WMC 12/13: Mercy kill. (0-4)

I am so tired of losing....the word "patience" is making me inpatient.

Wmc:

*dont play Howie and Hill together
*MWP should not have more shots than Howie
*DONT PLAY MORRIS AT ALL!
*Try and mix in 2 Starters with the bench unit
*Stop playing Jamison out of position

432J wrote:artest really needs to cut down on the shots

does anyone else cringe whenever the ball lands in his hands?

I'm actually starting to cringe more when Morris has the ball.

I thought Morris played some great D last night.

Kit wrote:I thought Morris played some great D last night.

So did I. He was actually able to keep Parker in front of him minus a few times he got picked off on a screen.

I'm not a stat junkie, but if anyone can pull up the advanced stats for when Morris was on Parker it would be really appreciated.

On offense however, Morris is a freakin train wreck. I think they should only play Morris with Kobe and have Morris play a Fisher type role aka camp out in the corner and hit the 3. Anything more than that is a turnover waiting to happen.

My WMC: That line up to close out the game.. MWP/Kob/Jamison/Pau/D12.. At the critical juncture in the game when we absolutely have to tighten the screws on D, we give the Spurs the advantage of a HUGE mismatch by putting MWP on Parker. Jamison is good to spread the floor I guess but we all know his D is nothing to write home about.

All in all, this was a very winnable game and our lack of execution is what cost us at the end. I don't believe in moral victories, but if I did then this would go in the moral victory column. We have shown improvement every single game since we got rid of Brown and if we would have faced the Spurs last week with Brown at the helm, I'm confident we would have gotten blown out by 20+. We are taking steps in the right direction and with a real coach on board this weekend I expect us to keep improving.

raviator wrote:

432J wrote:artest really needs to cut down on the shots

does anyone else cringe whenever the ball lands in his hands?

I'm actually starting to cringe more when Morris has the ball.

i cringe whenever morris is within 10 ft of the court

I hope MDA set him straight.

- We need to get better at taking care of the ball
- We need to make better % of free throws

its one or the other. We cant lose in both categories. Squandering scoring opportunities at the free throw line AND giving the opponent more possessions to work with will lead to an L even if you're leading the rebounding battle and shooting a high % from the field. We have to take care of the ball and maximize each posession

Guys like MWP and Meeks need to strop dribbling too much

Jordan Hill and 'Tawn shouldn't be so unselfish when catching the ball so deep in the post. Commit and take it to the basket. We had so many turnovers over unnecessary passes.

I think turnovers will be an issue for this team...basically the entire year, especially without Nash. But if Lakers can cut down about 3 turnovers a game (about 15 a game), I think we'll be fine.

Last season, OKC, Miami, and Boston were all pretty bad at taking care of the ball too.

Why is no one talking about our inability to get the ball inside? We got almost nothing for Howard all game long. We had the same issues last year as well.

For me, that was the #1 problem. Not taking advantage of our .... umm biggest advantage.

JGC wrote:Why is no one talking about our inability to get the ball inside? We got almost nothing for Howard all game long. We had the same issues last year as well.

For me, that was the #1 problem. Not taking advantage of our .... umm biggest advantage.

Especially with our second unit (to start 2nd quarters for example), this is very evident. Jordan Hill winds up getting more post touches than him in that lineup. I don't know what that's about.
An obvious issue is spacing, and that's taking away from Howard's chances to score as well, because he gets doubled on the block and is forced to pass out..
Hopefully D'Antoni implements a few ways of improving that.

Finwë wrote:

JGC wrote:Why is no one talking about our inability to get the ball inside? We got almost nothing for Howard all game long. We had the same issues last year as well.

For me, that was the #1 problem. Not taking advantage of our .... umm biggest advantage.

Especially with our second unit (to start 2nd quarters for example), this is very evident. Jordan Hill winds up getting more post touches than him in that lineup. I don't know what that's about.
An obvious issue is spacing, and that's taking away from Howard's chances to score as well, because he gets doubled on the block and is forced to pass out..
Hopefully D'Antoni implements a few ways of improving that.

Yeah ... that's a good point. I noticed that as well. Hill getting more post touches than Howard. Let's hope D'Antoni can figure that one out because our players cannot, and neither could Mike Brown. We were complaining about that all last year that our bigs are our biggest advantage and we never used them enough.

I do think the doubling in the post has a lot to do with it, but I guess I'm not necessarily talking about getting him the ball in the post. I'm talking about running plays to get him easy looks. Remember how we were all talking about how Nash would get him like 5 easy looks per game? We can't even get him more than 1 per game it seems like.

I'm also concerned because one of the original reasons Dwight didn't want to play here is because he wouldn't get the ball. But beyond placating him, we need to do that to have the best chance of getting a win.

WMC is easy...Meeks & Duhon was a disaster. So bad they finished with the "BIG" lineup. Meeks has to be pressing. I don't recall him being THAT bad. I mean just awful. Makes you wonder why they let go of CDR. Morris was not very good on offense but played good defense. He is at his best playing next to Kobe so he can defer to Kobe.

Can't complain too much though. Really could have used Nash.

Minutes

Just don't like seeing Kobe log so many minutes. If he continues at this pace I see him burning out by the all-star break. His minutes need to be in the 34-35 minute range (actually they should have been tonight if Bernie had taken him out when he was supposed to)

WMC's:

-The first half D was tough to watch. In the second half we got a little better though.
-The starters should've been out of the game half way through the 4th. (Kobe with 38 minutes but Meeks had only 9)
-Pau showing up for only the 1st quarter.
-IMO we were able to score 110+ becasue Metta was raining 3's tonight. We can't really rely on Metta to be this hot from 3 every night. If we can get this type of 3 point shooting from Meeks + Jamison + Duhon on a nightly basis, we'll be better off.

Jellincon wrote:WMC's:

-The first half D was tough to watch. In the second half we got a little better though.
-The starters should've been out of the game half way through the 4th. (Kobe with 38 minutes but Meeks had only 9)
-Pau showing up for only the 1st quarter.
-IMO we were able to score 110+ becasue Metta was raining 3's tonight. We can't really rely on Metta to be this hot from 3 every night. If we can get this type of 3 point shooting from Meeks + Jamison + Duhon on a nightly basis, we'll be better off.

Take a few of those 3s away from Artest and give them to Nash. There's your difference.

WMC: The Fans!

Haha...already calling this Showtime part deux. Worthy and Rambis just looked at each other during the postgame show when Andy read that fan tweet. I literally yelled out...just stop it!

There can only be one. Need a new handle, cause its just disrespectful calling this team Showtime...come'n fans?!

ima call it fun&gun

Yeah...I like fun n gun too.

What about 24 seconds or hiss...just playing off the SSOL thing.

that's a nice classy hoody antawn jamison's got.

Starter minutes