The Optimistic Thread! (TRD's FREEDOM THREAD!)

Reposting here. Not used to the rules just yet.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Bright side...

After tonights atrocious loss to the clippers, i'm really searching for some good from this. I really need your help, as well as others who are completely depressed. Here's what I came up with.

1. The backups
Bledsoe and crawford didn't necessarily "eat us alive" like I thought, even though they still played well. I thought if crawford could get 30 against the grizz, he was going to steamroll us. bledsoe was limited too. only 10 pts.

2. We didn't get blown out.
I honestly thought it wouldn't be close.I thought we were going to be blown out by 20+ points. Even though I was extremely angry after the game, I remembered my prediction before the game. Part of that is due to the play of a Mr.Kobe Bryant. Which leads me to my next point.

3. Kobe Bryant on Fire.
On a bum foot, 17th season, 34 yrs of age, kobe bryant is averaging 30.6 pts and 6 rebs, on 63.3% field goal percentage, and 50% from the 3pt line. Think about that for a second. I don't even think mj could stay this consistent over 17yrs. Still DOMINATING. Clearly this "old man" hasn't lost a step and has worked on his jumper in the offseason. He's smart enough to know that it was needed with nash coming to town and getting him open looks. He's the second leading scorer only to james harden. Wouldn't be surprised if he averages over 53% for the season...

4. No where to go but up.
We haven't won a game. And that won't change until we do. So with every game i'll be sure to go in with a mindset of: "if we lose, hey nothing has changed. We suck". But if we win i'll be thinking: "Are we clicking? Are we going to play to our potential and start dominating the league?!?!?!? =D".

So hey, cheer up people. and enjoy the weekend!!!

We won't be the only 0-3 team after Saturday games

Detroit's coming to town next game.

It was nice to see the D get stops at some points, but creating points from the turnovers is another issue altogether.

although right now this team is in pure chaos, we need atleast one athletic player like shannon brown who can wake a team up with just one mean dunk

The little rally we had at the end of the 2nd showed how well this team can play. We scored points in bunches and knocked down 2-3 shots from beyond the arc to cut the score down.

were not winning any games...but its NOT bc of the new offense not working. its all about turnovers and a lack of defense.

its amazing how well were shooting as a team. for instance, against the clippers tonight we had 95 points (which is still pretty good for us considering last season). clippers had 105, (10 more points), BUT we got to 95 shooting 34-68. the clippers got to 105 shooting 38-84. thats only 4 more shots made but 16 more shots taken.

That is EXTREMELY efficient for a team. the reason we lost was that we gave up that many points to them in the first place. i think its crazy that we can turn the ball over 20 times! and still only lose by 10...and that they had almost 20 more shots than us but still made about the same as us. we lost by 3 fg's, one more 3 pointer, and one more FT than us.

I am frustrated, as all of us are but looking at those numbers...looking at how well the team is offensively and we don't even know the offense or each other yet is pretty impressive. makes me feel a little better that were at least doing something right. Defense will come eventually once guys know each other better. and Dwight is still exactly 1 step too slow. he gets that back ann he has like 8 blocks tonight.

Kobe is injured but is shooting extremely efficient for the amount of points he puts up. in 3 games (with heavy minutes though) he's at 30.6PPG @ 61.4%FG & (in a small sample size) 50%3PT.

The minutes should go down as the team gets better defensively...which require dwight to get healthy and metta to stop messing around and do what he's meant to do for this team. anchor the D with Dwight. Dwight cant do it right now so a new healthy in shape metta has to step up.

I think that with all that offensive efficiency etc that we havent won a game on that alone is very frustrating...but theres nothing we can do but hope that they know what theyre doing. mike brown is a joke of a coach but we have so many players that can coach better than him that i dont think they'll do something that he says unless it will help the team. so far, learning the hardest and most complicated offense has been tough...thus the reason teams dont run it fully only little small pieces if that.

We'll be okay come playoffs as long as dwight and everyone is 100%....but until then its gonna be a very bumpy frustrating road for players and fans. but we can look at the offense as a bright spot...defense is whats holding us back as well as turnovers. limit stupid turnovers (like the dumb passes made into the post) as well as put more effort on D and well be okay.

Mike Brown will be fired
ti's what I pray every night
Hands clasped really tight

We're going to win tonight.

vegas thinks we should win by 7.5 tonight...im gonna go with their hunch


the 0 must go

Steve is out 4 weeks... he is a good enough and smart enough player to catch up to speed quickly. This will give more time for our crappy guards to work on their game.

therealdeal wrote:We're going to win tonight.

Yeah I think I'm right.

This is EXACTLY what the team needed. Some jerks to beat up on.

By the way, look what happens when we limit turnovers. The offense looks great.

Duhon looked purdy good.
Blake 6/6/5/5
Kobe was scary efficient. Dwight beasted.

The offense looked fantastic. This was/is a lot closer to what I've been expecting all season long. This is the kind of offense that makes this team better.

The defense looked very good. Yes, it's against a crap opponent, but that's alright. We needed a crap team to beat up on.

MOST IMPORTANTLY! We won the turnover battle. I've been saying forever that if we win the turnover battle, we'll win the game. We still had 15 which is a bit too many, but we didn't have anyone over 5 turnovers and I think that's a first this season.

we won? i guess

Even this was the sorry Pistons, this win gets the monkey off the Laker's back and they can relax and play more fluid basketball from here on out.

Duhon can make things happen for others. Morris can't.

Dwight is still great, Kobe is still efficient. Blake is looking much better now then last year. Metta's got a pulse.
Jamison hit a 3. Sacre scored.

Winning streak is now 1.

Lakerjones wrote:Detroit's coming to town next game.

Detroit came to town!!

By the way OKC lost to the Hawks tonight (1-2).

And Boston lost to the Bucks earlier this week and BARELY beat the Wizards (1-2).

I know we're struggling and we need to get a lot better, but things aren't quite as dark as they seem. We're going to make improvements and in a few months this team is going to look much better. Stay grounded folks.

therealdeal wrote:By the way OKC lost to the Hawks tonight (1-2).

And Boston lost to the Bucks earlier this week and BARELY beat the Wizards (1-2).

I know we're struggling and we need to get a lot better, but things aren't quite as dark as they seem. We're going to make improvements and in a few months this team is going to look much better. Stay grounded folks.

The nuggets are 0-3

Finwë wrote:

therealdeal wrote:By the way OKC lost to the Hawks tonight (1-2).

And Boston lost to the Bucks earlier this week and BARELY beat the Wizards (1-2).

I know we're struggling and we need to get a lot better, but things aren't quite as dark as they seem. We're going to make improvements and in a few months this team is going to look much better. Stay grounded folks.

The nuggets are 0-3

There ya go.

Not trying to be overly optimistic because the Pistons suck ...

But finally we were forcing baseline tonight! Finally!

You saw how much better the defense looked when we communicate & force baseline.

^Not just that, we weren't forcing the Princeton all the time. Sometimes we ISO'd. Sometimes we actually ran a fastbreak. This cut down the TO's significantly. 15 TO's is still more than we want, but it's a hellava lot better than 20.

Im pleasantly surprised by Blake's play. Need more of this. Hes gonna get 18-20 minutes a night, hes gotta knock down these open shots hes getting

And looks like the garbage sig is working

Mike Brown's horrible management of the players will lead to his demise :)