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

Hill & Meeks off the bench combined for 17 points (8-14 FG) and both played 19 & 17 minutes respectively.
Pau & Dwight starting combined for 18 points (3-19 FG) and both played 35 & 38 minutes respectively.

guys who get paid 20 mill a year vs guys who get paid 3 mill and 1.4 mill. guys should have to earn their $ like most people in the world. i honestly dont think anyone should have gotten paid for that game. pathetic effort by players and coaches who didnt seem to do anything for 48 mins. i didnt see any changes from the 1st quarter to the end of the 4th.

King of Clutch wrote:A good defensive team has defensive principles. If nash is alone on the wing against someone he should KNOW to get up on them, and there should be someone sliding over around the paint half doubling to show they'll prevent the drive around the paint. Same goes with anyone else. They should know which ways they'll force pgs, and where the back side help is coming from. There's a difference between having "good defensive players" and having a "good defensive team". We don't have the latter. And thats mostly on the coaching.

Our players are way too slow to play the "help and recover" game on D ... the pb goes beyond defensive principles .

Players who can help and recover on this team :

D12
Hill
Meeks
Morris ( he's not good at this though ... get lost easily but has the athleticism and quickness to do it).

Three of these 4 players don't finish games ... there is our huge pb

^ I agree with that thought.

trodgers wrote:

khmrP wrote:

trodgers wrote:5. Nash getting worked in the post. We need to address this problem; seems D'Antoni could've crossed up him and Kobe on D. Not sure why he didn't.

they tried that in the 4th, Holiday still had his way with Kobe

Everyone had their way with Nash.

well was Nash ever known for his D?

Man, that's not an answer. If he literally cannot guard anyone, he can't be on the floor in crunch time. If you're down 4, trying to close a game out, and you have one guy who automatically yields a bucket to someone on the other team, he can't be on the floor. That's why teams do offense/defense substitutions.

BTW, consider this response: "When was Kobe ever known to pass in the clutch?" It's just as bad.

I really think rotations late in games should come down to how they have played throughout the whole game and what we need at the point. most of the time its gunna be defensive effort and the offense will take care of itself if kobe isnt hogging the ball.

I think if pau is having a bad game like tonight then MWP should play the 4, Kobe the 3, and Meeks the 2. I thought tonight since Jamison didnt get a minutes of playing time when he should then thats the unit with Dwight that should have been out there. Either that unit OR Hill subbing in for Pau.

It should depend on how players are playing and earning their minutes. tonight i thought Meeks and especially Hill earned their minutes and one of them should have finished the game. imo it should have been nash/kobe/mwp/hill/dwight.

dwight and pau both were bad but were trying to get dwight to resign with us...you play him and hill instead of pau

wcsoldier81 wrote:

King of Clutch wrote:A good defensive team has defensive principles. If nash is alone on the wing against someone he should KNOW to get up on them, and there should be someone sliding over around the paint half doubling to show they'll prevent the drive around the paint. Same goes with anyone else. They should know which ways they'll force pgs, and where the back side help is coming from. There's a difference between having "good defensive players" and having a "good defensive team". We don't have the latter. And thats mostly on the coaching.

Our players are way too slow to play the "help and recover" game on D ... the pb goes beyond defensive principles .

Players who can help and recover on this team :

D12
Hill
Meeks
Morris ( he's not good at this though ... get lost easily but has the athleticism and quickness to do it).

Three of these 4 players don't finish games ... there is our huge pb

This is it. We can funnel everything to Dwight, and he will help. The problem is what you described. D'Antoni is going to have decisions to make when the games get close. Hill can close games with Dwight & Meeks as well while Kobe slides to the SF. Their not liabilities offensively and give you a chance with the game in the last 5 minutes.

That said there are problems with this roster. Unfortunately, we thought this was a championship team, but I must admit, I'm not seeing it right now. Defensively, if you think this is bad with a 76ers team, wait until we face the cream of the crop this month. This might just get worse; I'm bracing myself for the worst...

trodgers wrote:Man, that's not an answer. If he literally cannot guard anyone, he can't be on the floor in crunch time. If you're down 4, trying to close a game out, and you have one guy who automatically yields a bucket to someone on the other team, he can't be on the floor. That's why teams do offense/defense substitutions.

then Kobe, Pau shouldn't be on the floor either even MWP at times

Is anyone complaining about Kobe? From the opening tip dude was looking for his shot. Just wanted to go 1-1 all day (more like 1-3) and score.

Bigs sucked. but Kobe was a BALL STOPPER tonight. Carmelo bad. Wish Pringles had the balls to pull Kobe out like Phil.

