy you're complaining about might be of slight concern. I already said I'm not forgiving Jrue's turnover, just saying that it might not have mattered if we had been in the better position which was easily available had there not been multiple unnecessary turnovers earlier by other people. Because context matters.

And yes, Boogie had 8 turnovers. Unless you're playing with a 60% usage rate, that's still terrible. He had an assist to turnover ratio of 0.75. That's seriously bad, and MUCH worse than Holiday's turnovers.

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Originally Posted by Bricklayer

Plenty of blame to go around, and you could alter anybody's numbers to get a desired result. But the game was tied in the final minute when Tony Allen went in for a layup, and I think KAT may have goaltended it. So any of these things and the Pels may easily win:

-- Allen hits the go ahead layup, or the refs call KAT for goaltending
-- Jrue doesn't take the other team's payoff and throw them the ball in the final seconds
-- Cousins doesn't fall asleep on the last defensive play of the half, or throw that dumb turnover at the end of the first quarter letting Crawford hit the half courter
-- Crawford misses the half courter like a normal human
-- A.D. doesn't choke that pair of FTs in the 4th, or actually blocks out against KAT on his follow dunk in the 4th (the only hoop he had all night)
-- Dante Cuninngham gives you slightly more than, oh 27min 3pts 0reb 0ast on 1-6 shooting. Seriously? I mean...SERIOUSLY??

People can call this a bad loss, and it was in that it was the Pels own damn fault. But it was right there to be won in the final minute, there was no blowout, the Wolves are another expected playoff team. There was nothing hopeless about this loss. You can change 1 play or 1 call and the Pels win. Just frustrating.

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You describe the offensive scheme as the problem. Under Monty's system Jrue was clutch, AD was clutch because he stayed around the block area. Gentry comes in and ruins AD. He and DC gets theirs but doesn't make their teammates any better.

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Originally Posted by Bricklayer

Plenty of blame to go around, and you could alter anybody's numbers to get a desired result. But the game was tied in the final minute when Tony Allen went in for a layup, and I think KAT may have goaltended it.

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Goaltended it? KAT bodied TA, it was was like a verticals power slam.

This team has to rethink playing Cunningham.

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Originally Posted by AD23forMVP

This team has to rethink playing Cunningham.

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A couple seasons ago, I thought Dante was slept on. Turns out, he’s the one sleeping. Lol.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Only if you expected more money and Dell's sales pitch to magically improve his play. The fact is, we know he's not on AD or.Cousins' level. We know it. Dell telling us he is doesn't make it so unless you're stupid enough to think Dell has a high IQ for the game, which we all know he doesn't. So I'm not judging him on his contract (which sucks yes we know but that dead horse hasn't just been beaten, it's been turned into powder), or on what Dell told us. I'm judging him on who he is and what he's done for us in the past. Which is be a somewhat streaky, late game risk who will give us something between 15-20 points on most nights. Sometimes he looks awesome and you wish he'd do it more, more often he looks mediocre. Oh well.

It's not making excuses at all. All I said was, if your problem is the turnovers, the guy with literally 4x the guy you're complaining about might be of slight concern. I already said I'm not forgiving Jrue's turnover, just saying that it might not have mattered if we had been in the better position which was easily available had there not been multiple unnecessary turnovers earlier by other people. Because context matters.

And yes, Boogie had 8 turnovers. Unless you're playing with a 60% usage rate, that's still terrible. He had an assist to turnover ratio of 0.75. That's seriously bad, and MUCH worse than Holiday's turnovers.

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I see your point and I agree with everything you mentioned. However, it's just so frustrating to watch Holiday play. He was at least tolerable last year but it seems like he's regressed. But I guess Holiday is going be Holiday like Dell is going to Dell.

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Originally Posted by AD23forMVP

This team has to rethink playing Cunningham.

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I think they need to bench Holiday for a few games just to get him to collect himself and spark a fire.

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Originally Posted by Rel11

A couple seasons ago, I thought Dante was slept on. Turns out, he’s the one sleeping. Lol.

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I just don't understand what happened. Last year he shot basically 40% from 3, and was a plus defender. This year, he's scraping 25% from 3 and is a net 0 on defense. What happened to him?

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Goaltended it? KAT bodied TA, it was was like a verticals power slam.

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it looked like he also may have blocked the shot from inside the cylinder, which is just...should not be missed by the refs. Ever. but maybe my eyes deceived me. Wolves own telecast crew thought it was though.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I just don't understand what happened. Last year he shot basically 40% from 3, and was a plus defender. This year, he's scraping 25% from 3 and is a net 0 on defense. What happened to him?

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The good news is that the team is good enough to get into the playoffs. However, I don't believe Gentry and Demps are not playoff caliber HC and GM.

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Originally Posted by Topdawg26

I see your point and I agree with everything you mentioned. However, it's just so frustrating to watch Holiday play. He was at least tolerable last year but it seems like he's regressed. But I guess Holiday is going be Holiday like Dell is going to Dell.

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I understand man, it's so frustrating. He had 29 Vs Cleveland (70% shooting), then 20 vs Orlando (54% shooting) and you start to think maybe he's going to be a little more consistently. Then you remember (or at least I do) the 6 weeks last year he spent averaging 22/10 and you kinda hope maybe we'll get some more of that. And then it turns out nope, just normal Jrue. It's really frustrating sometimes and you wish he'd just give you three more points here or there, but oh well. It's not worth getting genuinely upset about.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I just don't understand what happened. Last year he shot basically 40% from 3, and was a plus defender. This year, he's scraping 25% from 3 and is a net 0 on defense. What happened to him?

