Game 74: 76ers @ Cavs 3/29/2024

[ijspeelman]

[JujitsuFlip]

No Wade or TJ in this one, Mitchell and Garland are both game time decisions.

Edit: looks like LeVert is a late scratch.

[JonFromVA]

Mitchell tweeted out a #LetEmKnow, so, sounds like he's going to give it a go.

Hopefully his return gives the team back the energy they've been missing lately, or else JF's expected death march towards a first round exit and a new coach is looking likely.

[jbk1234]

No Wade or TJ in this one, Mitchell and Garland are both game time decisions.

You can't convince me TJ is still alive. I think they're still trying to locate his next of kin.

[JujitsuFlip]

No Wade or TJ in this one, Mitchell and Garland are both game time decisions.

You can't convince me TJ is still alive. I think they're still trying to locate his next of kin.

It is probably just Dylan Windler lmao

[jbk1234]

I'm legit over RCF. It's amazing how much they reward pessimism on that website

[JujitsuFlip]

Bang bang Niang looks like he had to show out a bit against his old club.

[JonFromVA]

I'm legit over RCF. It's amazing how much they reward pessimism on that website

What's going on now?

I mean there are problems with the team, but I think most fans would prefer to be wrong about their fears and see the team rise up.

Certainly don't read live game threads unless for chuckles.

They looked good with Mitchell back, but let's see if they can keep it going or just suffer more injuries and other problems.

[jbk1234]

I'm legit over RCF. It's amazing how much they reward pessimism on that website

What's going on now?

I mean there are problems with the team, but I think most fans would prefer to be wrong about their fears and see the team rise up.

They looked good with Mitchell back, but let's see if they can keep it going or just suffer more injuries and other problems.

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

[JujitsuFlip]

I'm legit over RCF. It's amazing how much they reward pessimism on that website

What's going on now?

I mean there are problems with the team, but I think most fans would prefer to be wrong about their fears and see the team rise up.

They looked good with Mitchell back, but let's see if they can keep it going or just suffer more injuries and other problems.

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

I got banned from RCF i think 8 years ago after like 1 week on there or something lol

I believe ownership changed since then but doesn't sound like the culture/attitude has.

It is sad that is pretty much the only dedicated forum for the team now days.

[JonFromVA]

I'm legit over RCF. It's amazing how much they reward pessimism on that website

What's going on now?

I mean there are problems with the team, but I think most fans would prefer to be wrong about their fears and see the team rise up.

They looked good with Mitchell back, but let's see if they can keep it going or just suffer more injuries and other problems.

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

Well, I'm going to re-iterate that game threads have always been the worst as emotions and alcohol swing up & down with each play; but moderation is very important to me when selecting a board I care to post on. I don't really even care that much about the style of moderation but rather the consistency of it. I had an arrangement at one point that if they had a problem with anything I posted that they'd just message me and let me fix it, but too many mods and things get forgotten. So, I got slapped with a temp ban by a mod I was going back & forth with about Kay Felder of all people and haven't posted there since.

There is a long-standing group think problem on the board because some people do know stuff, but only give up a little bit of it and as you can imagine every team goes through some drama at some point or another. The pessimists will hear something or see something and latch on to it. Some get locked in to an extreme position they just can't let go of no matter the evidence. And as we've discussed on RGM the team certainly has a number of struggles. For anyone to survive being outnumbered on a message board, they need a strong stomach and support from people on the staff who value diverse opinions. I hear Reddit is awful in that respect because of the downvote and Karma mechanism - but I just avoid opinion driven subreddits.

[JonFromVA]

What's going on now?

I mean there are problems with the team, but I think most fans would prefer to be wrong about their fears and see the team rise up.

They looked good with Mitchell back, but let's see if they can keep it going or just suffer more injuries and other problems.

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

I got banned from RCF i think 8 years ago after like 1 week on there or something lol

I believe ownership changed since then but doesn't sound like the culture/attitude has.

It is sad that is pretty much the only dedicated forum for the team now days.

Things have turned over a couple of times at the top, but it's always been people involved with administration of the board. As the board grew and grew the moderation became more knee jerk and more arbitrary. Honestly, it's pretty hard to avoid. So, I don't blame, just move on.