Pringles is like a high school coach; plays favorites, rides star players, and decisions made on emotion instead of logic.

WMC

pathetic that the only teams worse record wise than us in the west are the jazz, mavs, kings, suns, and hornets. thats just embarassing. jazz have the same amount of wins and well prob be tied with them for losses after the clips game.

we cant win at home. we cant win on the road. were constantly going between .500 and under .500

dwight cant be consistent with what ever is going on with im. dominant and engaged one night and the next this. kobe scoring and passing one night and the team looks great and the next hes a ball hog with 0 assists and we look like this.

Nash is the only player consistently doing what he is supposed to to help the team win. shooting 50% and double digit assists.

This is also on ownership. they don't want to pay eddie jordan and him not be here. they are being cheap on dumping coaches that are not contributing. they need a defensive coaching voice. hire a defensive coach and MDA needs to give him time in practice to implement the defense. other than that this team has 0.00 chance of winning.

fkmikebrown wrote:i'm pretty sure this is exactly why they invented the phrase "good on paper"

Makes guys like Durant who said that very thing before the season look like they knew what they were talking about.

If anyone here's a football fan, remember when the Redskins were 3-6, and Head Coach Shanahan stated at the post-game interview that he was basically in player evaluation mode; that's exactly how I feel right now with this team exactly at this moment. I'm not insinuating the Lakers organization should feel like that, but maybe they should send that message to get this teams attention.

Not sure what that means, but I agree. Everyone should be in evaluation mode, including Mr. Jimmy at the top.

Hey but you're Dwight's dad, so can you tell him to step it up pls?

This team is going nowhere

WMC:

The minute D12 leaves the game, our defense becomes a steamy pile of crap.

kenzo wrote:This team is going nowhere

+50

kenzo wrote:This team is going nowhere

and nor should they. Its not like they are playing well and losing by accident.

Ridiculous team and coach!
This is a total humiliation!

Now it is a moment to make the trade and turn things around. We cant wait anymore. It was 3 months since season starts and we are bad, old, slow team. We stuck with MDA , he is not going to be fired this season, thats the fact so we need to make some trades and force some team changes bc this team like this not going anywhere. I dont buy this crap of process or "need more time" , these guys are veterans and they dont need 4,5 months for learning how to play with each other. 2 month is enough for them to figure out how to play. So only solution for this problem are young athletic and fresh players who can defend and run, simple as that. We dont need Pau in this team, we have one guy who kill us on defense in Nash, so we need to move Pau and bring someone who can defend and make boards. If we can trade Pau for some SF I am ok with JHill on PF, just move Pau and bring some athleticism.

- I watched the 4th quarter again ... one thing which stood out : you would have thought the Sixers were the team with 4 future HOFers ... they easily got open shots one after the other while we had to work harder to put points on the board ...

- the D is atrocious , we want to double and help on everybody (sometimes for no reason) but can't recover

- I was amazed (again) by the poor decisions and shots selections by MWP and Kobe

- Metta shouldn't get 8 shots in a 4th quarter of a close game ... D12 and Pau both complete non factor... besides Pau being bailed out a couple of times by the whistle .

-Two post touches in the whole 4th quarter is another huge pb ... too many chucking from outside off iso/PNR

Honestly, it's time to just accept this team isn't very good and no "turnaround" is going to happen. 6-8 seed at best, bounced in the 1st round. Amazing considering the hype we had. I guess that's what happens when you start out with Mike Brown and think Mike D'Antoni is the guy to fix it.

nameant wrote:Honestly, it's time to just accept this team isn't very good and no "turnaround" is going to happen. 6-8 seed at best, bounced in the 1st round. Amazing considering the hype we had. I guess that's what happens when you start out with Mike Brown and think Mike D'Antoni is the guy to fix it.

You are right about the team.... but I'm not laying this all at the feet of the Coach(s).

The personnel isn't a good fit for the scheme.... that's a fact, but the crap we are seeing on the defensive end isn't coaching related.... it's effort and chemistry related IMHO. We are working hard to get good looks consistently with this team yet our opponents get them very easily.... that's the crux of our season so far.

We need something to "shake up" the team.... apparently a coaching change wasn't enough....

Over the years I've watched a lot of Dwight's games and while I'm seeing that he's a little less "athletic" this season I'm not seeing the "huge drop off" that most are using to explain his play. He seems disinterested and disengaged most of the time out there and frustrated on the defensive end. We could use someone to stand up and take responsibility for our lack of defense...... all we get is Nash and Kobe stressing how important Dwight is on Defense..... until we have the leaders talking in terms of TEAM defense and not stressing just one person we will see what we are seeing IMO...