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Probably just chilled all Summer waiting for a contract which was signed like 2 days before the season started

Oh well. Off to sleep cause it's 4am here. Looking forward to us going on a three game winning streak and erasing the Bulls, Mavs, and Pacers.

Glad that I went and watched Poldark (and am now watching the WS).

Damn, we aren't close to being as good as I thought we were. Who knew that Rondo, Hill, Frank Jackson, Asik, and Ajino were the ones holding our title hopes together? Not me.

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Originally Posted by Bricklayer

Too early.

People on this board of have a quick panic button, but you have to remember Finch's system wasn't exactly singing for the Nuggets early last year either. Any system requiring a lot of reads and cuts takes time to sink in and become second nature. Until it does, you get a lot of miscommunications and turnovers.

However, hitting wide open standstill threes off of kick passes should be universally possible. Starting a game with intensity and hustle should too.

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Lets also remember Gentry made it clear in several interviews that we have not over-hauled our offense. Finch has only introduced a few wrinkles here and there. Part of that seems to be his preference and the rest the lack of a longer off-season. This is still largely the house Gentry built when it comes to the offense.

Which is honestly how it went in Denver. If people remember, Finch didn't start running the offense til a couple months into the season. Once the reigns were handed over the Nuggets became the best offense in the league. But i also just don't think we have the personnel to get there.

It sounds like the Pelicans players are frustrated with Jrue's passive play

http://www.nola.com/pelicans/index.s...es_get_th.html

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Jrue Holiday heard it before Saturday night's win.

"We've been barking at him all year," said Pelicans center DeMarcus Cousins. "'Be aggressive!' I want him to take 20 shots a game. When he's playing like this, it takes our team to a whole nother level."

DeMarcus Cousins says the Pelicans can be a really good team.
Holiday heard it after the game as well.

"I told him when he came out: 'We are going to need this from you every night. This is how you got to start playing. You play like this, we are a tough team to beat,'" said Pelicans forward Anthony Davis.

So when Holiday went for a season-high 29 points and seven assists in the Pelicans' 123-101 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers in front of a sold-out crowd at the Smoothie King Center, he was just doing what what his teammates asked.

Jrue Holiday says it feels good to get off to a good start this season
"That's all they pretty much keep on saying is, 'Man, we need you to score.'" Holiday said. "So (I'm) focusing less on coming down and getting people into places and just trying to be aggressive and attack."

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Last minutes of this game just showed whats wrong with the officiating in the league.
Towns jumps right into Allen on the layup attempt. If this is a jumpshot Allen would be at the line.
And as expected Butler gets two freethrows on a jumpshot, although Moore didn't make much contact and Butler clearly was leaning into Moore.
To top it all Cousins obviously gets hit on the elbow on his last 3 point attempt, but gets no call.

Refs allowed more contact in the paint and they don't treat big man the same as wings or guards.
It will be an uphill battle all year.

Still Gentry deserves some criticism. Just way too many unforced errors and sloppy play for the Pels.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Oh well. Off to sleep cause it's 4am here. Looking forward to us going on a three game winning streak and erasing the Bulls, Mavs, and Pacers.

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On paper we should beat these teams but with this coaching staff who knows?

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Originally Posted by Krysanthem

Last minutes of this game just showed whats wrong with the officiating in the league.
Towns jumps right into Allen on the layup attempt. If this is a jumpshot Allen would be at the line.
And as expected Butler gets two freethrows on a jumpshot, although Moore didn't make much contact and Butler clearly was leaning into Moore.
To top it all Cousins obviously gets hit on the elbow on his last 3 point attempt, but gets no call.

Refs allowed more contact in the paint and they don't treat big man the same as wings or guards.
It will be an uphill battle all year.

Still Gentry deserves some criticism. Just way too many unforced errors and sloppy play for the Pels.

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Yeah the last few minutes was frustrating to watch due to the bad calls. It was also frustrating to see both AD and Cousins out on the perimeter on that last play where Jrue turned it over. We have two of the best post players in the league, and we have them on the perimeter in crucial moments. Not sure if Gentry should be blamed for the sloppy play, but there's that, too.

Something about the team's defense bugs me too. It can be really good at times, but too often they leave people wide open at the 3-point line. It happened against Cleveland many times, though the Cavs failed to capitalize. It happened against Orlando, and Speights made them pay. Same thing against the Wolves, though not to the extend that it did against the Magic.

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Originally Posted by hornetsrebirth

It sounds like the Pelicans players are frustrated with Jrue's passive play

http://www.nola.com/pelicans/index.s...es_get_th.html

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I know we as a fan base are frustrated with Holiday's passive play. I don't understand why the media (especially the local) isn't covering this. Only Demps would pay a guy 20 mil a year to average 14 points a game and view him as a scorer in the league.

The officiating was atrocious!! Yeah, I don't like it when the team abandons going down low, and commits bad turnovers, but I think the presence of Rondo will help a lot in righting some of these issues. We still should have won that game if the refs were decent. The last 2 minutes of reffing was awful!!

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Originally Posted by Bricklayer

it looked like he also may have blocked the shot from inside the cylinder, which is just...should not be missed by the refs. Ever. but maybe my eyes deceived me. Wolves own telecast crew thought it was though.

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I was at the game and thought so as well. I wanted to see if anyone here watching on TV thought so as well. Any comments from the commentators?

Jrue Holiday says it feels good to get off to a good start this season

"That's all they pretty much keep on saying is, 'Man, we need you to score.'" Holiday said. "So (I'm) focusing less on coming down and getting people into places and just trying to be aggressive and attack."
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which is why we need rondo to take the ball out of jrue hands so he can focus on scoring......