[JujitsuFlip]

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

I got banned from RCF i think 8 years ago after like 1 week on there or something lol

I believe ownership changed since then but doesn't sound like the culture/attitude has.

It is sad that is pretty much the only dedicated forum for the team now days.

Things have turned over a couple of times at the top, but it's always been people involved with administration of the board. As the board grew and grew the moderation became more knee jerk and more arbitrary. Honestly, it's pretty hard to avoid. So, I don't blame, just move on.

Back in the day there was a really cool one, what was it called like Cav Fanatics or something? I think it was tied directly to the Cavs site; it had its issues but overall that is where i used to post the most.

[jbk1234]

What's going on now?

I mean there are problems with the team, but I think most fans would prefer to be wrong about their fears and see the team rise up.

They looked good with Mitchell back, but let's see if they can keep it going or just suffer more injuries and other problems.

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

Well, I'm going to re-iterate that game threads have always been the worst as emotions and alcohol swing up & down with each play; but moderation is very important to me when selecting a board I care to post on. I don't really even care that much about the style of moderation but rather the consistency of it. I had an arrangement at one point that if they had a problem with anything I posted that they'd just message me and let me fix it, but too many mods and things get forgotten. So, I got slapped with a temp ban by a mod I was going back & forth with about Kay Felder of all people and haven't posted there since.

There is a long-standing group think problem on the board because some people do know stuff, but only give up a little bit of it and as you can imagine every team goes through some drama at some point or another. The pessimists will hear something or see something and latch on to it. Some get locked in to an extreme position they just can't let go of no matter the evidence. And as we've discussed on RGM the team certainly has a number of struggles. For anyone to survive being outnumbered on a message board, they need a strong stomach and support from people on the staff who value diverse opinions. I hear Reddit is awful in that respect because of the downvote and Karma mechanism - but I just avoid opinion driven subreddits.

Game threads are the worst (a hater posted an anatomical picutre of a man with no balls and a little penis captioned only Garland), but even in the Garland thread I posted that a lot of fans would be eating crow on Garland if Mitchell was back in time for the playoffs and Garland was no longer the sole offensive player that opposing defenses worried about.

Some mod or legacy member got all pissy about it insisting that no one was claiming Garland was a bad player, only that fans were expressing disappointment because they expected more from a good player. I responded with read the very thread we're posting in, you got folks saying he's not worth his contract, he's a below average PG, we should've traded him, Mitchell is going to leave because of him, etc...That's not just expressing disappointment.

I feel like the ethos over there is just broken. If you're going to allow ridiculous negative hyperbole from fans, you should probably allow a good deal of leeway to those fans pushing back against the hot takes on behalf the players or player. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it's a mistake to treat everyone's opinion as equally valid and beyond critique. It usually only happens when mods can't separate their opinion from the one being ridiculed.

[JonFromVA]

There's like 8-10 fans who clearly don't like Garland, have decided everything is his fault and they've showed up in the game threads to dogpile him while we were short handed. Just over the top stuff. I recognize a good chunk of them as diehard Sexton guys. Not surprisingly, some fans, myself included, pushed back.

He had a couple of good games this week, the Cavs won, and a mod intervened twice on behalf of the Garland critics to warn his defenders. A poster was warned after accusing Garland critics of *group think,* there was some back and forth regarding all the things the critics had said not only over the past month, but in that very thread, and the mod was so pissy about it the fan elected to leave the website. Today a mod (the same one I think) started deleting posts about how angry the critics were that we won (and they were clearly pissed). I said *go team pessimism* in response and actually got a short-term suspension. I'm not going back. The place is toxic and you apparently can't even make fun of the most toxic people when they're wrong.

I was a mod. I know it's not a rewarding job, but an important part of it is not letting your your own opinions regarding a player or team impact what you view as valid commentary and moderate accordingly. We've seen what that looks like on the T&T board at its low point.

Well, I'm going to re-iterate that game threads have always been the worst as emotions and alcohol swing up & down with each play; but moderation is very important to me when selecting a board I care to post on. I don't really even care that much about the style of moderation but rather the consistency of it. I had an arrangement at one point that if they had a problem with anything I posted that they'd just message me and let me fix it, but too many mods and things get forgotten. So, I got slapped with a temp ban by a mod I was going back & forth with about Kay Felder of all people and haven't posted there since.

