Was at the game tonight. It could be confirmation bias, but it seemed clear to me the major issue, just like against Chicago, was not having a PG who understood how to run the team the way it had been successful the previous games. I don't think it's a coincidence that we lost DJ, who had been starting, and who has been with the team since last off-season and despite his limitations at least seemed successful so far this year in setting up an offense that focused on using ball-movement to get good shots; and after losing him we suddenly became a team the last two games of "pass, pound the ball, hand it to someone else, pound the ball, pass it to someone else, pound the ball, take a bad shot". That's not to say that I really dislike Mack. He played alright, and he is an asset as a backup PG. I obviously like Simmons, too. But our bench unit has not been successful in the same way that our starting unit had been. The bench unit, when we were playing great ball, was based on solid D, scrappy play, and Simmons being able to punish teams going at the bucket. Put Simmons into the starting lineup and he messes up the entire dynamic of ball-movement and finding good shots quickly that made the previous SL so good. The bench unit, without Simmons, has no one to go get buckets, so Mack has to pick up that role, which he's somewhat capable of, but not enough to sustain it the way Simmons has (he just can't attack the basket as efficiently, and he's not good enough at finding shooters, even if our second unit had really good ones.
Because we couldn't rely on a PG to set up the offense, in the last two game we've had two guys who seemed to be trying to force bad offense through pounding hero ball. Against Chicago, Aaron looked frustrated and yet determined to make that bad offense work (and no one else was moving the ball, so he just kept doing it, though he at least didn't take a ton of shots). Tonight, Fournier took 9 threes, most of them not good shots, trying to force it. Aaron took too many bad shots early, before it dawned on him that getting all the way to the basket was better than taking a contested pull-up jumper.
I don't think these things happen if a legitimate starting PG is there tonight. I'm concerned with how we've played the last two games, but not overly so. I think we really need to see what this team looks like when Payton returns before anyone panics.