Gamakis

quote: Originally posted by thelead:1) This team just isn't built to win a championship. 2) We miss Hedo 3) Vince isn't what we thought he was (I'll get back to this later) 4) We're stuck with playing a stretch 4 because Rashard cannot guard most sf's in the league and is too good to be benched. 5) Our defense is not as good as it was last year. This is on the starting guards mostly and also due to the next issue: 6) We shoot bad threes. Notice I didn't write "we shoot too many threes". We just don't shoot them in rhythm. Jameer's "look down and take two steps to get behind the three when we only need two to win" three tonight is the epitome of what I'm talking about. Not only does it hurt the offense, it kills our transition D. 7) We are weak mentally. We have blown way too many leads this year and I agree with SVG, it shows the team's immaturity. 8) Age/injuries are catching up with this team (especially at the wings were athleticism is even more important) . Yes we are deep at every position, but look at the guard line-up: Redick - 25 (the most consistent guard) Nelson - 28 (always injured or playing through an injury) Pietrus - 28 (still is dealing with a hand injury that he opted not to have surgery on this summer) Barnes - 29 Carter - 33 (He is mostly done. Period. He may give us a night or two every once in a while, but I wouldn't bet on him turning "it" around. He is just old and sort of out of shape.) Williams - 34 (Runs the offense well, but gets eaten up on D. Also runs out of gas with too many minutes.) Johnson - 35 (Doesn't play much, but would have loved to see him D up Foye tonight.) 9) Lack of a player that can walk the ball up the court and hit an 18 footer without any help. When we lost Hedo, we lost that player that didn't need anyone to get the shot he wanted with confidence. Jameer needs a pick, Rashard can't dribble, Barnes just doesn't have that skill set, JJ needs a pick. We need a Joe Johnson, a Stephen Jackson, a Rudy Gay, a Paul Pierce, a Danny Granger, hell, a Caron Butler even. What do we have? We have an old, broken down Vince Carter with no confidence. Now, we all know he is taking horrible shots, but guess what, he always has. He just used to have confidence in those shots. He used to confidently take 28 foot buzzer beaters and make them. He used to be able to dribble up from the top of the key without a pick, give a small crossover and make an 18 footer which then made the defense respect the range and give him more room to drive. Make no mistake about it, if Vince was playing up to last years level, we would be able to coast against the Washingtons of the league and win. We would be at 38 to 40 wins by now. 10) With all that said about Vince, it's unfair to pin all of our struggles on him. Vince has missed games, and guess what? We had many lackadaisical efforts that include losing to Denver by 18 and to OKC by 28. Look at our league ranking for these stats: FT% - 30th Off Reb - 27th Ast - 26th Stls - 22nd Basically we don't make the easy points (thats mostly on Dwight). We don't go for many offensive rebounds (which would be okay if we were a good shooting team, which we are not. We are average at 15th in the league in FG%). We're 5th worst in assist (which means we take alot of bad shots that are not in rhythm). I am not a huge fan of the steals number, because you don't want the guys to gamble for steals and giving up easy baskets, but 22nd is not even average. It shows that, for the most part, we are not playing aggressively enough on D. Just for a reference, Boston ranks 3rd in steals. We give guys way to much space on jumpers, but cannot play them tight cause we're too slow. So for those that like cliff notes: 1) Jameer's and JWill's D is awful (compare that to last years Rafer/Johnson rotation) 2) Bass or any other traditional 4 can't play here because Rashard can no longer defend the 3 3) Vince has been horrible on offense (mostly due to age and confidense). His D has been average (compare that to Lee's D last year) We may be able to turn this around, but I doubt it. We need a true bona fide scorer. Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath for one before the trade deadline. We may do something minor, but there is almost no way we are getting a scorer that can play D during the season. That just doesn't happen very often. I don't think I have ever regretted a purchase more than my Vince Carter jersey..... Pardon for the late reply....but this was an excellent analysis. I don't see why some people got all wound up about it. Does anyone really see it otherwise in actual games (not on paper)? Especially our PG defense is atrocious. We should be giving more minutes to AJ. Defensively Jameer and J. Will are EVERYONE's biatch!! Randy Foye's for example for last night..

Jameer is going to cost us this game. In the previous run, Rondo got the offensive rebound (Jameer was picking on his butt), then broke Jameer down that opened a 3 for allen (jameer was picking on his butt again), then he turned the ball over, and the Rondo broke him down again. Lets see if they go at him again... oh by the way, he was just late on the pass..

One word sums up all three: WORTHLESS Gimme some heart & hustle. I'd rather watch a less talented team win games that they're not supposed to, than watching these 3 lay down every night..

One word sums up all three: WORTHLESS Gimme some heart & hustle. I'd rather watch a less talented team win games that they're not supposed to, than watching these 3 lay down every night..

You know what, I am glad we lost this game! I made the point a while back that this team has no shame and all the "dreamers" came after. Point is if we had won tonite there would be no benefit. (what's the point of barely beating bad teams? all you do is create a ficticious record, you make the masses happy, and then you exit early in the play-offs). We need to keep loosing 'til we get the point that we need to play real basketball (meaning passing, defence, boxing out). Unless we don't start trying our hardest, we're going nowhere..

I say this year we slightly change his name.. from Shard, to Shart (you know, when you think you're gonna fart but you actually sh1t). )

Finally Stan called out Rashard (indirectly). "Our 4's have to have a little bit of pride and keep their players off the grass"

Congratulations to the Bulls! They realized if they put up a fight, the little sissies in blue will lay down..

What an embarrasment of a team we are..

Please DON"T bring Lewis in after this time out!!

ok, we just started playing some defense..it might be too late. And by the way it's time for Jameer to learn not to pass behind the player, rather in front of him. How many years of experience does it take for PG to realize that?

to continue...I's also use Bass at center instead of Marcin at this point. But Lewis has to give some sort of an effort!!

No sinister, you got it backward. Just because we have Dwight (and not everyone is Dwight)this doesn't mean that every man does not get to box out his own man. And actually Gordat HAS to guard Miller because he has an outside shot. He cannot compensate for Lewis' laziness. Dwight can, but Gordat (and many others in the league) can not!

I am really getting tired to watch Lewis loosing rebound after rebound. HE was on Gibson NOT Gordat. Yesterday it was Love, today is f'n Gibson. This guy is get abused by EVERYONE in the league. He was not THIS sad last year. It's annoying even seeing his stupid face on TV at this point of time. Just use Bass and Anderson. What waste of a body he is!!

Buttermilk is wright, noone will pick up that contract (unless we do a sign a trade for a top notch free agent ala Wade...fat chance)..