There is a long-standing group think problem on the board because some people do know stuff, but only give up a little bit of it and as you can imagine every team goes through some drama at some point or another. The pessimists will hear something or see something and latch on to it. Some get locked in to an extreme position they just can't let go of no matter the evidence. And as we've discussed on RGM the team certainly has a number of struggles. For anyone to survive being outnumbered on a message board, they need a strong stomach and support from people on the staff who value diverse opinions. I hear Reddit is awful in that respect because of the downvote and Karma mechanism - but I just avoid opinion driven subreddits.

Game threads are the worst (a hater posted an anatomical picutre of a man with no balls and a little penis captioned only Garland), but even in the Garland thread I posted that a lot of fans would be eating crow on Garland if Mitchell was back in time for the playoffs and Garland was no longer the sole offensive player that opposing defenses worried about.

Some mod or legacy member got all pissy about it insisting that no one was claiming Garland was a bad player, only that fans were expressing disappointment because they expected more from a good player. I responded with read the very thread we're posting in, you got folks saying he's not worth his contract, he's a below average PG, we should've traded him, Mitchell is going to leave because of him, etc...That's not just expressing disappointment.

I feel like the ethos over there is just broken. If you're going to allow ridiculous negative hyperbole from fans, you should probably allow a good deal of leeway to those fans pushing back against the hot takes on behalf the players or player. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it's a mistake to treat everyone's opinion as equally valid and beyond critique. It usually only happens when mods can't separate their opinion from the one being ridiculed.

One reason I've never volunteered to be a mod is I'd feel like I would need to step back from slinging opinions so I could moderate with less bias.

Anyway, B Mac (a moderator) is being pretty reasonable in the Garland thread. I think a problem I've run in to and you ran in to is people will latch on to one part of a point you make (Lillard) and then try to bury you with it ignoring the over all point (Garland isn't the only one struggling with an injured squad).

I also feel that while Garland has struggled to run this depleted team that he is when 100%, capable of doing much better, and the big question everyone should be focusing on is why isn't he 100%? Why has his shot been inconsistent? How far along is he in recovering from the broken jaw? Why don't we run a more diverse offense? Why won't JBB play him with CPJ so we have that extra playmaker? Why does his energy waver at times to the point it looks like he's just quit?

There are a lot of questions, but my preference is for posts that give answers. Crapping on players isn't my idea of fun.

[jbk1234]

Well, I'm going to re-iterate that game threads have always been the worst as emotions and alcohol swing up & down with each play; but moderation is very important to me when selecting a board I care to post on. I don't really even care that much about the style of moderation but rather the consistency of it. I had an arrangement at one point that if they had a problem with anything I posted that they'd just message me and let me fix it, but too many mods and things get forgotten. So, I got slapped with a temp ban by a mod I was going back & forth with about Kay Felder of all people and haven't posted there since.

There is a long-standing group think problem on the board because some people do know stuff, but only give up a little bit of it and as you can imagine every team goes through some drama at some point or another. The pessimists will hear something or see something and latch on to it. Some get locked in to an extreme position they just can't let go of no matter the evidence. And as we've discussed on RGM the team certainly has a number of struggles. For anyone to survive being outnumbered on a message board, they need a strong stomach and support from people on the staff who value diverse opinions. I hear Reddit is awful in that respect because of the downvote and Karma mechanism - but I just avoid opinion driven subreddits.

Game threads are the worst (a hater posted an anatomical picutre of a man with no balls and a little penis captioned only Garland), but even in the Garland thread I posted that a lot of fans would be eating crow on Garland if Mitchell was back in time for the playoffs and Garland was no longer the sole offensive player that opposing defenses worried about.

Some mod or legacy member got all pissy about it insisting that no one was claiming Garland was a bad player, only that fans were expressing disappointment because they expected more from a good player. I responded with read the very thread we're posting in, you got folks saying he's not worth his contract, he's a below average PG, we should've traded him, Mitchell is going to leave because of him, etc...That's not just expressing disappointment.

I feel like the ethos over there is just broken. If you're going to allow ridiculous negative hyperbole from fans, you should probably allow a good deal of leeway to those fans pushing back against the hot takes on behalf the players or player. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it's a mistake to treat everyone's opinion as equally valid and beyond critique. It usually only happens when mods can't separate their opinion from the one being ridiculed.

