pepe1991 wrote:FInally on a mac to type normal post.
Anyway i won't be long, i think we should all learn from this season, players and coaching stuff to know better in future.
We peaked way early this year ,played best basketball in November, played "playoff defense" 5 months before playoffs and now are suffering from massive burnoff because we did not pace ourself.
It's nothing new for younger teams, but coaching should keep them in line. During and right after our winning streak we had situations where opponents were literally suprised by sheer hustle of our players, and probably little annoyed how much we celebrated wins. Probably because whole lot of them have been in nba for 8+ years to understand there is no point of playing that hard during random Friday afternoon in December.
Blazers game should have been red alert game. You play team with what? 4-5 rookies, and they take you to one possession game, and in last 40 sec you allow half court -below rim pass to ceilied center defended by 6'3 guard? And somehow you win because Blazers fumble last play and miss pretty open 12 footer buzzerbeater.
Amount of mental mistakes that are happening for past few weeks, to me, singal lack of focus & burnout. Even Isaac tonight was making some random defensive mistakes.
Hopefully we can make playoffs and go through that experience and hopefully Bucks beat OKC but man... This is difference between good regular season teams and contenders, contenders know when to peak.
And this Bucks team especially without Giannis and Middelton isn't even all that good. It's bunch of castoffs like Crowder, Beverley, Beasley... Pretty much old Lopez, defensive liability Lillard and bunch of D level nba players. And you get killed by Bobby Portis....Man...
In regard to the two opposing camps on here:
1) We're not as good as we seemed to be and we should be worried
Vs
2) We're as good or better than i thought we'd be at this point
I come down somewhere in the middle, but shading towrds pessimism rather than optimism. Why? Effort can only take you so far and - in a 82 game season plus playoffs - effort is not in infinite supply. The last number of games have shown that the Magic probably inflated their success through giving more effort than the oppo. Come the run-in and playoffs, everyone is giving effort so you get to see where your talent really is on a level playing field.
The results arent that encouraging. Take bench depth and effort away from this core and how good is it really? It's decent for sure and, being young, has room for growth. But so much of our secret sauce is trying hard and beating up on benches that the true standard of the 3 main guys is hard to tell.
The FO have conscientiously done the square root of FA to consolidate or improve the starting group. They now have the unenviable task of deciding whether the 3 amigos are good enough and what they need around them to flourish.
My confidence is pretty low that they'll correctly guess whether the core 3 should stay together and, if so, what pieces will make them contenders.
The "no skipping steps" mantra reeks of cushy intransigence and not being open to opportunity or admitting an error. It stinks of self-preservation and the DeVos family seem ok with that.
Tldr: Even if there is cause for optimism around the group and context around their very shïtty run-in performances, the roster needs an overhaul that i dont think our FO can deliver properly.
Man, both this last game and Friday in Philadelphia look like 100% schedule losses if you just forget the timing/implications. Which is sad because Friday's game's stakes and implications are ridiculously huge for a regular season game.
