Luke_FfS

Actually I've no problem with Isaac starting if he feels good enough, except the fact that this lineup has no experience playing together. But it's an option, giving Wendell inconstency. My main issue is how we manage rotations later. The same Isaac, or probably Franz, should go out early to be back with the second unit (playing Cole more with starters to avoid his hero ball?). No lineup should be made by reserves only, and I believe even better if at least two starters are always in. Having depth is good on regular season, but in playoffs you don't play 10/11 guys. Also, Moe and Ingles together are a big big defensive hole, so if the choice is play both, please stagger their minutes.

Even if I loved having Isaac available for extended minutes, our starting lineup only played 44 minutes together all season. Our best three players had absolutely ZERO playoff experience, and even if the Cavs isn't a top level experienced team, they had a lot more than us. There was a few good lessons our young players can learn from yesterday. Everyone that was hoping for us suddenly becoming a good offensive team was honestly dreaming - regular season issues always gets magnified coming playoffs. We will not become good in a couple days, but there're surely things we can do better, and not only on offense. Even if for some stretches our def was great, we also conceded too much dunks and easy ones on the paint. We are a great def rebounding team, and we let too much offensive ones too. Suggs just need to take a deep breath sometimes. Harris was unfortunately terrible on offense, but made his work on def (even if I would like Suggs to take Mitchell sometimes too, and being focused on what he does best, defense) Rotations: talked about it all season, now that we're in playoffs we MUST play ZERO minutes without any of our top two players in the lineup, not to mention all three. Fultz-Cole-Ingles-Moe-Wendell is a terrible choice (two bad defensive players + one bad offensive one) amplified by the fact that Isaac was starting and not there helping the second unit. Little details we could and should improve. Cleveland will react too. Hope we can stay closer.

Not an offensive expanded role by design, but following the flow of the game. A lot of times paint was clogged with no space for Paolo and Franz. In playoffs will be even more, so we'll need the low volume guys to hit their shots. If Harris is able to shot at high %, like he has done last season and this one before the injury, he'll help our stars have more space. But we have to find him in the right spots first.

Probably a long time since we had so many mentions in Lowe selections. Suggs receiving the most. https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/39944541/zach-lowe-final-selections-nba-mvp-roy-other-awards https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/39970480/lowe-naming-2023-24-all-nba-all-defense-all-rookie-teams

Harris is not making anything exceptional, but it's solid and in our situation, is a good fit for what we have. There could also be an argument that we're not maximizing him, with our lack of ball movement and spacing. When he's hot from 3's he could make the difference, potentially an X-factor for our series.

My big-NO to Trae was basically related to chemestry problems and fit in our team (even before his return to action), but you added the financial part that is always important. Please stay away.

Interesting play--in matchup coming. Rozier out for Miami

I'm not as optimist as Jay :P, but I actually like the Cavs pairing, so I'm starting to have the hope we could do it if we show the better version of us. Sometimes is better not to have expectations, but...

What a difference having an healthy Isaac with no minutes restriction could make to us. Great way to enter playoffs in a good noteand mindset. And Cleveland is not the worst matchup we could find, they were red hot in february, not anymore. A shame we were unable to retain home court adv against them.

I agree with you that there's a lot of uncertainity in the East (and I really LOVE your optimism even if I don't share it all the time), Boston being the only one that seem abobe the others, so everything could happen in a series, especially if a team gets hot at the right time (we're not at the moment) But I can't see our team as structured now going very far (hope I'm wrong). Our two/three best players are relatively unexperienced in general, totally if we talk about playoffs. Franz is having big troubles with 3's. Paolo seem uninterested sometimes in defense, and too ISO in offense. Both are quite turnover prone. Ingles and Moe are barely unplayable in playoffs for their defense. Fultz for his offense. As a team, our best strenght has been defense. But every team improve on that facet coming playoff time. How much we can improve? And how much we can improve an offense that is already in trouble against regular season defenses? In general, playoff games are another beast. Scouting is a lot more deep, coaches have a lot more time to prepare the series, and more focus. My fear is that we haven't enough answers and options, while our offense is way to predictable to scout and be completely shut down.

Beating only bad teams would be ok for the kind of team we're now, the problem is we lost two key games recently against losing teams with nothing to play for. But I'll trust Jay: we can't beat any winning team, but we'll make it to the conference finals!

Actually we won last two. March 6 and 30.

This! :) Lowe was also talking about that recently. https://www.espn.ph/nba/insider/story/_/id/39876302/lowe-joel-embiid-return-anthony-davis-passing-lakers-cost-rockets

Harris +/- in a zero point game is one of the weirdest stat I've ever seen. Another good W, Vuc helping us :P, East has a really strange shape right now.

Very good W, and a signal that we have an extra gear when needed.

We're playing with fire again, and that's not the right mentality to enter playoffs. Speaking of that, I would like coach Mosley to start to implement some playoff solutions in the rotation, at least in close games or ones with strong opponent. Like avoid lineups with multiple bad defenders, avoid lineups without both Paolo and Franz (and sometimes even Jalen), and so on. And when he wants to ride Mo at C until the end of the game, at least try to do it on a attack/defense set, with Carter or Isaac ready for the def possession. We should start to experiment with those changes, we're way more unexperienced than other teams, and switching the mentality will not be as simple in a couple weeks.

My comments were not about the last game but in general. Murray is shooting 46,4% on the season, same % than Banchero but from more outside. 36,6 on 3's on high volume is not bad either, easily better than anyone of our guards. You can also check the other stats like rebs and assists. Maybe Trae stats are probably more enticing (his % are not), but the kind of player is not. You're so happy about the actual Magic roster, Trae would completely change all the chemistry. While I believe Murray would be a great fit. Other reasons why I don't like Trae at all were previously posted there:

I didn't wanted to be too repetitive, but not only yesterday, in the last few weeks he has been outstanding. Atlanta is playing a lot better and actually has a better record since Trae injury, actually a winning record that would gave them the playoffs. That's for everyone that is still considering Trae as a future option (already explained why I'm totally against that). I'm still on the train "we should have traded for a guard, possibly the same Murray last deadline". We could still do that in the future, but that was the right moment, and probably the lower price.

Not anymore!

You said a lot of things... and some of them will NEVER happen! :P

Great win and great to see Franz making a couple 3's after a long draught.

https://www.espn.in/nba/insider/insider/story/_/id/39732968/lowe-dangerous-pelicans-milwaukee-shrinking-margin-error

I shared my doubts on him last seasons, but also my hopes. Still relatively unexperienced as a coach, my hope was that he was going to improve together with the young core. This season, I've liked a lot that he used more fantasy with lineups and in.game choices, while last season we were predictable as hell. There's still a way to go with X's and O's. But the improvement is happening right in front of our eyes, so the extension make sense. I still insist on the need to help him with top assistants (offensive coach, shooting coach?)

Players also drive hard into the paint with better success when there's proper spacing around.

I'm actually more worried by the 28% from 3 by Franz. Initially could have been considered a slump, but now is dragging on a little too much. As for the game, not going to beat the same death horse, evident problem is always the same and we've to live with it.