One reason I've never volunteered to be a mod is I'd feel like I would need to step back from slinging opinions so I could moderate with less bias.

Anyway, B Mac (a moderator) is being pretty reasonable in the Garland thread. I think a problem I've run in to and you ran in to is people will latch on to one part of a point you make (Lillard) and then try to bury you with it ignoring the over all point (Garland isn't the only one struggling with an injured squad).

I also feel that while Garland has struggled to run this depleted team that he is when 100%, capable of doing much better, and the big question everyone should be focusing on is why isn't he 100%? Why has his shot been inconsistent? How far along is he in recovering from the broken jaw? Why don't we run a more diverse offense? Why won't JBB play him with CPJ so we have that extra playmaker? Why does his energy waver at times to the point it looks like he's just quit?

There are a lot of questions, but my preference is for posts that give answers. Crapping on players isn't my idea of fun.

I really like B Mac. I took over for him here. I would add that pre and post all star break splits on LeVert are staggering. He's clearly better off the bench and something like six of our seven best starting lineups all have Strus in them. Okoro's confidence demons have re-appeared.

Everyone was going all in on Garland while ignoring the fact that we were getting a combined 21 ppg from our starting 2 guard and SF. Meanwhile we had to start Niang with both Mobley and Wade out so offense off of defense points disappeared. Now add in the fact that it was the hardest part of the schedule, and that's a whole lot of context that's missing from the analysis.

[JujitsuFlip]

I just think this is a cool picture and needs to live somewhere on this forum.

[JonFromVA]

Game threads are the worst (a hater posted an anatomical picutre of a man with no balls and a little penis captioned only Garland), but even in the Garland thread I posted that a lot of fans would be eating crow on Garland if Mitchell was back in time for the playoffs and Garland was no longer the sole offensive player that opposing defenses worried about.

Some mod or legacy member got all pissy about it insisting that no one was claiming Garland was a bad player, only that fans were expressing disappointment because they expected more from a good player. I responded with read the very thread we're posting in, you got folks saying he's not worth his contract, he's a below average PG, we should've traded him, Mitchell is going to leave because of him, etc...That's not just expressing disappointment.

I feel like the ethos over there is just broken. If you're going to allow ridiculous negative hyperbole from fans, you should probably allow a good deal of leeway to those fans pushing back against the hot takes on behalf the players or player. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it's a mistake to treat everyone's opinion as equally valid and beyond critique. It usually only happens when mods can't separate their opinion from the one being ridiculed.

One reason I've never volunteered to be a mod is I'd feel like I would need to step back from slinging opinions so I could moderate with less bias.

Anyway, B Mac (a moderator) is being pretty reasonable in the Garland thread. I think a problem I've run in to and you ran in to is people will latch on to one part of a point you make (Lillard) and then try to bury you with it ignoring the over all point (Garland isn't the only one struggling with an injured squad).

I also feel that while Garland has struggled to run this depleted team that he is when 100%, capable of doing much better, and the big question everyone should be focusing on is why isn't he 100%? Why has his shot been inconsistent? How far along is he in recovering from the broken jaw? Why don't we run a more diverse offense? Why won't JBB play him with CPJ so we have that extra playmaker? Why does his energy waver at times to the point it looks like he's just quit?

There are a lot of questions, but my preference is for posts that give answers. Crapping on players isn't my idea of fun.

I really like B Mac. I took over for him here. I would add that pre and post all star break splits on LeVert are staggering. He's clearly better off the bench and something like six of our seven best starting lineups all have Strus in them. Okoro's confidence demons have re-appeared.

Everyone was going all in on Garland while ignoring the fact that we were getting a combined 21 ppg from our starting 2 guard and SF. Meanwhile we had to start Niang with both Mobley and Wade out so offense off of defense points disappeared. Now add in the fact that it was the hardest part of the schedule, and that's a whole lot of context that's missing from the analysis.

There are some things going on that doesn't explain like the loss to Chalotte, the awful defensive effort, and running the clock down. Seems like a lack of energy, stamina, or will.

[jbk1234]

One reason I've never volunteered to be a mod is I'd feel like I would need to step back from slinging opinions so I could moderate with less bias.

