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Luke_FfS

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Posts posted by Luke_FfS

  2. Posted · Report reply

    22 hours ago, Time2GetSerious said:

    If anyone has any credible explanations as to why no move or moves were made at the deadline, please feel free to share. I mean what valid explanation could there possibly be? 

    Still evaluating.

    Not a lot to say that is different from game 1, except that this time Harris had a very good game (liking him a lot on def too) but we wasted it with a lot of bad performance from other players.

    Mosley still too slow adapting  and reacting.

    Slow starts have been a problem in regular season too, but now I couldn't accept lack of motivation from such a young group. Didn't liked some of the faces I've seen.

    We're predictable and slow as hell. In half court offense and on fastbreak too.

     

  3. Posted · Report reply

    3 hours ago, All Eyes On Me said:

    I don’t think starting Isaac is the right move unless we’re gonna let the starters go 40+ minutes, it kills our bench. I also wouldn’t mind throwing our “death” lineup of Suggs/Franz/JI/P5/WCJ at the Cavs some this series. It was extremely effective early in the season and then we just kinda stopped doing it. 

    Also might be worth giving some spot minutes to Goga for his size; Jarrett Allen dominated us last game and really has all season. Curious to see how Mose adjusts.

    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.

    • Upvote 1

  4. Posted · Report reply

    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.

     

     

  5. Posted · Report reply

    4 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

    I don't know, I think Harris is just a low volume guy, you need guys like that. If he had an expanded offensive role his defense would likely drop off.

    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.

  7. Posted · Report reply

    5 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

    The Magic are 35-19 with Gary and 12-16 without him. Now, much like last season and Markelle with point guard play I think there's an element of "is it really Gary or is it just having a 2 way guard who can space the floor?" To be considered but nevertheless that's a compelling stat when we're talking about bringing Gary back.

     

    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.

  11. Posted · Report reply

    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.

  12. Posted · Report reply

    17 minutes ago, Jay Magic said:

    you aint gotta trust nothing I say... but its serves me better mentally to think positive.

    This squad if it clicks can go to the East finals DEFINITELY. 

    We are better than the Pacers..Knicks.. Cavs i know that much.. facts

     

     

    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.

  13. Posted · Report reply

    18 hours ago, JJZFL said:

    Disappointing but not surprising.  At this point it seems we can only beat bad teams.  It is possible that the game Sunday won’t matter for Milwaukee.  If that happens they might rest everyone so we get the win.  

    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!

    • Upvote 1

  15. Posted · Report reply

    4 hours ago, CTMagicUK said:

    I can't wait for the endless debate on who we'd prefer to trade for only to end up with neither. 

    This! :)

    Lowe was also talking about that recently.

    Quote

    6. The artful patience of Bogdan Bogdanovic off the bounce -- and, hey, the Atlanta Hawks got interesting!

    Ironically, it might take this stint starting in place of Trae Young for Bogdanovic to finally get his due in the Sixth Man of the Year conversation. Most of that discussion has focused on Malik Monk, Norman Powell and Naz Reid.

    That would be a plausible top three in any order. Bobby Portis has butted into the conversation again. I had Monk leading three weeks ago, but a slump and then a knee injury have reopened the race.

    Bogdanovic belongs in this inner circle. He is averaging a career-high 16.9 points and hitting 37.6% from deep on 10 attempts per 36 minutes. When he's on, Bogdanovic is a one-man inferno who can flip a game in two minutes.

    He can soak up more ballhandling when defenses blitz Young or Dejounte Murray -- or when one is injured. The Hawks are plus-3.1 per 100 possessions with Bogdanovic on the floor -- and minus-7.6 when he sits.

    Bogdanovic is not super fast, but he prods with a cagey change of pace that is tough to track.

    Derrick White hounds Bogdanovic around two screens. Bogdanovic pump-fakes, waits for White to fly by and then ... just keeps waiting until White ends up all the way on Bogdanovic's right shoulder.

    Bogdanovic burrows into White's chest, nudging him toward the sideline, and saunters through the alley that opens. When Bogdanovic senses he can get all the way to the rim, he hits the gas, crosses back to his right and evades Kristaps Porzingis with the artful up-and-under. (It's really more of a horizontal-and-under.)

    The Hawks are 12-9 since losing Young to finger surgery -- 11th in offense in that stretch and 15th in defense. They have outscored opponents by 2.4 points per 100 possessions. They were minus-2.4 before Young's injury -- 10th in offense and an embarrassing 30th in defense. Murray is averaging 25 points and 9 assists since Young went out.

    It's no surprise the Hawks have tightened their defense without Young. It's less about Young anyway, and more the Hawks being minus-150 this season with Young and Murray on the floor. Atlanta barely won its combined minutes last season. This is a 2,700-minute sample of mediocrity.

    It's not yet clear the Hawks are "better" without Young. It is clear that they aren't very good with Young and Murray and that they're not any worse off with only one. It's simple logic from there to trade one, recoup the picks that went out of the door in the original Murray deal and reorient the roster.

    Which one? The answer is probably whoever fetches the greater return.

    https://www.espn.ph/nba/insider/story/_/id/39876302/lowe-joel-embiid-return-anthony-davis-passing-lakers-cost-rockets

  18. Posted · Report reply

    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.

    • Upvote 1

  19. Posted · Report reply

    50 minutes ago, Jay Magic said:

    40 points on 44 shots is not good at all.

    Trae is on a different level to Murray

    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:

     

  20. Posted · Report reply

    12 hours ago, Mauro Pedrosa said:

    Dejounte Murray might actually be underrated. Fantastic game winner vs the Celtics 

    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.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Quote

    3. The Orlando Magic's two young stars, finding ways to amplify each other

    The basketball nerd inside me squealed upon seeing this:

    Orlando's tentpole stars cede the ball to a role player and cooperate in a split-style action.

    It is tricky at this early stage for Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner to make things easier for each other in conventional ways. Neither has much gravity away from the ball, though Banchero popping to 36% on 3s is massively encouraging. They are the same height and play similar styles, which means the defenders guarding them will often be about the same size -- making it easier to switch two-man actions. The Magic's deficit of shooting around Banchero and Wagner doesn't help.

    But even now, with both guys so young and the broader roster a work in progress, there are tactics to mine. The Pacers on this play indeed defend Banchero and Wagner with two like-sized defenders -- Siakam and Nesmith. They switch in sync. The play works anyway. Wagner's screen pins Siakam on the top side -- prey for that backdoor cut.

    The Magic are here to stay. Losses to the Knicks and Pacers in the past week hurt them in the race for the No. 4 seed (!), but they still have a two-game cushion above No. 6 and one of the league's easiest remaining schedules -- with 10 of their last 16 games at home.

    Their defense is legit -- physical, mean, unrelenting.

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

  25. Posted · Report reply

    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?)

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