January 29th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Boston Celtics - 26-20

[RobertM320]

Again, if CJ is off he's a black hole chucker and a huge liability on defense. Tonight 1-5 from 3 and 4 turnovers. Boston was going at him all game because it was too easy to score on him.

And Tatum went 2-8 from 3 and 7 turnovers. I guess Boston should have benched him as well?

[hornetsrebirth]

Again, if CJ is off he's a black hole chucker and a huge liability on defense. Tonight 1-5 from 3 and 4 turnovers. Boston was going at him all game because it was too easy to score on him.

He's a 40 percent three point shooter, but despite have a rare poor 3 point performance this game he still put up 16 points on 50% FG. Forget about Dyson scoring no points, take a look at the +/- for CJ and Dyson in tonight's game and tell me what you see.

[donato]

He's a 40 percent three point shooter, but despite have a rare poor 3 point performance this game he still put up 16 points on 50% FG. Forget about Dyson scoring no points, take a look at the +/- for CJ and Dyson in tonight's game and tell me what you see.

Plus minus is a very flawed indicator. I saw Dyson playing excellent defense in far less minutes. I saw Boston going over and around CJ all game. Huge liability against smart teams.

[RobertM320]

He's a 40 percent three point shooter, but despite have a rare poor 3 point performance this game he still put up 16 points on 50% FG. Forget about Dyson scoring no points, take a look at the +/- for CJ and Dyson in tonight's game and tell me what you see.

Exactly. CJ was a -1, which was better than Herb, Zion, Trey (all -7), and Dyson -8. Valenciunas was a +6, but only got 20 minutes, while Nance was a -12, ALSO in 20 minutes.

Rotations suck. That's on Willie.

[RobertM320]

Plus minus is a very flawed indicator. I saw Dyson playing excellent defense in far less minutes. I saw Boston going over and around CJ all game. Huge liability against smart teams.

Boston went over and around CJ all game, but he was a -1? I'll take that over Dyson any day. I'd rather have CJ scoring 16 and giving up 20, than having Dyson only giving up 10 but scoring ZERO.

[hornetsrebirth]

Plus minus is a very flawed indicator. I saw Dyson playing excellent defense in far less minutes. I saw Boston going over and around CJ all game. Huge liability against smart teams.

Did you see Dyson put the ball through the hoop at all?

[PELICANSFAN]

Willie appears to be the NBA version of an NFL coach whose team dominates all game only to lose when he changes up and goes into a prevent defense.

[new city champ]

Pels staff is slow to accept the reality of the modern NBA: Scorers are going to score, period.

It does not matter most the time who you put out there to guard them. If they are on their game, they are going to score. So, you've got to keep up with them. You can't do that playing with a non-scorer like Dyson at crunch time. He's a good defender, but he's not stopping guys like Tatum or Brown or even White from scoring. So there is zero value added by having him out there. In fact, due to his complete inability to score, you are handicapping your team with the game on the line.

[Creative]

At least the boys fought... I'm telling you - we need one good deal.

[hornetsrebirth]

Jose has been DNP coach's decision during the skid.

[Fedupfan]

As soon as they can find a leader to control these kids, the better they will be. Team has zero leadership.

[donato]

That's another reason why CJ was brought in, but he's not vocal towards other guys and doesn't call them out. At least not from what we can see.

[RobertM320]

Some interesting comments from Brian Scalabrini on Sirius XM NBA radio this morning regarding Zion. He said its not a matter of Zion being out of shape condition wise. Its more that he plays with such force and intensity its impossible for ANYONE to reach a condition level to handle playing that way in more than short spurts. He said, unlike other players who can hide out in the corner and take possessions off, we really can't do that much with Zion. He said when Zion drove the lane, no one on the Celtics could stop him. But, once we got late in the 4th, Zion couldn't maintain that intensity. He said if HE had Zion on his team, he'd substitute him in and out multiple times each half, in spurts of 3-4 minutes each. Like play him 4 minutes, sub him out. Sub him back in a couple minutes later at a time out for a few more minutes, etc. He'd still get his minutes but he'd be able to dominate through all of them. It kinda seems what Willie is trying to do by having him the first player out about 5-6 minutes into the game, but I think Scal would go even shorter bursts.

[donato]

Some interesting comments from Brian Scalabrini on Sirius XM NBA radio this morning regarding Zion. He said its not a matter of Zion being out of shape condition wise. Its more that he plays with such force and intensity its impossible for ANYONE to reach a condition level to handle playing that way in more than short spurts. He said, unlike other players who can hide out in the corner and take possessions off, we really can't do that much with Zion. He said when Zion drove the lane, no one on the Celtics could stop him. But, once we got late in the 4th, Zion couldn't maintain that intensity. He said if HE had Zion on his team, he'd substitute him in and out multiple times each half, in spurts of 3-4 minutes each. Like play him 4 minutes, sub him out. Sub him back in a couple minutes later at a time out for a few more minutes, etc. He'd still get his minutes but he'd be able to dominate through all of them. It kinda seems what Willie is trying to do by having him the first player out about 5-6 minutes into the game, but I think Scal would go even shorter bursts.

Maybe. I think part of the issue also is, if he's in the game, why are there sometimes 3 and 4 possessions in a row where he's not touching the ball? He needs to be more involved when he's in the game. I know that's supposedly something they've been working on, but it's not quite there.

[RobertM320]

Maybe. I think part of the issue also is, if he's in the game, why are there sometimes 3 and 4 possessions in a row where he's not touching the ball? He needs to be more involved when he's in the game. I know that's supposedly something they've been working on, but it's not quite there.

Exactly. Scalabrini felt that Zion could be really dominant. There's any number of possessions where we stick him in the corner, probably to let him take off a possession, but its useless because any team in the NBA will give him that shot 1000 times and live with the results.

[PaKwAn]

Some interesting comments from Brian Scalabrini on Sirius XM NBA radio this morning regarding Zion. He said its not a matter of Zion being out of shape condition wise. Its more that he plays with such force and intensity its impossible for ANYONE to reach a condition level to handle playing that way in more than short spurts. He said, unlike other players who can hide out in the corner and take possessions off, we really can't do that much with Zion. He said when Zion drove the lane, no one on the Celtics could stop him. But, once we got late in the 4th, Zion couldn't maintain that intensity. He said if HE had Zion on his team, he'd substitute him in and out multiple times each half, in spurts of 3-4 minutes each. Like play him 4 minutes, sub him out. Sub him back in a couple minutes later at a time out for a few more minutes, etc. He'd still get his minutes but he'd be able to dominate through all of them. It kinda seems what Willie is trying to do by having him the first player out about 5-6 minutes into the game, but I think Scal would go even shorter bursts.

Umm Giannis can actually keep it up and still be able to play on the defensive end. So i disagree about it being worded impossible for anyone to reach that level of conditioning.

[RobertM320]

Umm Giannis can actually keep it up and still be able to play on the defensive end. So i disagree about it being worded impossible for anyone to reach that level of conditioning.

No, Zion's drives are even more violent and forceful than Giannis, according to people who've actually seen them both play in person at courtside multiple times. And again, Giannis can stand in the corner, take possessions off, shoot the midrange and three ball, and he does. So no, he ISNT keeping it up at that force full time.