Good to know, all I saw was the last six minutes and I was worried about the defensive interior. Dray definitely had some clutch scoring down the stretch there too, which bodes well for confidence. Ice-man free throws and that little fast-break dippsy doodle where Mathews thought he was going to take the charge and just ended up standing there with a scoop dropped over top.
The offensive rebounds crashed on us were concerning in the close out, but it sounds like that wasn't an issue for the majority of it.
All told, not bad. The record on the home court now compares favorably with some of the better teams in the league.
While it might be getting a bit overstressed, I will say I am surprised to see Hiney starting and going for 35 minutes again here. I'm not saying that this had any real effect on anything tonight, but let's just say I didn't see this coming over the summer. If we're still talking about this a month from now, the board is not going to be renowned for mirthful exchanges amongst dispassionate patrons.
Gil's shooting has really got to be a concern now. Just looking at the shot chart on ESPN, you're going to be streaky putting up that many shots from the perimeter. On the Hoopdata numbers, Gil is ranked 88th out of the 100 guys listed for total shots at the rim amongst anyone who played 30 or more minutes. That's 1.7 attempts at the rim a game, right ahead of guys like Mayo, Shart Lewis and Battier. He would need to almost double that figure to move into being around the middle of the pack there. Of course Hinrich is 95th on that measure.
http://www.hoopdata.com/shotstats.aspx? ... =0&mins=30(you might have to shift around on that link as it started crashing on me)