Anyway, B Mac (a moderator) is being pretty reasonable in the Garland thread. I think a problem I've run in to and you ran in to is people will latch on to one part of a point you make (Lillard) and then try to bury you with it ignoring the over all point (Garland isn't the only one struggling with an injured squad).

I also feel that while Garland has struggled to run this depleted team that he is when 100%, capable of doing much better, and the big question everyone should be focusing on is why isn't he 100%? Why has his shot been inconsistent? How far along is he in recovering from the broken jaw? Why don't we run a more diverse offense? Why won't JBB play him with CPJ so we have that extra playmaker? Why does his energy waver at times to the point it looks like he's just quit?

There are a lot of questions, but my preference is for posts that give answers. Crapping on players isn't my idea of fun.

I really like B Mac. I took over for him here. I would add that pre and post all star break splits on LeVert are staggering. He's clearly better off the bench and something like six of our seven best starting lineups all have Strus in them. Okoro's confidence demons have re-appeared.

Everyone was going all in on Garland while ignoring the fact that we were getting a combined 21 ppg from our starting 2 guard and SF. Meanwhile we had to start Niang with both Mobley and Wade out so offense off of defense points disappeared. Now add in the fact that it was the hardest part of the schedule, and that's a whole lot of context that's missing from the analysis.

There are some things going on that doesn't explain like the loss to Chalotte, the awful defensive effort, and running the clock down. Seems like a lack of energy, stamina, or will.

To my eye, he was the best defender on Maxey last night. Did the best job of getting skinny on the screens and had clearly scouted his tendencies better than anyone else on the team. Meanwhile, we hid Mitchell on old man Lowry, which given it was his first game back was understandable.

The starters came out and put it on the Hornets, the second unit surrendered a double digit lead in a few minutes in the second quarter, and once the Hornets shooters got hot, it proved too difficult to cool them down. Garland is undersized and there's little he can do about that. Niang is who he is on defense and there's little he can do about that (although Mobley coming off of a minutes restrictions and/or Wade returning will help the coaching staff use him more opportunistically).

The reality is that having any two of Garland, CPJ, and Merrill on the court is really problematic against shooters with size. We had Merrill on Poku in the second half which is pretty absurd. We subbed Okoro for Garland to get stops at the end of the game and couldn't. Meanwhile, Garland is getting heaps of blame in a game where he recorded 12 assists and scored more than Okoro, LeVert, and CPJ combined (on a night where he shot poorly).

[JonFromVA]

I really like B Mac. I took over for him here. I would add that pre and post all star break splits on LeVert are staggering. He's clearly better off the bench and something like six of our seven best starting lineups all have Strus in them. Okoro's confidence demons have re-appeared.

Everyone was going all in on Garland while ignoring the fact that we were getting a combined 21 ppg from our starting 2 guard and SF. Meanwhile we had to start Niang with both Mobley and Wade out so offense off of defense points disappeared. Now add in the fact that it was the hardest part of the schedule, and that's a whole lot of context that's missing from the analysis.

There are some things going on that doesn't explain like the loss to Chalotte, the awful defensive effort, and running the clock down. Seems like a lack of energy, stamina, or will.

To my eye, he was the best defender on Maxey last night. Did the best job of getting skinny on the screens and had clearly scouted his tendencies better than anyone else on the team. Meanwhile, we hid Mitchell on old man Lowry, which given it was his first game back was understandable.

The starters came out and put it on the Hornets, the second unit surrendered a double digit lead in a few minutes in the second quarter, and once the Hornets shooters got hot, it proved too difficult to cool them down. Garland is undersized and there's little he can do about that. Niang is who he is on defense and there's little he can do about that (although Mobley coming off of a minutes restrictions and/or Wade returning will help the coaching staff use him more opportunistically).

The reality is that having any two of Garland, CPJ, and Merrill on the court is really problematic against shooters with size. We had Merrill on Poku in the second half which is pretty absurd. We subbed Okoro for Garland to get stops at the end of the game and couldn't. Meanwhile, Garland is getting heaps of blame in a game where he recorded 12 assists and scored more than Okoro, LeVert, and CPJ combined (on a night where he shot poorly).

Garland is getting called out because the effort wasn't there .vs. Charlotte in the loss and none of those things explain it.